British actor Richard Todd served as a member of the British parachute regiment during World War II.

 British actor Richard Todd served as a member of the British parachute regiment during World War II. 



At one point he served as adjutant and was responsible for writing the letters home notifying families that their sons and fathers and brothers had been killed. 


Todd would star in two of the greatest World War II true story films. 


He portrayed Wing Commander Guy Gibson in the 1955 movie The Dam Busters which told the story of operation chastise. 

The final scene of the film has Gibson notify Dr Barnes Wallis he had letters to write. Todd later commented he hated filming that scene because it brought back memories of all the letters he had written during the war. 


For the 1962 film the  Longest Day Todd was cast to portray Major  John Howard who led the glider attack on the Orne River bridges on the morning of June 6th 1944. Todd had been one of the relief unit paratroopers that had jumped and met up with Howard's glider unit. In his portrayal of Howard Todd wore the pin and Beret he had worn on June 6th 1944 (photo below). 


Aware of Todd's history the filmmakers feature a moment when the relief group arrives Howard gives a slight nod to an actor portraying paratrooper Richard Todd.

Comments

Post a Comment

Popular posts from this blog

James Marshall "Jimi" Hendrix

Image
 James Marshall "Jimi" Hendrix (born Johnny Allen Hendrix; November 27, 1942 – September 18, 1970) with his mother, Lucille, in 1943. Although his mainstream career spanned only four years, he is widely regarded as one of the most influential electric guitarists in the history of popular music, and one of the most celebrated musicians of the 20th century. The Rock and Roll Hall of Fame describes him as "arguably the greatest instrumentalist in the history of rock music". Born in Seattle, Washington, Hendrix began playing guitar at the age of 15. In 1961, he enlisted in the US Army, but was discharged the following year. Soon afterward, he moved to Clarksville then Nashville, Tennessee, and began playing gigs on the chitlin' circuit, earning a place in the Isley Brothers' backing band and later with Little Richard, with whom he continued to work through mid-1965. He then played with Curtis Knight and the Squires before moving to England in late 1966 after bas...
Read more

7-year-old boy tortured, killed for being Christian.

Image
  7-year-old boy tortured, killed for being Christian . India (GFA/MNN) — Seven-year-old Anmol (AH-NEE-MOHL) laughed and played; he sang songs and learned Bible stories at Sunday school—and later, he was cruelly tortured and killed for being a Christian. A photo of Anmol taken a couple years ago. (Image, caption courtesy GFA) Gospel for Asia’s Danny Punnose says Anmol’s family thought he went to a friend’s house after Sunday School, like he did in the past. But when the young boy didn’t come home, they began to worry. “A couple of days later, they actually found his body,” Punnose states. Harish, Anmol’s father, had filed a missing persons report with the local police Monday, November 18. That same evening, police received a call about a child’s body seen floating in a nearby pond. When Anmol’s parents heard the news, they rushed to the hospital, where the body was taken, and identified the dead child as their son. “It was very clear he was brutally murdered,” reported ...
Read more

A Woman Let Strangers Do Whatever They Wanted To Her Body For 6 Hours — And The Results Were Awful

Image
  A Woman Let Strangers Do Whatever They Wanted To Her Body For 6 Hours — And The Results Were Awful Yugoslavian performance artist Marina Abramović is the woman many credit as "the grandmother of performance art." She was featured on Sex and the City and collaborated with James Franco. Somehow, her celebrated 1988 art piece, "The Lovers: the Great Wall Walk" — in which she and her longtime lover and collaborator Ulay started at opposite ends of the Great Wall of China, to meet in the middle as a way of signaling the break up of their 12-year relationship — seems like something that happened over a million years ago now. In light of the events going on in the world today, her work may perhaps be more intensely important now than it ever has been before, particularly if you are either a woman or someone with a sincere interested in understanding the depth of what women experience. The premise was deceptively simple. Abramović announced that she would stan...
Read more

Why are people in Europe afraid to touch on the topic of the Great Patriotic War?

Image
 Why are people in Europe afraid to touch on the topic of the Great Patriotic War? Because they ALL fought against Red Army And everyone should know this. In 1941, not only Germany attacked the USSR. The rest of Europe was also attacked, with the exception of the Serbs and Greeks. The USSR was attacked by Spanish divisions and French legions, Italian armies, Romania, Hungary, Finland, parts of Czechoslovakia, Croatia, etc. So, the Brest Fortress was stormed Austrians, and Sevastopol - Romanians and Italians. Even Albania sent the SS Skanderbey division to fight in the USSR. Romanians, Hungarians, Croats, and Slovaks were eager to grab a piece of the USSR. In Guderian's tanks, almost every second driver was Czech. And they all committed atrocities worse than the Germans. The Hungarian punitive forces were not captured by Soviet soldiers. Just like in the Civil War, when they were already showed themselves to be monsters. She committed atrocities near Leningrad and Rzhev Dutch SS div...
Read more

The Nazi Occupation in Poland

Image
  The Nazi Occupation in Poland This picture has been taken by a German soldier... a "souvenir". W hen the German army invaded Poland in September 1939, the Nazis were determinated to transform Poland into a huge reserve of slave labor ready to be used by the German war industry. In order to reach this goal, the Nazis adopted a policy immediately: To exterminate the Polish elite (professors, lawyers, scientists, etc...). To exterminate any potential opponent. To close all places of education (school, college, universities) excepting professional schools. To forbid any cultural or political activities under death sentence. To create an exclusively German Zone by confiscating all private property and or simply killing the original Polish population. D uring the winter of 1939, the Polish elite and anybody who had a role in the cultural or scientific life in Poland is exterminated: "the slaves don't need culture". At the same time, the entire population of...
Read more

On this day in 1943, Japanese launch a banzai charge during the Battle of Attu.

Image
  On this day in 1943, Japanese launch a banzai charge during the Battle of Attu. That battle would soon end with an American victory! The Japanese had held two of Alaska’s Aleutian Islands for nearly a year—but now we’d won one back. The second would soon follow. The Battle of Attu was the only land battle fought in North America during World War II, yet somehow it has earned the tag, “The Forgotten Battle.” How can that be? We suffered more than 3,000 casualties, including 549 dead, at Attu. Shouldn’t more Americans know about it? And how did World War II make its way to the Aleutian Islands, anyway? There are several theories. Possibly, the Japanese were worried that we’d use the islands to launch an attack. The Aleutian Islands stretch westward across the Pacific, so such a use was possible. Or perhaps the Japanese wanted to launch their own attack on us, using the islands as a base. Or maybe they were simply working on their defensive perimeter in the Pacific. To this day, Jap...
Read more

Brutality of Syria war casts doubt on peace talks

Image
  Brutality of Syria war casts doubt on peace talks War crimes experts say they have huge cache of photos documenting mass killing by Assad; Syrian FM arrives in Switzerland, says Assad's future a 'red line' In this June 12, 2011 photo during a government-organized tour for media, Syrian army soldiers show reporters dead bodies after they claimed that they are policemen who were killed by gunmen, near the city's Military Police building, in the town of Jisr al-Shughour, north of Damascus, Syria. (photo credit: AP/Bassem Tellawi) Syria’s conflict was sparked by an act of brutality — the detention and torture of schoolchildren who spray-painted anti-government graffiti in a southern city. In the three years since, the conflict has evolved into one of the most savage civil wars in decades. The atrocities have been relentless. Protesters gunned down in the streets. An opposition singer whose vocal cords were carved out. Beheadings and mass sectarian killings. Barrels f...
Read more

The Romanticization of the Dead Female Body in Victorian and Contemporary Culture

Image
  The Romanticization of the Dead Female Body in Victorian and Contemporary Culture In “The Philosophy of Composition,” Edgar Allan Poe writes the infamous line: “the death, then, of a beautiful woman is, unquestionably, the most poetical topic in the world” (548). This problematic contention, which equates female death with poetic inspiration, is one of the hallmarks of the arts during the Victorian Age. Poe, along with many famous male artists of the time, engaged with this idea and ultimately exploited young women throughout their work by implying that there is something inherently beautiful about their demise. While many male writers and artists used the death of young women as their inspiration, some female artists of the Victorian Age, most notably Christina Rossetti and Elizabeth Siddall,1 used their art to highlight this exploitation and reclaim their subjectivity as creators, instead of passive muses. Poe’s contention continued throughout the twentieth century with the...
Read more

Eighty years ago today, a massive blast rocked the ground, spilled burning oil into the water, and shot flames into the sky above an Oahu marshaling yard known as West Loch.

Image
 Eighty years ago today, a massive blast rocked the ground, spilled burning oil into the water, and shot flames into the sky above an Oahu marshaling yard known as West Loch. Sailors frantically searched for enemy aircraft or submarines as more explosions raised a thousand-foot-high pillar of fire, sparking fears of "a second Pearl Harbor." No enemy appeared, but the conflagration continued into the night, punctuated by occasional explosions and wailing sirens. Military and civilian personnel speculated about the explosion but received no solid information. This was by design, and the true story would not be widely known for many years. Nearly three dozen LSTs crowded into the West Loch channel, readying for the invasion of Saipan. They were heavily laden with ammunition, gasoline, and combat troops of the 6th and 23rd Marines; amphibious DUKWs and LVTs crouched in the holds, and a few ships carried LCTs “piggybacked” on the deck. Several LSTs sustained damage during a recent...
Read more

A revolutionary surgery took place on this day 64 years ago, changing the world of medicine as we know it.

Image
  A revolutionary surgery took place on this day 64 years ago, changing the world of medicine as we know it.  For the first time ever, a machine was inserted into the human body in lieu of a body part that was no longer able to function correctly.  In 1958, two doctors, cardiac surgeon Ake Senning and medical device engineer Rune Elmqvist, implanted the first ever internal cardiac pacemaker into the body of Swedish engineer Arne Larsson. Larsson’s surgery was done to treat his Stokes-Adams syndrome, a condition that slows the heartbeat and decreases blood flow to the brain, resulting in potentially fatal fainting spells.  This revolutionary internal pacemaker was the size of a hockey puck and used two transistors that would deliver tiny shocks to the heart. Unfortunately, the first edition of this pacemaker would not last past 8 hours. Thankfully, Senning managed to successfully implant a second pacemaker that Elmqvist had ready on hand.  This second pacemaker w...
Read more