The family of a D-Day vet are furious after his widow was ordered to hand back an ’overpayment’ of £60 - because he died three weeks into a monthly war pension.

Abergavenny vet David Edwards died at the age of 95 last November, and his family say the MoD has now written to 91-year-old widow Diane and demanded she hand back the sum.

As a soldier with the 2nd Battalion Monmouthshire Regiment, 53rd Welsh Division, David was shot in the leg on the beaches of Normandy in 1944 - but returned to the front line to fight through into the Netherlands and Germany.

He then did so much work to promote peace in France that 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 his widow has now 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 is because David was paid a monthly pension every 24th of the month - but died on the 17th of November last year.

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.

"Why not take it from criminal payments, from those who have had to pay a fine through the court system or something? Not from someone who fought for their 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 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.

He said that David only found out he was entitled to his pension more than 40 years after the war ended, following his retirement 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.

"I just think it’s sad - this is a generation that just gets on with things, and they get forgotten about.

"And I’d like to know how much of an effort they really made to try and track these men down. If we can find terrorists, why can’t we find the men that fought for their country?

"When we questioned the MoD about whether my dad should be getting a war file, they produced this big, comprehensive file on his service during the war.

"So why hadn’t they contacted us sooner? And how many other men haven’t they contacted?

"I just think it’s appalling, really. They deserve better than that. These people have names, they have families and personalities. They are not just a number on a form.

"I’m rallying the call to ask why these men didn’t get contacted about their war pensions."

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 to about £200 a month.

“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,” said Chris.

"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?

"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."

The veteran also had a school in Normandy named after him - after sheltering in an unoccupied farmhouse in 1944, and returning many years later to attempt to find the building again.

After he died last year, headteacher Caroline de Pechy described David as a "beautiful soul".

An MoD spokesman said: "We are looking into the details of this particular case and will engage directly with those concerned."