Here at North Shileds hidden behind a church we find a memorial to the brave 16 year old who risked his life to retrieve an enigma machine from a German U boat in 1942. At dawn on 30 October 1942, U-559 was spotted by a Sunderland patrol aircraft 110km north of the Nile Delta. The destroyer HMS Hero was alerted and steamed to intercept her, while the destroyers HMS Petard, Pakenham, Dulverton and Hurworth sailed from Port Said. U-559 detected Heros approach and dived. The destroyer group hunted for the U-boat for 16 hours, constantly depth charging. After dark, U-559, with a cracked pressure hull, unable to maintain level trim and four of her crew dead from explosions and flooding, was forced to the surface. She was close to Petard, which immediately opened fire with her 20 mm Oerlikons. The German crew hurriedly scrambled overboard without destroying their codebooks or Enigma machine and, crucially, having failed to open sea-water vents to properly scuttle the U-boat. Three British sailors, Lieutenant Anthony Fasson, Able Seaman Colin Grazier and NAAFI canteen assistant Tommy Brown, then boarded the abandoned submarine. They retrieved the U-boats Enigma machine and the codebooks with all current settings for the U-boat Enigma key. Two German crew members, rescued from the sea, watched this material being loaded into Petards whaler, but were dissuaded from interfering by an armed guard. Grazier and Fasson were inside the boat, attempting to escape, when the U-boat foundered; both were drowned. Grazier and Fasson were awarded the George Cross posthumously, Brown was awarded the George Medal. It was also discovered that Brown had lied about his age in order to enlist, and was only 16 years old, making him the youngest recipient of the George Medal. He was discharged and returned home to North Shields, only to die two years later attempting to rescue his younger sister from a house fire. The Enigma material they retrieved was immensely valuable to the code-breakers at Bletchley Park, who had been unable to read U-boat Enigma for nine months. The captured material allowed them to read the cyphers for several weeks, and to break U-boat Enigma thereafter. https://youtube/watch?v=B6qL7uumdyw
Posted on: Wed, 29 Oct 2014 18:40:01 +0000
Trending Topics
Recently Viewed Topics
© 2015