D-day Parachute Regiment hero and former prisoner of war Eric Tandy, 96

A Fife Second World War veteran who was presented with France’s highest military honour on the 75th anniversary of D-day has died at the Victoria Hospital in Kirkcaldy aged 96 after a short illness.

Eric Tandy, who lived in Glenrothes, was presented with the prestigious Legion d’honneur medal by the French Consulate at a ceremony in Edinburgh on June 6 last year, for his heroic role in the Allied invasion of Normandy.

Eric, who served with the 7th Battalion The Parachute Regiment, was a 20-year-old paratrooper when he was accidentally dropped behind enemy lines on D-day and tried to make his way back to his own regiment through a minefield, only to be captured by the enemy and held half-starved in a prisoner of war camp.

He was the sergeant in charge of an aircraft carrying paratroopers from England to France as airborne forces of the British Army took part in the Pegasus Bridge campaign during the early stages of the Normandy Landings.

In an exclusive interview to mark his 95th birthday on Tuesday February 26 last year, he relived those events from the closing months of the war.

“I was the first on to the aircraft and, therefore, the last to exit ensuring that all paratroopers had left the aircraft,” he said.

“Unfortunately, midway through the job of deploying the soldiers out of the aircraft, a medic was wounded by antiaircraft fire.

“He crawled to the exit of the aircraft, resulting in delaying the rest of the “stick” from exiting the aircraft, causing us to overshoot the drop zone by about 10 miles.”

Eric said a gunner corporal and he attempted to make their way back to Pegasus Bridge where the Allies’ mission was to seize the bridge over the Orne River.

However, they came across two commandos trapped in a minefield – one mortally wounded and the other unhurt.

Eric used his experience of minefields to get them out of the danger zone.

However, later that morning and after coming under enemy fire, they were taken prisoner after German troops found them hiding in a hedge.

After a couple of days, Eric and his colleagues were taken to Stalag 357 at Fallingbostel where he was a prisoner of war for approximately eight months.

Eric was eventually demobilised to the Isle of Wight.

Once he regained his strength, he was deployed with the 4th Parachute Regiment and was posted to Egypt.

Eric, who was schooled in Canada, went on to make his career in the Army after the war.

Marrying June in Coventry in September 1946 and raising a family of two, he re-enlisted with the RASC (Royal Army Service Corps) and from there to the Army Fire Service from where he retired at the age of 62.

He reached the rank of Senior Fire Service Officer (army equivalent rank of Lt Colonel).

Moving to Fife more than a decade ago to be near family, Eric, who has three grandchildren and four great grandchildren, was widowed in 2015 and, despite his advancing years, he still managed to live largely independently – just a short distance from his daughter Lorraine’s house.

Picture: Steve Brown. Eric Tandy shows off his medals.