Allen Medd was the fifth generation of his family to run the post office in Castleton but at the outbreak of war he joined the Royal Navy as an engine room artificer, later becoming a chief petty officer.

For a time, he was on convoy duty in the Atlantic and then in 1944 as chief engineer on a landing craft he took part in the D-Day landings in France.

On the afternoon of 6 June 1944, D-Day itself, after the beach had been cleared of mines, he landed a group of New Zealand gunners on it who were manning a battery of field guns.

But just offshore, his landing craft hit a mine and began to sink.

There was nothing to be done other than to sit there until the tide went out far enough for Allen and the crew to wade ashore where they were able to get a lift to Southampton.

After a spell of survivor leave back in Castleton with his family, he was commissioned to take another landing craft all the way to the Red Sea in preparation for the invasion of Malaya.

With the enemy dominating the Mediterranean, Allen and his landing craft had to take the long way round Africa.

In the Red Sea the engine of their craft broke down and they had to stay there, a prey to any passing Japanese submarine, while Allen repaired a main bearing.

But after the repair was completed, the craft was able to catch up with a convoy ready for the invasion.

As a result of his wartime exploits he was awarded both the Atlantic Star and the Burma Star.

Allen's son David said his father would never talk about the war to the family but he told his friend, the Reverend Clive Artley about them.

Clive said: "After the war he went back to the post office and no-one ever realised the quiet man behind the post office counter was a hero."

Clive spoke about them when he gave a eulogy at Allen's funeral.

Allen did tell stories of his boyhood for a book about the village published two years ago.

In it he recalled he used to deliver telegrams for his father, who was then the postmaster, on his bike.

When there were shooting parties in the village he would have to ride over moorland sheep tracks often as far as Baysdale, three or four times a day to deliver them.

In his younger days he was also a keen motorcyclist but his hobby in later years was making models of horse-drawn caravans and carts.