TOUCHING tributes have been paid to a Second World War veteran who has died at the age of 96.

Tom Reynolds, who served with 2 Oban Air Landing Anti-Tank Battery in the Royal Artillery. saw action in mainland Europe in 1944 and was also posted to Pacific battlefields in Java, Sumatra, Singapore.

In 1944, Mr Reynolds was part of the British forces which arrived in Arnhem, in the Netherlands, in a daring bid to secure a key bridge from the occupying German forces as part of Operation Market Garden.

He also worked as a dispatch rider for Lord Mountbatten. Having survived the war, Mr Reynolds returned home to his wife, Bridie, in London.

She died in 1997, aged 77, which prompted Mr Reynolds’ move to Marks Tey, to be near his family in Colchester and Suffolk.

Mr Reynolds, a grandfather of five and great-grandfather of 12, died at a care home near Woodbridge this month.

Daughter, Patricia O’Brien, said: “He was one of those people who left school at 14 and took up a trade as a plasterer.

“He joined up with the Army and served in north Africa and Italy and in the invasion.

“At one stage the boat he was on was blown up and he swam for one and a half hours before he was rescued. He was always a fit person.”

Mrs O’Brien added: “He had a good war. He came back unscathed, if you will.

“He never really told me about his war.”

Mr Reynolds - a member of a number of veterans’ groups in north Essex - initially left the UK for New Zealand with his family for four years after the war but returned to their London home.

Mr Reynolds often returned to Arnhem and his final visit to the key wartime town was in 2014.

Mrs O’Brien added: “He always liked to go back with his family.

“He would say not much had changed but he would never really go into what he did there or what he saw.”

“He remained fit and well until Christmas last year, but had deteriorated over the last ten months.”

His funeral will be held on October 28 at Seven Hills Crematorium, in Nacton.