While serving as a corporal with The Monmouthshire Regiment in April 1945, Ted Chapman won one of the last Victoria Crosses to be awarded in the European theatre in the Second World War. Although the end of the war in Europe was only a month away, there was still fierce fighting to be done as the Allies pushed deep into Germany after piercing the Siegfried Line.

Chapman performed the spectacular deeds which led to his decoration as the 3rd Monmouths came up against fanatical last-ditch resistance in Westphalia. This was in the difficult terrain of the Teutoberger Wald, an area made famous in military history through the destruction there of three Roman legions by the Germanic Cherusci tribe more than 1,900 years before.

Edward Thomas Chapman was born the son of a Welsh coalminer, John Chapman, and his wife Rachel (nee Saunders) in 1920, in Pontlottyn, in the Rhymney Valley. He was educated at Fochrhiw School until the age of 14 when he left to go down the pit in the Ogilvy Colliery.

There he worked until 1940, when he enlisted in The Monmouthshire Regiment and was posted to the 2nd Battalion.

He first saw action in June 1944, when his battalion landed in Normandy as part of the 160th Brigade in the 53rd Welsh Division. He was a corporal commanding a section throughout the fighting in the beachhead and was wounded in the breakout at Falaise in August.

When he came out of hospital five weeks later he was posted to the 3rd Battalion and saw action with it in the fighting in the Low Countries in the autumn of 1944, and in the crossing of the Rhine and the advance into Germany in 1945. He won his VC during the advance on Osnabruck after the crossing of the Dortmund-Ems Canal.

On April 2, 1945, the 3rd Monmouths began what were to develop into repeated - and costly -attacks on the thickly wooded ridge of the Teutoberger Wald. This symbolic forest was being held by a fanatically dedicated force of German officer cadets and their instructors from the Officer School in Hanover, who were making a last stand.

Chapman was leading his section in his company's advance along a narrow track through the woods when a machinegun opened fire on them at short range, inflicting heavy casualties and causing considerable confusion. Chapman seized his section's Bren gun and advanced alone, firing from the hip. He mowed down his opponents at point-blank range and forced them to retire in disorder.

At this point his company was ordered to retire but the order did not reach Chapman, and his section was left isolated in its advanced position. The Germans closed in and delivered a number of bayonet charges under cover of intense machinegun fire. Chapman again rose with his Bren gun to meet the assaults and on each occasion halted the attackers with his fire.

He was soon running out of ammunition, so shouting to the survivors of his section for more bandoliers, he dropped into a fold in the ground, rolled on to his back and covered those bringing up ammunition by firing the Bren over his shoulder. The Germans made every effort to eliminate him with grenades, but with his magazine reloaded he closed with them and once more drove them off.

During the company's withdrawal, his company commander had been severely wounded and was lying in the open a short distance from Chapman's position. Still under heavy fire, Chapman reached him and carried him back to comparative safety, but as he did so the officer was hit again, the round wounding Chapman in the thigh as well. But when he reached cover, he found that his company commander was dead. He himself refused to be evacuated until the position was finally secured.

Ted Chapman was a quiet, unassuming and down-to-earth man, who called a spade a spade. He possessed ample commonsense and had a keen observation of people and their motives. Normally easygoing, he could be roused, as his actions in the Teutoberger Wald showed. One of his delights was revisiting the places he knew so well in France and Germany with his wartime comrades.

He did not go back to the mines when he was discharged from the regular Army in 1946. After working in an engineering firm and then as a porter on Pontlottyn railway station, he was employed as a nylon spinner at ICI Fibres in Pontypool, where he worked for 25 years, retiring in 1980. He and his wife also set up as shopkeepers.

From his childhood Chapman had grown up with horses, and after the war he established the Ynyswen Stud of Welsh Mountain Ponies (Section A) and the slightly larger Welsh Ponies (Section B). His eye for a pony was legendary and he was a familiar figure at successive Royal Welsh Shows, where his ponies always did well, even against much better funded opposition.

Chapman's other passion was fly-fishing. He had fished rivers, streams, lochs and lakes all over the United Kingdom and Ireland, mainly for trout, but also for salmon and, on occasion, for pike.

Missing the Army, he rejoined the 2nd Monmouths in 1948, and was awarded the BEM in 1953 for his outstanding services to the Territorial Army. He retired from the TA in 1957 as a much respected company sergeant-major, having also been awarded both the Coronation and Jubilee Medals for his service to his local community. He always kept in touch with his regiment and was prominent in its affairs.

Chapman's death leaves 18 living holders of the Victoria Cross.

Ted Chapman married, in 1942, Rhoda Frances Jean Watkins of Belfast. He is survived by her and by their daughter and two sons.

Ted Chapman, VC, BEM, was born on January 13, 1920. He died on February 3, 2002, aged 82