Daily Mirror (Northern Ireland)
Teenage D-day hero who fought on after being shot 4 times
Paras’ tributes after Ron dies at 92 Farewell to ‘mix-up at funeral’ vet
THE Parachute Regiment turned out to say a final farewell to one of its founder members, a Second World War hero hailed as a D-day legend and “Airborne warrior”.
Ron Tucker, who died at the age of 92, was just 16 when he joined up in 1942, hiding his real age to serve his country.
He volunteered for the new Parachute Regiment and, at 18, fought as part of the 9th Parachute Battalion in the D-day landings. Shot four times, he carried on fighting and returned to the frontline.
At his funeral yesterday at St Barnabas Church in his hometown of Middlesbrough, Ron’s coffin was draped in the Union flag, with his Paras beret and badge on top.
Fifty veterans formed a guard of honour as one of their own was piped into the church through the raised flags of Parachute Regimental Associations.
Rev Sam Tyndall told mourners that Ron was among the first members of the Airborne Division, the last D-day veteran from their ranks on Teesside.
Carl Mcgee, 44, who served in the Parachute Regiment from 1996 to 2010, said: “Many people in life have a hero to look up to. I was fortunate enough to have Ron Tucker. He was a true friend.
“But most of all he was the beginnings of the regiment in which I had pleasure to serve. He was a man who loved and was, in turn, loved by anyone who ever met him. A true Airborne warrior.”
Rev Tyndall described Ron, who was a devoted husband to wife Dorothy and father to Peter and Ann, as a courageous man “right to the end”, a man with a big heart who loved his family very much.
He added: “Ron fought for good.” In his memoir A Teenager’s War, Ron had told how his life was saved when one of four machine gun bullets that ripped through his uniform and pack hit a crucifix in his breast pocket. The bullet splintered on impact, narrowly missing two grenades.
It was one of several lucky escapes for Ron, who was accompanied by the Daily Mirror when he made a pilgrimage to Normandy to remember his fallen comrades four years ago.
Of the 450 Paras dropped into the Ranville area, only 150 survived and just 65 made it home at the end of the war.
In his book, Ron also told how he had dashed for cover as German troops ran to examine his parachute on D-day. He recalled: “One had his jackboot so close to my nose I could smell the oily leather.” He pulled the pin of a grenade in readiness but the Germans moved off.
Ron was awarded France’s highest medal, the Legion d’honneur, for his heroics on D-day and for his part in the Allied push to Berlin from 1944-1945. Before a bugler played Last Post from a gallery yesterday, ex-para Joe Corfield, 80, told how his friend Ron had seen “more action than most of us put together”. He added: “He was a stunning, exceptional man, an inspiration.” TRIBUTES were paid yesterday to a D-day veteran whose friends had mistakenly attended his “funeral” 13 years ago.
Former colleagues of Frank Hughes, 92, turned up at the service for a namesake after a death notice appeared in 2005.
Not long afterwards, one startled funeral-goer spotted Frank strolling around his hometown, Darlington, Co Durham.
Born in Skegness, Frank enlisted at 18 and took part in the Juno beach landings of June 1944, helping hundreds of Canadian troops on to the beaches.
The father-of-two, who died earlier this week, once recalled: “All those young men who sacrificed everything for us. We must always remember them.”
After the war, Frank was in the Salvation Army, the fire brigade and drove an ambulance. In 2015, he received the Legion D’honneur. His family said: “He will be greatly missed.” Details of the funeral are to be confirmed.