Local Heroes

Colin Grazier was born in Tamworth in 1920, and enlisted in the navy serving on board the HMS Petard, a Class P Destroyer, at the age of just 21. 

He assisted in the capture of German Enigma codes from a sinking U-boat and lost his life in the attempt.  A memorial of his bravery stands in Church Square, in the heart of Tamorth town centre.

U-559

Able Seaman Colin Grazier paid the ultimate sacrifice for his heroism on 30th Oct 1942 when he drowned retrieving two code books from Nazi U-boat U-559.

These code books enabled Britain to crack the Enigma Code and shortened the time it took to decipher coded messages by as much as a year!

U-559 was fatally damaged by Allied forces off the coast in Egypt and its crew captured.
Though he was just an ordinarry sailor, Seaman Colin Grazier accompanied First Lt Tony Fasson in swimming to the wounded submarine. With the clock ticking, they swam naked into the vessel's entrance in an attempt to retrieve the crucial Enigma documents inside.

Lt Fasson and Colin Grazier were able to retrieve the items - and pass the code books to Canteen Assistant Tommy Brown, who took them back on board the ship, the HMS Petard. 
However, at this point, the U-boat finally sank, taking both Colin Grazier and Lt Fasson down with it. They both died.

Enigma Code

The Enigma Machine was the typewriter-like machine used to encrypt messages into a code that was virtually impossible to break.

The settings the Enigma Machine used to create the Code were changed every day during the war, and so a Top Secret team of code breakers was established at the Government Code & Cipher School- known only as Station X – to break it.

However the Enigma Code was so strong that it's been estimated that the chances of anyone breaking the code without having the code 'key' were 150 million million million to one!

These massive odds meant that the Nazis used the Enigma Code to encrypt messages about everything  to do with the war. By 1941, the attacks made by Nazi U-boats on British ships carrying urgent supplies were the worst threat to the Allied forces, which is why the code books found by Grazier and Fasson on U-559 were so important. 

Colin Grazier's Sacrifice

Colin Grazier's extraordinary bravery not only made WW2 considerably shorter, but also helped to save thousands of lives.

The Nazis' thought the Enigma Code was unbreakable, just as the Titanic was believed to be unsinkable 30 years before. But the Titanic sank with the help of an iceberg, and the Enigma Codes were broken with the help of Colin Grazier...

He was 22.

For the price he paid, Colin Grazier was posthumously awarded the George Cross, but the incredible sacrifice he made for his country was shrouded in mystery for years. The Enigma Code was a matter of the most crucial national security, and was kept secret until 1974!

Now, he is remembered each year on the anniversary of his death in his home town of Tamworth and if you head to the Church Square, you will find a monument erected in his memory, which is the focal point of the day's celebrations.