one hand while holding the documents in the other. After his third trip down and up the ladder, he called for his shipmates to get out of the boat, but the submarine sank before they could escape. Brown himself was dragged under with the submarine, but managed to fight his way back to the surface and was picked up by the whaler. He was promoted to Senior Canteen Assistant following the incident. Due to the attention arising from his actions in the incident with U-559, his age became known to the authorities. That ended his posting aboard Petard, but he was not discharged from the NAAFI. He returned to his family in North Shields, and later returned to sea on board . In 1945, when he was home on shore leave from Belfast, a fire broke out in the family home at North Shields. Brown died while attempting to rescue his youngest sister Maureen. He was buried with full military honours in Tynemouth Cemetery. Legacy For their actions, Fasson and Grazier were posthumously awarded the George Cross. Brown was awarded the George Medal. 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. Unknown to Brown, the documents that he, Fasson, and Grazier retrieved were extremely valuable in breaking the German Enigma code. They allowed British codebreakers to attack the "Triton" key used by the U-boats, which had been invulnerable for nine months. Allied convoys in the Atlantic could be directed away from known U-boat locations. Winston Churchill wrote that the actions of the crew of Petard'' were crucial to the outcome of the war. Brown never knew the contents of those documents; information relating to Enigma was not released till decades after his death. In 1985, his brothers Stan and David presented the NAAFI with Brown's medals, to be displayed at the Bletchley Park Museum of codebreaking in Buckinghamshire. In 1987, a stained glass window was dedicated to his memory in his home town at the Saville Exchange building. The museum has since closed, and Brown's medals are now on display at the NAAFI headquarters in Darlington. They were brought there to celebrate the 90th anniversary of the NAAFI in April 2010, with a ceremony being