George Medal Hero
NAAFI is proud of its history within the military community having actively supported Britain’s Armed Forces side by side since 1921. We serve where others don’t dare go and our staff regularly go beyond the call of duty, none more so than former employee Tommy Brown.
In 1941, anxious to do his bit for his country, 15-year-old Tommy Brown from North Shields lied about his age and managed to talk his way into a job with NAAFI. Within a year Tommy was on active service as a canteen assistant aboard HMS Petard, a 1,540 ton destroyer destined to become part of a remarkable story that would change the course of the Second World War.
On 30th October 1942, HMS Petard was in waters off Port Said on the Egyptian coast investigating reports of radar contact with a German submarine, later identified as U-559 due to its distinctive white donkey emblem on the conning tower. A sustained depth charge attack was laid down, eventually forcing the U-boat to the surface, and after Petard’s 4inch guns caused serious damage the crew started to abandon ship.
Quick action was needed if the submarine was to give up any secrets. First Lieutenant Tony Fasson together with Able Seaman Colin Grazier dived into the sea and swam across to the stricken vessel. They were closely followed in one of Petard’s boats by NAAFI canteen assistant Tommy Brown who was now 16-years-old. Clambering down into U-559 the two navy men made their way to the captain’s cabin where they found two code books, a Short Weather Cipher and Short Signal Book. Passing them out to Tommy they went back into the submarine to continue their search before Tommy shouted a warning to get out. As they started up the ladder, U-559 made her final dive taking Tony Fasson and Colin Glazier with her. They would never know the importance of their actions and nor, thanks to the cloak of secrecy that was thrown around the incident, would anyone else for a very long time.
These were desperate times for convoys braving U-boat packs in the Atlantic as had Germany managed to prevent merchant ships from carrying food, raw materials, and troops from North America to Britain, the outcome of the Second World War could have been very different. It took 24 days to get the code books from U-559 to Bletchley Park in Buckinghamshire, where Britain’s top code breakers struggled for months to crack the code of the upgraded M4 Enigma Triton, after the Germans introduced a fourth rotor into their brilliant Enigma machine code systems.
Thankfully, the breakthrough came on December 13th 1942 when the cryptanalysts learned that the four-letter indicators for regular U-boat messages were the same as those for the three-letter indicators with the addition of one further letter. This meant that once a daily key was found for a weather message the four-rotor signals needed to be tested in only 26 positions to find the full key. Only an hour after the first decrypts were made intercepts of U-boat signals were sent to the Admiralty’s submarine tracking room, revealing the positions of 15 submarines! For the first time in a long time, U-boat movements were exposed and the use of long range bombers and anti-submarine tactics gradually turned the tide in Britain’s favour.
Both Fasson and Grazier were awarded the George Cross and Tommy Brown, the 16-year old NAAFI canteen assistant from North Shields received the George Medal. Unfortunately for Tommy, his courage than night led to an unexpected turn of events. With all the attention he received, his age became known to the authorities costing him his posting and resulting in an unwanted return home to Tyneside. His courage that night will never be forgotten, something that was to be proved again in 1945 when, tragically, he lost his life trying to rescue his sister from a house fire.
We are proud of those who went before us and gave their lives so bravely. As we continue to serve the services today we too can be proud of the service we offer, in continuation of their legacy.
NAAFI – Serving the Services; past, present and future.
