In glorious spring sunshine George Fenton stood next to a new headstone in Peel Green cemetery, Eccles, and said: "It had to be done. I feel proud now."
The polished black marble memorial is embossed with a silver inscription to his parents, Charles and Alice.
Until now they have laid side by side in an unmarked grave.
But, as he nears his 90th birthday, George has used his savings to finally give them the memorial they deserve.
Lieutenant Charles Henry Fenton was with the 4th Battalion Royal Marines at the assault of Zeebrugge on April 23rd, 1918.
His entire battalion were awarded the Victoria Cross, for the action, triggering a rule that a ballot should be drawn to select the recipients. Only two actually got a medal.
In a bold and courageous operation, the Royal Navy attacked the heavily fortified Belgian harbour.
The aim was to sail three ships filled with concrete into the entrance of the port and to blow up and sink them to block the channels used by German U-boats to reach the open sea.
The action, starting just after midnight on St George's Day, lasted about an hour and although ultimately unsuccessful, was seen by the British as a propaganda triumph.
Many men were decorated - and eight received the Victoria Cross.
But the cost was colossal - 200 killed and 380 wounded, much heavier than the German casualties of ten killed and 16 wounded.
Lieutenant Fenton, then 28, was on board HMS Vindictive, carrying troops on a diversionary assault aimed at knocking out German gun emplacements.
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But as they landed on a mile-long breakwater at the entrance to the Bruges Canal they came under heavy fire after a prepared smokescreen to cover the troops as they disembarked was dispersed by strong winds.
Two of the block ships were scuttled across the Bruges Canal but did not obstruct the channel completely, and two days later the first U-boat slipped past at high tide.
Widower George, from Eccles, said: "My father died in 1954, aged 65, when I was 25. My mother had no insurance and the family could not afford a headstone. The family all split up. Two of my brothers went to Australia.
"My parents had four sons and a daughter. I am the only one left now. I was determined to one day have a headstone done for my father.
"I wanted it to be done in time for this year's anniversary of the Zeebrugge assault on April 23rd."
The use of a ballot after Lieutenant Fenton's entire battalion was awarded it was the last time Victoria Crosses were awarded by ballot. In a mark of respect to those involved in the raid, the Royal Marines have never raised another 4th Battalion.
Lieutenant Fenton was pictured with four other Marines, some injured, in the Daily Mail, two days after the Zeebrugge attack.
When he returned to Manchester, the Daily Telegraph treated him and his relatives to a box for a show at The Palace Theatre.
Originally from Manchester, at the time of his death Lieutenant Fenton was living at 14 Kingswood Road, Monton, Eccles.
Most of his life was spent in the services. He was only 13 when he joined the Cadets of the Sherwood Foresters. Two years later he joined the Royal Marines as a drummer and after three years of boys' service enlisted for 12 years in the Royal Marine Light Infantry.
He saw action in the Balkan War, in China, and Africa.
During the First World War, after Zeebrugge, he joined the First Battalion and was wounded at the Battle of Cambrai in October 1918.
He was invalided out in 1919 but later joined the Territorial Army. In 1923 he went to Canada and joined the Royal Canadian Mounted Police, serving in Alaska, and then the Canadian Territorial Army. He also met his wife in Canada.
His obituary in the Eccles Journal in 1954 added: "After a brief spell in England in 1929 he worked his passage to South America and took part in the revolution in Peru before returning to this country."
During the Second World War he served as a sergeant with the 8th Battalion Manchester Regiment before transferring to the Green Howards, with whom he served in the British Expeditionary Force in northern France. He was later a sergeant-major in the Military Police.
When he died he had been due to soon retire as commander of a Cadet Regiment Royal Artillery, based in Eccles.
As he placed ten red roses in a vase next to his father's headstone, George said: "Fifty years ago I visited Ostend where the bow of HMS Vindictive stands as a memorial on the harbour to those that died in the Zeebruge assault and an attack on Ostend on the same day.
"I served in the Army too and when my dad saw each other on the street I would salute him. Now I have done my duty to my father with this headstone."
Before placing flowers on his parents' grave George paused for a moment at a grave nearby to put a single rose next to it.
It is that of Robert R Sieglen who died aged 23, in 1956.
"He was an American based at the Burtonwood Air Base near Warrington. He was killed in a road crash. I always put a flower on his grave, he has no one."
