The son of a Royal Navy signaller has fulfilled a promise he made to his late father by compiling a book based on his wartime memoirs.

John Dawson was a Yoeman signaller and involved in some of the most decisive action in the Mediterranean in World War Two.

Now his story has been put together by his son, also named John, of Skipton, in his book An Ordinary Signalman.

“In his chats to me during his last year, dad said he would be happy for me to write his diary up once he had died,” said Mr Dawson, 61, a former solicitor.

His father died in 1986, aged 64, and after finding a bundle of letters in the Leeds home of his aunt in 1999, Mr Dawson decided to make writing the book his goal when he retired.

The result is a vivid account of his father’s experiences at Anzio, Italy, and of the invasion of the South of France, along with letters to his sister, which tell of his successes and failures in courtship and the everyday life of a wartime sailor.

Mr Dawson’s father, who went to war in December 1940, aged 19, wrote the diary from memory on his return to Leeds, but his recollection of his terrifying experience on the cruiser HMS Spartan and the action at Toulon are told as vividly as if he wrote them as the action unfurled.

He tells how he was on Spartan’s flag deck at 6pm on January 29, 1944, when there was a terrific thud and within minutes part of the ship was on fire and ammunition exploding.

“The ship was on a tilt of almost 40 degrees and it was a job to walk,” Mr Dawson senior recounts in his diary.

“Just after 7pm the ship shuddered a little and began to keel over further still to port.

“I struck out but was swallowing so much water I had the sudden thought that I was nearer to dying than I had ever been.”

Minutes later, he was pulled exhausted from the water on to another vessel and watched Spartan turn on her side with men sliding and even walking off.

“That was my last impression as I turned away with more than salt water running down my cheeks.”

He was then posted to HMS Aurora, the cruiser adopted by the city of Bradford in 1942, when it led the fire attack to relieve the French port of Toulon in 1944. His diary describes it as one of the most thrilling afternoons, with shells dripping everywhere as the ship zig-zagged and fired at the same time.

Mr Dawson continued to serve in the Mediterranean until he was de-mobbed in 1946. In the same year he married Mollie and went on to run the family business in Leeds.

An Ordinary Signalman is published in hardback by Melrose Books at £13.99 and will be available at bookshops from the New Year or by order at melrosebooks.com.

e-mail: clive.white@telegraphandargus.co.uk