Army Captain Philip Julian Fawdry, commended for an invention that helped the war effort, has died at 96.

Philip was born in Coventry on August 23, 1924, the middle of five children.

Aged 16, he helped evacuate his grandparents from their house following the Coventry Blitz of November 1940.

He worked for the Ministry of Labour at a local office after leaving school, and joined the army underage, at 17, by processing his own joining up papers.

A keen motorcyclist, he joined the Royal Corps of Signals with hopes of being a despatch rider.

Selected for officer training, the Brigadier interviewing him at the selection panel queried his age. When Philip confessed to changing it, the Brigadier congratulated him for joining underage, having done the same thing himself in the First World War.

Commissioned into the Signals and posted to Italy, he fought through Monte Cassino up to the Veneto, suffering shrapnel wounds after stepping on a (fortunately defective) German anti-personnel mine while laying Allied communication cables.

He was one of the first Allied troops to enter Rome and Florence as the German army retreated.

A Captain at 20, and attached to the US 5th Army, he was commended for inventing a waterproof system for communication cable joints, which was widely adopted by the Allies across Europe.

Attached to The Indian 10th Division, after VE Day and home leave, and with the war in the Far East still ongoing, he was posted to India, a country whose culture and people he deeply admired.

Returning to England in 1947, Capt Fawdry joined Goodyear in Wolverhampton.

As sports and social manager he arranged for Wolverhampton Wanderers football team to train occasionally on Goodyear’s sports fields, and became close friends with some of Wolves’ greats, including England Captain Billy Wright and England goalkeeper Bert Williams.

A keen sportsman, he played football for his Army division and county hockey for Shropshire. In 1976 he was captain of Ryde Golf Club.

He joined British Gas in 1965, and moved to the Island in 1968 to manage the company’s showrooms and the connection of mains gas to new housing developments. He retired in 1984 to focus on his golf swing.

Married to Pat (d.1949) and Eileen (d.1991), and partner to Rose (d.2002), he leaves a son, Michael, and two grandchildren, Alex and William.