Tom Carling.

Telephone engineer and soldier.

Born: August 3, 1914;

Died: December 6, 2014

Tom Carling, who has died aged 100, was left for dead on a German battlefield 70 years ago. Shot in the chest during the Allies' last and greatest airborne offensive of the Second World War, he was so badly wounded that a German soldier roaming the scene, finishing off the dying with his pistol, did not bother to waste a bullet on him.

Mr Carling, who had already survived the D-Day glider landings, the vicious fighting for Caen and the Battle of the Bulge, came within a hair's breadth of death that morning in March 1945. But luck was on his side and through good fortune he survived, although he carried the bullet with him, embedded in his chest, all his days.

Later, after a long and painful recuperation but spurred on by the life-changing experience, he took up studying, improved his job prospects and gave endless hours to volunteering, championing the rights of those with learning disabilities and earning an MBE for his work with his local health board.

He lived independently until he was almost 99 and celebrated his centenary this summer, against all the odds.

The son of Thomas Benjamin Carling, a telephone company worker, and his wife Gertrude, who became one of the first female members of Perth Town Council and later served on Glasgow Corporation, he was born in Perth the day before Britain declared war on Germany in 1914.

But just as the Great War was ending four years later the global flu epidemic of 1918 erupted and it claimed the lives of his two younger sisters. His parents went on to have two more daughters who both lived into their 90s.

Educated at Perth's Southern District School and Balhousie Boys' School, he started work locally repairing wirelesses and small electrical goods before joining PO Telephones and working as a linesman, a job that saw him install many small, early telephone exchanges in rural Perthshire.

He married his wife Jane and had two sons by the time he was called up during the Second World War, serving initially with the Royal Signals before being "volunteered" for the 6th Airborne Division, nicknamed The Red Devils, where his

telecommunications and wireless skills were put to good use. He saw action on D-Day in June 1944, taking part in the operation to hold the bridge over the Orne River.

Two crossings, the Benouville and Ranville bridges, over the waterways north of Caen were essential to the success of D-Day. Codenamed Ham and Jam, they were captured by British forces in the early hours of June 6, 1944, ahead of the main amphibious assaults on the beaches. The 6th Airborne landed north of Ranville at 3.30am that day as part of the operation to maintain their security. The bridges were later re-named Pegasus, after the winged emblem of the airborne

forces, and Horsa, the name of the gliders that brought in the troops.

He was subsequently involved in extensive fighting in and around Normandy, including the Battle for Caen and, in December that year, in the Ardennes offensive, known as the Battle of the Bulge. It coincided with one of the most bitterly cold European winters and was fought in deep snow in the Belgian forests. It was Hitler's final big gamble of the war and lasted several weeks, at great cost to the Allies who were eventually victorious but lost at least 20,000 men, mainly Americans. German casualties were put at more than 80,000 killed or wounded.

Three months later Mr Carling was involved in Operation Varsity, a massive airborne assault that heralded the beginning of the end of the war. It secured a bridgehead east of the Rhine, allowing the Allies to sweep through Germany's industrial heartland and right up to the Baltic, but it was the end of his war.

He was among the thousands of troops being flown in on many hundreds of planes and gliders on the morning of March 24, 1945. But about 10am, as his glider came into crash land, the Germans, who had been expecting the invasion force, opened fire. He felt "a kick like a mule" as he was shot in the centre of his chest even before he got out of the aircraft. The bullet punctured his left lung, missing his heart by a fraction.

Lapsing in and out of consciousness he was not expected to live and was left under the wing by his companions who were being overrun by the enemy. Later he realised Germans prowling the area were pistol-shooting the wounded. He remembered at one stage being grabbed by the scruff by an enemy soldier who threw him back down, believing him "kaput" already.

Despite the opposition the 6th Airborne quickly achieved their objectives and in the aftermath of its success, he was picked up by a stretcher-bearer, taken to a shed but still not expected to survive. His wife received a terse note dated March 29

stating he was at No 24 British Casualty Clearing Station, Western Europe and was dangerously ill. Miraculously, though, he did pull through and was later treated in Wales and at Edinburgh Castle Hospital. But the bullet could not be removed and remained in his chest cavity, causing him great suffering over many years.

Undaunted, he began studying with the Workers' Educational Association, to improve his work prospects. He later chaired its Perth branch and became a telecom engineer.

He and his wife had a third son who was born with Down's Syndrome and, after discovering there was a serious lack of services for children with learning disabilities, they became founder members of the Perth branch of the Scottish Society for Mentally Handicapped Children, now known as Enable. He subsequently chaired the branch for many years and remained active on both a political and practical level.

He also became a member of Tayside Health Board, when Ninewells Hospital in Dundee was being developed, and was a member and vice-chair of Murray Royal Hospital board in Perth, receiving his OBE in the New Year Honours in December 1977.

A keep fit enthusiast all his life, a keen cyclist and member of the Junior Mountaineering Club, in retirement he ran Sunday morning swimming sessions at the old Perth baths and accompanied teenage and adult groups on excursions to Blackpool.

He travelled throughout the world until his mid 90s and had, in the late 1950s, returned to the battlefields where he had fought in France and Belgium, where many of the locations and war damage were just as he had recalled.

Predeceased by his wife and youngest son Bruce, he is survived by sons Tommy and Gil, four grandchildren and an extended family of great and great, great grandchildren.

ALISON SHAW