Don't panic! Dad's Army were skilled after all

DAD'S Army troops were not the hapless amateurs portrayed in the classic TV sitcom but highly skilled soldiers, rediscovered documents show.

- Hannah Van De Peer

The Home Guard, set up in 1940, had 1.5 million volunteers ineligible for regular military service in the Second World War due to age, vital civilian job or disability, who were on standby to help full-time squaddies if the Nazis invaded.

BBC sitcom Dad's Army portrayed the mishaps of one fictional unit made up of elderly and bumbling volunteers.

But papers collected by Major James Webster, commander of two Ipswich Home Guard units, reveal the extensive training provided, a historian says.