British Celebrities In The British Military, Post Them As You See Them.

[numbersix]

Nigel Bruce, Dr Watson to Basil Rathbone's Sherlock Holmes, served in the Great War with 1st Batallion, Honourable Artillery Company. He joined in 1914 at the age of 19 and was terribly wounded by machine gun fire in January 1915 near Kemmel, Belgium. He was invalided out of the Army only to re-enlist in 1916 and serve on Home Service as a Training Officer with the Somerset Light Infantry until the end of the War.

 

Basil Rathbone also served in the Great War, with the London Scottish Regiment, receiving a commission in 1916. His younger brother, John, was killed in action in June 1918 which affected him him greatly. Rathbone was awarded the Military Cross for "conspicuous daring and resource on patrol" after undertaking a series of daylight reconnaissance patrols.

 

I am very fond of the Rathbone and Bruce Sherlock Holmes films even though they are not exactly 'canon'.

 

Nigel Bruce on the left, with Evelyn Ankers and Basil Rathbone:

[GCCE1854]

@numbersix Both Sis and I love the Basil Rathbone and Nigel Bruce Sherlock Holmes films! They're wonderful, even if they were given the Hollywood treatment. He's also quite good in The Chocolate Soldier with Nelson Eddy.

Here's a picture of him just two years before he joined up:

 

[numbersix]

@GCCE1854, He looks so young. The school I went to had a Commemoration Book for those who died in the Great War, full of too young fellows like him. If I recall correctly (it was many years ago when I read it), of the 1913 Junior Division Officer Training Corps very few survived the War, and most were gone within the first two years.

 

I do particularly like how, even though the Rathbone and Bruce Holmes film have been given the Hollywood treatment, they are still quintessentially Holmes and Watson, which I think is in large part to Basil Rathbone and Nigel Bruce staying true to the source; two Victorian characters in 1940s America! It is one of the reasons I am so fond of them!

[patches]

Michael Bates Actor, Bates was born in India, his Father was a Civil Servant, In WWII Bates served as an Officer in the Indian Army, coming in in 1942 , fought in Burma in one of the Battalions of the Gurkhas, Battalion not mentioned. But during one bit of fighting in 1944 he is Mentioned in Dispatches 

 

Bates' two historical roles.

 

As Monty in Patton.

 

Erich Ludendorf in the British TV Mini Series Fall of Eagles.

 

 

[SFC]

James Blunt singer

 

 

[numbersix]

3 hours ago, SFC said:

James Blunt singer

 

An admirable chap and he is a legend on the Twitter as well by all accounts.

[Salvage Sailor]

Truly an 'Actor who was there' in Korea who also appeared in a film about Korea

 

 

Michael Caine served with the Royal Fusiliers in Korea in 1951 and was in the film 'A Hill in Korea' made in 1956

 

"Whenever I killed someone there was no guilt, no remorse - it didn't feel real. It was during the Korean War and I was just trying to stay alive. It was self-defense. It was always done at night and we never had any idea who we had killed. I didn't even think about it - we had machine guns and we just did it. I never did anything close up or hand-to-hand. It didn't give me nightmares, because the Army brutalizes you. It was like the World War I trenches - half a mile apart - and we were just firing backwards and forwards, so we never knew who any of our victims were as individuals. You never saw the whites of a man's eyes when you killed him."

 

Michael Caine Royal Fusilier

 

 

 

 

More from Michael Caine, in his own words, training with the Royal Fusiliers, fighting Chinese human wave attacks and night patrolling in Korea.

On YouTube, from his autobiography

The Interesting Military Career of Sir Michael Caine

 

 

 

 

 

 

[Salvage Sailor]

If we were discussing Canadian veterans, I could share some first hand information about this man who I knew.

There's a lot of dubious information on the web & blogs about him.

 

[numbersix]

James Doohan, Juno Beach on D-Day. I heard a version of it, and it is only on seeing the photograph you posted that I realise he lost his finger there. Can he be the exception to the rule for this thread?

[Jack the Collector]

1 hour ago, Salvage Sailor said:

I could share some first hand information about this man who I knew

I hope that you will !!! He was always my favorite in Star Trek.I did not become endeared to him until I read the story about him saving a fan's life.

[Charlie Flick]

I am surprised that no one has yet mentioned Richard Todd, a British Airborne combat veteran of D-Day and one who post-war played in a number of the best films about Britain in WW2.   

 

He was born in Dublin and his father had served in the British Army in India.  After war broke out he enlisted.  In early 1941 he was injured in a Luftwaffe bombing attack while in officer training.  After volunteering for parachute training he was posted to the 6th Airborne and parachuted into Normandy on June 6.  Years later he appeared as Major John Howard at Pegasus Bridge in The Longest Day.

 

Todd gave another memorable performance as Wing Commander Guy Gibson in The Dam Busters.

 

Todd had a marvelous film career.  I think he came across as authentic in his military roles precisely because of his experiences in the War.

 

Regards,

Charlie

 

 

[stratasfan]

@Charlie Flick - Great mention, Charlie! Don't know how he slipped by . . . Richard Todd is amazing! One of the great British performers you'll see. He is good in "The Dam Busters", and really good in "The Longest Day"! He also is a good Robin Hood in the Disney Live-Action movie, and you get the fun chance of seeing him later in life in an episode of "Murder, She Wrote"!

[Salvage Sailor]

Officer's service record: J R R Tolkien

John Ronald Reuel Tolkien was born in Bloemfontein, South Africa on 3 January 1892. He went to England with his family after his father's death in 1896 and grew up in the West Midlands. After his mother's death in 1904, Tolkien and his brother were cared for in a local boarding house under the watchful eye of a Catholic priest. A prodigious linguist, Tolkien entered Exeter College, Oxford in 1911.

 

A face in the crowd: Tolkien, fourth from left in the middle row, stands for inspection with the new Cadet Corps at King Edward’s School, Birmingham, on 4 April 1907*

Outbreak of war
Unlike many of his contemporaries, Tolkien did not rush to enlist in the British army after the outbreak of war in August 1914. Instead he completed his studies at Oxford, in June 1915, before finally enlisting as a second lieutenant in the Lancashire Fusiliers later in the same year.

 

After a number of dull months at various training camps in England, Tolkien embarked for France in June 1916.  

 

IWM Link -->  Now on display for the first time (2013) JRR Tolkien's revolver was given to him as he endured life in the front line trenches of the Somme in 1916

 

He saw action almost immediately at the Battle of the Somme (July-November 1916), which claimed the lives of two of his closest friends.  

IWM LINK -->  Second Lieutenant J.R.R. Tolkien's War Service - Imperial War Museum

 

 

Trench fever
After four months in the trenches - a period that strongly influenced the world that he later created in books such as The Hobbit (1937) and The Lord of Rings (1954-55) - Tolkien fell victim to the typhus-like condition known as 'trench fever' and returned to England in November. Unable to fully shake off its debilitating effects, he spent the rest of war either in hospital or in home service camps, where he did sufficiently well to earn promotion to the rank of lieutenant.

 

The papers in Tolkien's service record file (WO 339/34423) are largely concerned with the various health problems that dominated his time in the army during the First World War. There are numerous reports made by army medical boards between December 1916 and September 1918 on Tolkien's recovery from trench fever - a slow process punctuated by relapses.

 

The file also contains the document (dating from 22 November 1916) confirming his initial return to England from France because of illness, and two short letters written by Tolkien himself (in January and February 1917), in which he informs the War Office that he is once again fit for duty.

 

[patches]

Harry Secombe Welsh actor singer. Secombe was an Artilleryman in WWII, he was in the 132nd Field Regiment Royal Artillery 78th Infantry Division (Battleax) in Tunisia, Sicily and Italy.

 

Harry Secombe in his most famous role.

 

Mr Bumble in the 1968 Musical film OLIVER.

[numbersix]

Oliver is my favourite musical, I have to say. Harry Secombe was also a Goon along with Spike Milligan and Michael Bentine.

 

Spike Milligan wrote of his wartime experiences as a signaller in D Battery (later 19 Battery), 56th Heavy Regiment, Royal Artillery, as Gunner Milligan, 954024, in the book Adolf Hitler: My Part in His Downfall. He suffered greatly with PTSD after the War but was an icon of comedy here.

 

Michael Bentine originally joined the RAF but tranferred to MI9 after a bad Typhus vaccine damaged his eyesight. MI9 was dedicated to supporting resistance movements and helping prisoners escape; at the end of the war he took part in the liberation of Belsen which affected him greatly. In the early 1970s he made Michael Bentine's Potty Time which was fantastic children's entertainment.

 

Harry Secombe, Spike Milligan, and Michael Bentine in later life:

 

[SFC]

Peter Ustinov

 

 

 

 

[Custermen]

On 12/14/2021 at 3:29 PM, Salvage Sailor said:

finally enlisting as a second lieutenant in the Lancashire Fusiliers later in the same year.

 

That is one of the cap badges that I would really like to add to my collection.

 

Thanks for posting the cadet photo.

[Charlie Flick]

English actor Dirk Bogarde was a veteran of World War II, an experience that seems to have had a profound effect upon him.  Bogarde served as an Air Photo Interpreter in Second Army HQ and had a role in selecting targets for air attacks.  He was also one of the first British soldiers into the Bergen Belsen concentration camp.   

 

Bogarde was so shaken by his war experiences that for the rest of his life he carried a deep antipathy for Germans.  In a 1986 interview he said "After the war I always knew that nothing, nothing, could ever be as bad ... but nothing could frighten me any more, I mean, no man could frighten me any more, no Director ... nothing could be as bad as the war, or the things I saw in the war."

 

He had a long, successful and varied acting career.  Here he is below as an SOE Officer in "Ill Met By Moonlight", a film about the true story of the kidnapping of a Wehrmacht General in Crete.

 

He also appeared as British General Frederick "Boy" Browning in the epic "A Bridge Too Far" as seen in the photo at bottom.  

 

Bogarde was thoughtful and literate and lived much of his later life at a country home in France.  He died in England in 1999.

 

Regards,

Charlie

 

 

 

This image is said to have been taken of Bogarde during his service in the British Army in November, 1944.

 

[patches]

John Gregson Actor, his online BIOs strangely don't go in to details, but makes mention he was in the Royal Navy in the war, a crewman on a Minesweeper, name of ship not given, said Minesweeper sunk by a German Sub, location not given, ship apparently abandoned, with Gregson being injured, not wounded but injured at one point when his ship was hit and started to sink, maybe a fall when ship was rocked by the torpedo

 

Gregson was in at least Three War Movies,

 

As a RAF Pilot in Angels One Five, a 1952 movie.

 

And as the British Para Chaplain, who's scene in The Longest Day of course is well known to us movie buffs.

 

 

Captain Frederick S. Bell, Commander HMS Exeter in the 1956 Pursuit of the Graf Spee.

[patches]

Allan Cuthbertson Australian Actor. Flight Lieutenant Royal Australian Air Force 6 December 1941 to 1 July 1947, was a Catalina pilot in 111 Air Sea Rescue Flight from December 1944 on.

 

In Uniform 1942

 

 

In an episode of Fawlty Towers Gourmet Night as Colonel Hall.

WHAT ABOUT THE DUCK FAWLTY???

 

And of course in Tunes of Glory as the English Officer Captain Eric Simpson.

[patches]

David McCallum

 

He left school at age 18 and was conscripted for National Service, which would make the year 1951 as he was born in 1933, the Korean War.

 

An Interview he had in 2016.

DAVID MCCALLUM: Back in the fifties, I was commissioned into the British Army and went immediately to C Company of the 3rd Battalion, Gold Coast Regiment which was part of the Royal West African Frontier Force. My military experience stood me in good stead parts in The Great Escape, Mosquito Squadron and the Colditz series on the BBC.

 

Lieutenant Commander Eric Ashley-Pitt Royal Navy Fleet Air Arm.

[patches]

Jack Watson in WWII RN, he was a  physical training instructor, don't know more, like if he had a spot of sea duty etc.

 

He evidently rose to Chief Petty Officer. 

 

A more well known role of his, Corporal Peacock in The Devils Brigade.

 

[patches]

On 12/1/2021 at 9:17 PM, patches said:

Michael Bates Actor, Bates was born in India, his Father was a Civil Servant, In WWII Bates served as an Officer in the Indian Army, coming in in 1942 , fought in Burma in one of the Battalions of the Gurkhas, Battalion not mentioned. But during one bit of fighting in 1944 he is Mentioned in Dispatches 

 

Bates' two historical roles.

 

As Monty in Patton.

 

Erich Ludendorf in the British TV Mini Series Fall of Eagles.

 

 

DON'T YOU YELL AT ME MISTER WARRICK!!!

[patches]

Some thing I just seen, that I found interesting British Actress Sally Ann Howes of Chitty Chitty BANG BANG fame, she just passed a little over 2 months ago at 91. She is the Great Granddaughter of  Sergeant Joseph Malone 13th  Light Dragoons who won the Victoria Cross in the Charge of the Light Brigade at Balaclava.

Here she is in the film as Truly Scrumptious 

[patches]

Another Dr Watson, Nigel Stock he was in the BBC TV series of Sherlock Holmes 1964-68, Stock was an actor before WWII, entered the Army after the outbreak as an Infantry Officer in the London Irish, he gets Seconded to the Indian Army as is assigned to the newly raised Assam Regiment, see's combat in Burma against the Japanese, no doubt at Kohima among other fights, and is Mentioned in Dispatches two times, at war's end he's a Major. (Can't find Service Photo of him)

 

Stock the shortly after the war.

 

And in The Great Escape as Flight Lieutenant Dennis Cavendish The Surveyor.