MoD demands £60 from war hero’s widow
AFAMILY say the MoD wrote to the 91-year-old widow of a D-Day hero and demanded she hand back an ‘overpayment’ of £60 - because he died three weeks into a monthly war pension.
David Edwards died in November 2020 at the age of 95 - more than 75 years after fighting to liberate France on D-Day in 1944.
As a soldier with the 2nd Battalion Monmouthshire Regiment, 53rd Welsh Division, David was shot in the leg in 1944 but returned to the frontline to fight through into the Netherlands and Germany.
He then did so much work to promote peace in France locals there named a school after him.
Despite his leg injury, which came back to plague him in later life, David did not receive any Armed Forces pension or War Disablement compensation for almost 40 years after the war ended.
But last month, his 91-year-old widow Diane, from Abergavenny, South Wales, received a letter from the Ministry of Defence asking for £61.17 of David’s war pension to be paid back.
The family say it was because David was paid a monthly pension every 24th of the month but he died on the 17th of November last year.
Loved ones say the MoD is now asking for the extra week’s worth back.
David’s son Chris, 63, a retired social care worker, says he is “appalled” by the way his father’s pension money was handled, and the letter sent to his mother.
He said: “I don’t think the letter should have been sent. It’s so petty – that amount of money is not going to change the state of this country.
“I’m also annoyed that they sent a letter like that to my 91-year-old mother, who is of the generation who reads that money is owed and instantly worries that the bailiffs will turn up.
“My mum has written out the cheque for the money, but I’m holding onto it for now to see if they will contact my mum and say not to worry.
“We’ve been in touch with the MoD and they are looking into it at the moment.”
Chris, from Aberthaw, South Wales, is also calling for other veterans, like his dad, to be aware that they may be entitled to a war pension that has not been paid to them.
Chris said that David only found out he was entitled to his pension more than 40 years after the war ended - after he had retired from a 33-year career in the police.
He said: “My mum was in a doctor’s surgery and she was flicking through this women’s magazine when she saw a tiny little advert saying if you’d been injured in the war you could be entitled to a War Disablement pension.
“She went home and told my dad and he said, ‘Really?’. He had no idea.
“How many others are there like that who didn’t know about their pension money? A lot of them would have died during those 40 years.”
David eventually received a pension sum of £2,000, followed by weekly payments of around £20 a week, which then rose in line with inflation over the last 15 years of his life .
But Chris added: “By the end he was getting monthly payments of about £200 a month. But if he’d been getting that all along over the 44-year period that he should have been, that’s about £122,000 he should have been owed.
“That wasn’t given - so why ask my dad for 60-odd pounds back when perhaps he should have been getting his war disablement pension a long time before?”
Paying tribute to his dad, Chris added that David was a “hero”.
He said: “Dad always said ‘freedom’ was a very powerful word, but the first four letters - free - is a bit of a misnomer, because he said freedom will always cost.”
An MoD spokesman said: “We are looking into the details of this particular case and will engage directly with those concerned.”