A ROYAL NAVY veteran has been made a Chevalier (knight) of the Legion d’Honneur, one of the highest awards for bravery given by the French government.
Matthew McCathie (92), of Lavant Court in Petersfield, earned the medal for serving aboard a destroyer during the D-Day landings of June 6, 1944, which led to the defeat of Germany and the liberation of Europe.
But Mr McCathie, whose family live in Church Road, Steep, says his early exploits were far more “interesting”.
In 1939, aged just 15, he joined the Norwegian Merchant Navy and then sailed in a tanker across the Atlantic to Canada.
The former leading stoker said: “We then sailed down to Texas, loaded up with oil. We came back in convoy and were attacked by the German air force, and ships were sunk.
“As soon as I was 18 in 1942, I joined the Royal Navy.
“I was on a motor torpedo boat protecting shipping in the North Sea, we also ferried resistance fighters to northern Norway. There were no Germans where we landed them, and we could go ashore and go sledding with the children.”
Mr McCathie was demobbed in 1946 from the destroyer HMS Eskimo.
The ship saw action off the French coast during the D-Day landings, before sailing to the Far East, and back to the UK in late 1945 after a refit in South Africa.