Description1. Royal Naval oil fuel depot, dating from around 1928. In August 1940, during World War Two, a daylight air raid set alight an oil tank at the depot. For the next few weeks a huge column of smoke was visible from a hundred miles around and the fire destroyed 11 of the 17 oil tanks. Brigades from across the country joined local fire fighters until around 650 men were tackling the blaze; many were injured and five Cardiff firemen lost their lives when a collapsing tank erupted.
(source: Pembroke Dock Community Web Project)
B.A.Malaws, RCAHMW, 30 November 2010.
2. An iconic moment in the twentieth century in south Pembrokeshire, and a turning point in the Second World War offensive in west Wales, was the bombing raid carried out on the Llanraeth oil tanks which once overlooked Pembroke Dock from the south. During the summer of 1940, the residents of Pembroke Dock and surrounding towns had been getting used to the uncertainties of day and night bombing raids, thankfully without casualties. Bill Richards (1995) relates the story of how three German Junkers Ju88 bombers launched a surprise attack on the dock on a Monday afternoon on 19 August 1940, scoring a direct hit on an oil tank holding 12,000 tons of oil. The fire burnedt for eighteen days, and during the struggle to extinguish it five firemen lost their lives. The billowing plumes of black smoke marked the skyline and could be seen from as far away as the Devon coast. Many official and private photographs were taken of the oil tank blaze over the days it raged, but some of the most dramatic were taken by the Royal Air Force on 31 August 1940. A series of views preserved in the Central Register of Aerial Photography for Wales in Cardiff... were taken twelve days after the attack. They stand as a key visual record of this attack, and of wartime Pembroke Dock, beset with camouflage schemes and tented encampments.
From Driver, T. 2007. Pembrokeshire Historic Landscapes from the Air. RCAHMW. pages 220-221.