A pensioner is making an emotional pilgrimage to Libya to commemorate the life of his brother who died when a Royal Navy battleship was sunk by enemy mines during the Second World War.

Harold Mason, aged 81, of Oakdene, Stourport-on-Severn, will travel to Tripoli on Tuesday to help preserve the memory of those who lost their lives on board HMS Neptune on December 19, 1941.

His 18-year-old brother, William, an Ordinary Seaman, was one of 764 officers and men serving on the ship, which was part of a group of vessels called K-Force, tracking an Italian convoy off the coast of Tripoli. Only one of the crew survived the disaster and another 73 men on board the destroyer, HMS Kandahar, died when it also hit a mine as it attempted to rescue sailors from the stricken ship.

Mr Mason was a Bevin Boy during the war, working at a coalmine in Alveley and living in Brinton Crescent in Kidderminster. He said his parents, John and Emma, were devastated by the news.

He said : "It was a hard time. My mother kept faith that he would return right until the end of the war, when all the prisoner-of-war camps were being emptied. I walked into the house one day and she just said to me, Your brother isn't coming back'."

Mr Mson said joining the Navy was a lifelong ambition for William, known by all his friends and family as Bill.

He said: "All his life, he had been mad to go in the Navy. He kept pestering my mum and dad. After he left school, he went to work at Naylor's in Green Street but he still kept on saying he wanted to go in the Navy so they paid for him to go to the Lancashire and National Sea Training School in Birkenhead."

After three year's training, William was posted to Douglas on the Isle of Man before joining HMS Neptune based in Malta.

Mr Mason will trace some of his footsteps when he travels to Tripoli and Malta with his daughter Susan, 56, son-in-law Stephen, 58, grandson Neil, 32, and members of the Neptune Association, which was set up in 2002 in memory of those who died.

Members will lay flowers and messages at the believed location of HMS Neptune at sea and will visit the Tripoli War Cemetery. A memorial to the two ships will also be dedicated in Malta.