| Tommy Brown | |
|---|---|
| Born | 1926 North Shields, North Tyneside |
| Died | 1945 North Shields, North Tyneside |
| Buried at | Tynemouth (Preston) Cemetery |
| Allegiance | United Kingdom |
| Service/branch | NAAFI Royal Navy |
| Years of service | 1941–1942 |
| Rank | Senior Canteen Assistant Leading Seaman |
| Unit | HMS Petard HMS Belfast |
| Awards | George Medal |
Thomas William Brown GM (1926 – 13 February 1945) English recipient of the George Medal, and is the youngest person to have ever received that award. In October 1942, as a NAAFI canteen assistant, he was involved in the action between Petard and U-559, being one of three men to board the sinking submarine in an effort to retrieve vital documents, and was the only one of the three to survive. These documents would later lead the Bletchley Park codebreakers to crack the German Enigma code. Following his heroics, it was revealed that he was underage to be at sea and returned home to North Shields where in 1945 he died from injuries sustained while rescuing his sister from a house fire. His family were presented with his medal by King George VI in 1945, and later presented it to the NAAFI in 1985.
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At the age of 15, Brown joined the NAAFI and was assigned as a Canteen Assistant onboard HMS Petard, a P class destroyer, for service during World War II.[1] Unlike other services, the NAAFI only accepted men from the age of 17 onwards, meaning that Brown had to lie about his age to join.[2]
On 30 October 1942, Petard was in the waters off the coast of Port Said, Egypt.[3] They were being sent to relieve HMS Hero and to investigate radar contact with a submarine along with HMS Pakenham, HMS Dulverton and HMS Hurworth along with Vickers Wellesley light bombers of No. 47 Squadron RAF. After ten hours of depth charges attacks, U-559 came to the surface,[4] it being identified by its distinctive white donkey emblem on its conning tower. Petard fired her 4–inch guns at the submarine, causing such damage that the crew abandoned ship,[3] and launched a boarding party in a seaboat.[4]
Lieutenant Francis Anthony Blair Fasson and Able Seaman Colin Grazier dove into the sea and swam to the submarine, with Brown following them over.[4] The two navy men made their way into the captain's cabin where Fasson found a set of keys, unlocking drawers,[5] they found two code books, a short weather cipher and short signal book.[3] The German crew had opened the boat's seacocks before abandoning ship causing the vessel to rapidly take on water.[4]
Brown took the role of transporting these documents up and down the iron ladder of the U-boat's conning tower to Petard's whaler, making the trips up with one hand while holding the documents in the other hand. Following his third trip down and up the ladder, he called for his colleagues to join him but the submarine sank before they could. Brown himself was dragged under with the submarine but managed to fight his way back to the surface where the crew of the whaler pulled him out of the water.[6] He was promoted to Senior Canteen Assistant following the incident.[4]
Due to the attention arising from his actions in the incident with U-559, his age became known to the authorities which cost him his posting aboard the Petard,[3] but was not discharged from the NAAFI,[4] and saw him return to North Shields.[3] In 1945 while on shore leave,[7] Brown died while attempting to rescue his youngest sister from a fire in the family home. He was buried with full military honours in Tynemouth Cemetery.[2][8]
For their actions, Fasson and Grazier were posthumously awarded the George Cross. Being a civilian due to his NAAFI employment, Brown was awarded the George Medal.[3] His mother Margaret and brother Stanley travelled to London to receive his medal on his behalf after Brown's death in 1945. Prior to being told about the presentation ceremony, his mother hadn't been told that Brown had received a medal for his actions.[2]
Unknown to Brown, the documents that he, Fasson and Grazier retrieved turned out to be essential to the British efforts at Bletchley Park to break the German Enigma code as they contained the key to the code itself.[4][6] This in turn meant that allied convoys in the Atlantic could be directed away from known U-Boat locations during 1943.[4] Winston Churchill would describe the actions of the crew of Petard as being crucial to the outcome of the war.[9] Brown would never find out the contents of those documents,[6] with information relating to Enigma only being released some decades after his death.[9]
In 1985, his brothers Stan and David presented the NAAFI with Brown's medals to be displayed at the Bletchley Park Museum in Buckinghamshire.[7] In 1987, a stained glass window was dedicated to his memory in his home town at the Saville Exchange building.[5][7] The museum has since closed, and Brown's medals are now on display at the NAAFI headquarters in Darlington, moving there to celebrate the 90th anniversary of the NAAFI in April 2010,[1] with a ceremony being held to celebrate the return of Brown's medal to the north east. In attendance were five of his siblings, Lillian, Sylvia, Norman, Nancy and Albert.[10]