Revealed: Dad's Army star's hand-to-hand fighting in First World War Somme trenches

[Snowden]

Revealed: Dad's Army star's hand-to-hand fighting in First World War Somme trenches


By Daily Mail Reporter
Last updated at 9:41 AM on 28th July 2008



Arnold Ridley, the actor who played Private Godfrey in Dad's Army, experienced hand-to-hand fighting in the trenches of the First World War, it has emerged.

As Godfrey in the hit TV comedy, he was the least threatening of Walmington-on-Sea's Home Guard.

Details of his exploits during the Battle of Somme were unknown, even to his family.

Arnold Ridley managed cheated while fighting in the Battle of the Somme during the First World War

But research into Ridley's war service shows he went 'over the top' twice during battle.

On the second occasion his unit found the trail blocked by a German trench that was not marked on the map.

Many of his comrades had been killed by guns so Ridley and the other survivors made their way along the dugout using bayonets and grenades.

During the fighting, a German solider lunged at him with a bayonet, but Ridley managed to deflect the blade into his groin rather than his stomach.

His son Nicholas, 61, told the Sunday Telegraph that he plans to visit the battlefield as a tribute.

He said: 'My father's greatest achievement was to recover from the horrors of that war and to emerge a decent man.

'Many people were not able to do that. He had nightmares for the rest of his life, but it wasn't something he liked to talk about.

'We just hadn't pictured him throwing grenades and bayoneting his way through German trenches. But we now know that is what he did.'

Arnold Ridley, pictured third right, as Private Charles Godfrey in TV comedy Dad's Army

Although the actor was know[n] to have fought at the Somme and to have received bayonet wounds, he had not told his family how he sustained them.

He first tried to enlist with the Somerset Light Infantry in 1914 aged 18 - but was rejected because he had a condition called hammer toe.

He was successful the next year and suffered two minor shrapnel injuries towards the beginning of his service.

It was his experiences at the Somme in 1916 that were to scar him for the rest of his life.

The details were unearthed by this historian Richard van Emden who has studied the actor's own unpublished autobiography, official documents relating to his regiment in the National Archive in Kew and newspaper reports of the battle.

Mr van Emden told the Sunday Telegraph: 'Ridley actually went over the top on two occasions. The first attack, at Delville Wood, was a horrible experience but somehow he managed to come away unscathed. The second time he wasn't so lucky.

'His battalion had been sent to attack the Gird trench near Gueudecourt.

'They were dispatched without any proper reconnaissance being carried out.

'A lot of the battalion was wiped out by machine gunfire, but Ridley and the other survivors simply had to make their way through the trench armed with bayonets and lobbing bombs.

'He was hit on the head with a rifle butt and fell to the ground.

'The German soldier then lunged a bayonet at hi, but he managed to save his own life by directing it into his groin rather than his stomach.

'He was unconscious for a while but did recover. Then a soldier lunged a bayonet up his hand and through his wrist. He passed out again.

'We can only assume that the German soldier was killed at around the same time because Ridley obviously survived.'

It took 15 operations to save his hand and he was left without movement in three fingers.

And it took him two years after the drama to realise that the rifle butt had cracked his skull - an injury which caused him to suffer blackouts for the rest of his life.

While he established a successful career as a director, actor and writer he lived in fear of collapsing on stage.

Ridley was appointed OBE for services to theatre in 1982 and died two years later aged 88.


Revealed: Dad's Army star's hand-to-hand fighting in First World War Somme trenches | Mail Online

[Woodmonkey]

What a cool story.

[jjvman]

As bad as we thought WWII was, WWI was possibly worse because of the trench fighting.

[Woodmonkey]

Yes, that and the gas.

[conlor]

All wars are bad. Necessary sometimes, but bad.

[Snowden]

Yes, and there seems to be a war for every generation. I was talking about this with a friend today; it just seems that the evil spouts out every 20-25 years at the outside.