Veteran’s care home also treated father
A BLIND veteran who lost his hand to a sniper in a post-D-Day assault has discovered he lives in the same nursing home which cared for his war hero father.
Peter Van Zeller only realised his family link to the Blind Veterans UK centre near Brighton when he moved in and discovered that his father’s name was on an honours board of fallen heroes.
Tank commander Lieutenant Thomas Van Zeller, of the 5th Battalion Tank Corps and Lovat’s Scouts, was awarded the Military Cross for conspicuous gallantry during the First World War. He rescued wounded soldiers from a bridge under attack near Brie on March 23, 1918, while under shell fire.
Later in the conflict he was the only survivor when a tank blew up in his face, and he was subsequently treated by the charity then known as St Dunstan’s.
Peter never knew his father was brought back to the centre for rehabilitation after a stroke later in life, dying there in 1978, aged 87.
Tearful to this day about the discovery, Peter said: “I was very moved when I saw that and very proud.
“It is still difficult now to accept all of this. It’s quite extraordinary. I knew he had been with St Dunstan’s 100 years ago but I didn’t know a lot of detail — he never spoke about it.”
The 97-year-old shared his story to mark the centenary of the Armistice and to thank the charity for its support.
Born in London, he grew up in From top, Thomas and Peter Van Zeller Inverness and, during the Second World War, he joined the Army and was sent to Sword Beach in Normandy in June 1944, arriving about a week after the D-Day landings.
Aged 23, he was shot in the right arm by a sniper. The bullet shattered a bone and his hand and forearm had to be amputated to avoid gangrene setting in. “It was pretty traumatic. I was lucky there was a very clever young surgeon who saved my elbow,” he said.
He went on to gain an honours degree in agriculture and was a farming consultant to governments across the world.
In later years, he was put in touch with Blind Veterans when his eyesight began to fail, and moved to the charity’s Brighton centre, where he learned about his father’s time there.