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Tommy Brown Military person

Thomas William Brown GM (c. 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. After this heroic deed, it was revealed that he was underage to be at sea. He returned home to North Shields. In 1945 he died from injuries sustained while rescuing his sister Maureen from a house fire in South Shields whilst on leave from HMS Belfast. His family were presented with his medal by King George VI in 1945, and later presented it to the NAAFI in 1985.