LAST week we asked for your memories and connections to the tragic demise of HMS Foylebank when she was bombed in Portland Harbour with 292 people on board.

Poppy Butcher, who we featured in Looking Back last week, got in touch to say that her father was one of the 176 killed in the air raid.

She said: “My father was killed while working in the dockyard.

“I was on my way to school when it happened and saw the clouds of smoke coming from the harbour.”

Vern Palmer of Weymouth also got in touch to tell us that his granddad Edward Sidney Palmer BEM survived HMS Foylebank.

The coxswain of the vessel was awarded the British Empire Medal for rescue work following the attack on July 4 1940.

Before he died in 1980 Edward told the story of what happened that day.

He said: “Foylebank used to fly a yellow flag when enemy planes were reported, a red flag when planes were approaching Portland.

“She also was the quarters of the Reserve Naval ratings. Well on June 4 I was proceeding down the inside harbour at about 8.30am, a lovely day, a normal day.

“I noticed the guard ship was flying the yellow flag, but did not take much notice, for she had been flying that on a number of days lately.

“When out of the sun they came, enemy dive bombers. Diving straight down onto the guard ship, machine gunning and bombing.

“Hell let loose, about 20 planes, they appeared to have caught us napping. I immediately told my crew that we were going in to pick up the hands and ratings who were jumping and being blown into the water alongside of her.

“There was a barge with work people alongside of Foylebank, a bomb dropped alongside the barge turning it upside down.

“We got in alongside started to pick up the survivors and dive bombers kept coming, machine gunning and bombing, lifting the launch almost out of the water.

“Well we loaded the hands on board until we could not carry any more and made for the nearest jetty. Some of the poor fellows were in a sad mess.

“We landed as quickly as we could and went back for more. By this time the enemy dive bombers had done what they had come to do, the Foylebank was on fire and sinking. She went down later in the day. The Lord looked after us that day.”

On March 24 1942 Edward received his British Empire Medal from King George VI.