Tandey was mentioned five times in dispatches and certainly earned his VC during the capture of the French village and crossing at Marcoing, his regiment held down by heavy machine gun fire Tandey crawled forward, located the machine gun nest and took it out.

Arriving at the crossing he braved heavy fire to place wooden planks over a gaping hole enabling troops to roll across and take the battle to the Germans, the day still not over he successfully led a bayonet charge against outnumbering enemy troops which helped bring hostilities to an end.

As the ferocious battle wound down and enemy troops surrendered or retreated a wounded German soldier limped out of the maelstrom and into Private Tandey's line of fire, the battle weary man never raised his rifle and just stared at Tandey resigned to the inevitable.  "I took aim but couldn't shoot a wounded man," said Tandey, "so I let him go."

The young German soldier nodded in thanks and the two men took diverging paths, that day and in history ...

It wasn't until that time [1938] Tandey knew the man he had in his gun sight 20 years earlier was Adolf Hitler ...