by CAITLIN MILLAT and CHRISTINA BOYLE
He was just five years old when he lost his father, a firefighter, in one of the worst tragedies in Fire Department history.
Thirty years later, Billy O'Connor led a somber procession through Brooklyn to mark the 30th anniversary of the Waldbaum's supermarket blaze that killed six Bravest.
O'Connor remembered how he stood next to his mother, watching the inferno and waving at his father, who was atop the Sheepshead Bay building.
Seconds later the roof collapsed and William O'Connor fell to his death along with five comrades - George Rice, James McManus, Harold Hastings, Charles Bouton and James Cutillo.
"They're all our fathers," said Billy O'Connor, who is now an NYPD cop.
"We're all a family."
Bagpipers accompanied the mourners as they marched from Engine 276 Ladder 156's firehouse to a memorial service at St. Brendan's Church led by Msgr. John Delendick, the FDNY chaplain.
"The memory of these six men will never be forgotten, this is an opportunity to keep them alive," Delendick said during the standing-room-only service.
"Aug. 2 was a terrible tragedy and our lives changed drastically that day."
The blaze broke out in the mezzanine of the supermarket, where workers were carrying out renovations.
Some 150 firemen from 30 companies were called to the scene - which became the worst single disaster for the FDNY in a dozen years.
"I was the lucky one, the men I worked with were brave, great men," said Tom Higgins, 56, who was a probie firefighter that day. "We owe these men our lives," said Jim Munday, 63, who was in a fire truck when the roof collapsed. "We come back every year to pay our respects."
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