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Richard Todd was not only an Irishman and soldier in WWII but may well have been one of the first, if not the first, Irishman to land in Normandy on D-Day. His life was not just about being a soldier, he was also an actor and was nominated for an Oscar for Best Actor in a film he starred in alongside Ronald Regan. These extracts are taken from Dark Times, Decent Men – Stories of Irishmen in WWII by Neil Richardson.
THE FIRST SHOTS fired during the Allied invasion of France took place after 181 British soldiers – mostly from 2nd Oxfordshire and Buckinghamshire Light Infantry in 6th Airborne Division and led by Major John Howard – landed in Horsa gliders just minutes after midnight on 5/6 June and captured ‘Pegasus Bridge’ (Bénouville Bridge) over the Caen Canal from the Germans, in order to prevent German panzers from crossing the bridge and attacking the eastern end of Sword Beach once the landings began. Thirty minutes after landing, Major Howard’s men were reinforced by 7th Parachute Regiment, and with them was Captain Richard Todd from Dublin.
Todd was born in June 1919, and his father – Major Andrew Todd – was a British Army physician and Irish international rugby player who had earned three caps playing for Ireland. After moving to Devon, then India – where he spent several years – then back to Devon, Todd attended Shrewsbury School before preparing to apply to the Royal Military Academy Sandhurst. However, Todd soon decided not to become a soldier, and instead, he chose to pursue an acting career. He began attending the Italia Conti Academy in London, but because of this, he soon fell out with his mother. Sadly, in 1938 – when Todd was nineteen – she committed suicide.
After performing for the first time as a professional actor in 1936, he performed in regional theatres throughout Britain and then co-founded the Dundee Repertory Theatre in 1939. However, after the outbreak of the Second World War, Richard Todd finally joined the British Army. He was commissioned into the King’s Own Yorkshire Light Infantry in 1941 before joining the Parachute Regiment and being promoted to captain. By the time he parachuted into Normandy on D-Day to reinforce Major Howard’s men on Pegasus Bridge – making him one of the first British Army officers to land in France – Todd was five days away from his twenty-fifth birthday. The Germans counterattacked at Pegasus Bridge not long after he landed, and Todd was subsequently involved in the fighting to push the enemy back.
After the war, his acting career really took off. After being nominated for the Academy Award for Best Actor in 1949 for playing Corporal Lachlan ‘Lachie’ MacLachlan in The Hasty Heart (the film also starred future US president Ronald Reagan with whom Todd became good friends; the pair later had dinner with British Prime Minister Margaret Thatcher in No 10 Downing Street), Todd played Wing Commander Guy Gibson in the well known 1955 war movie The Dam Busters. In 1962 he performed in another classic warfilm, The Longest Day, based on the book of the same name by Irish war correspondent Cornelius Ryan. Ironically, in The Longest Day, Todd played the role of Major John Howard – who led the initial attack against Pegasus Bridge, and the very man who Todd was sent to reinforce on D-Day (he actually wore Howard’s original D-Day helmet during filming) – while Captain Richard Todd’s character was played by another actor. Todd had turned down the offer to play himself, feeling that the part would be too small.
In 1993 he was awarded an OBE, but then, in 1997, he suffered the first of two family tragedies when his youngest son – Seamus – committed suicide, aged twenty. After possibly suffering a severe depressive reaction to an anti-acne drug, Richard Todd’s son shot himself in the head. Todd was seventy-eight at the time. Then, in 2005, Todd’s eldest son Peter also shot himself, aged fifty-three. He had been having difficulties with his marriage. Richard Todd was eighty-six years old when he lost his second son.
He continued acting for another two years – his last role was in 2007 – and then, in December 2009, while living in the small village of Little Humby in Lincolnshire, Richard Todd died in his sleep. He had been suffering from cancer, and was ninety years old. Having been married twice – both marriages ended in divorce – the Dublin-born actor and Second World War veteran was survived by a son and a daughter. He was one of the first Irishmen, if not the first, to land in Normandy on D-Day.
Dark Times, Decent Men – Stories of Irishmen in WWII by Neil Richardson is published by The O’Brien Press and is available now in all good bookshops. Visit www.obrien.ie for more information.
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Parental alienation, fathers rights and some form tax relief for unmarried fathers paying maintenance should also be enforced, still I don’t know how some parents can sleep at night not paying their share.
@Dean Burroughs: why should anyone get tax relief on paying maintenance?
@Louise Tracey: what’s your objection to tax relief on maintenance payments… That’s a strange one..
@Dean Burroughs: don’t think it’s strange at all. Parents who do support their kids and are still in the relationship (married or not) don’t get tax relief on their financial input. Why should ones who pay maintenance???
It’s that mother’s who don’t work get a tax credit for the child but don’t use it as they get paid off the social while the dad that pays maintenance doesn’t get to use the credit. If Ur a married couple u can claim your husband or wifes tax credits if they aren’t working so y can’t dad use the credit as Well
@Laura Crawford: He can use the credit. The credit can be signed over to him. The stipulations for this are on the revenue website.
@Alan Leahy: I know a girl whose holding her ex to ransom over the credit refusing to sign it over unless he pays more maintenance. She’s minding kids from her house cash in hand. She shouldn’t have a choice if she’s not working the credit should automatically transfer to the other parent
@Dean Burroughs: dean, can I get tax relief on the money I pay out for my kids or must I be separate first?
I think I read some time back how this works… The maintenance payment is split by the court into an allocation for the child and some for the parent (mother in the following example). So, if 75% of a monthly payment of 400 is allocated to the child then the father pays income tax on that 300, but not the remaining 25% which goes to the mother. That 100 is treated as income for the mother and is subject to normal income tax rules for her.
@Ana Nonymous: the maximum a court will give as maintenance is €400 per month. Ever try raring a child on €400 per month? That’s if you even get it. No one is interested in helping you if the father doesn’t pay. You live in a country where women are forced to give birth and then criticize them for trying to earn as much money to raise their kids!
A parent who literally abandons their child (children) should be held totally responsible by the state.
@TheBluffmaster2: in Germany unless the fathers name and pops number is stated on the birth cert a mother can not get children’s allowance from the state.
This allows the state to recoup the cost of raising the child from the father.
A simple thing to do can’t understand why we don’t do it here.
@Theunpopularpopulist: It’s a legal requirement to have the fathers name on the birth certificate here so we do it already.
@Catherine Sims: you can refuse here and you’re not penalised for doing so. Tie it to social welfare then they’ll list the name.
But what’s the penalty for parents that don’t pay? Where both parents are living, both should pay. No excuses.
@john Appleseed: but no one will implement it. I know someone who had a judgement for child support against a guy and he refused. She went back to court and he didn’t appear. A warrant was issued and even though she reported to the Guards when he was in his mothers to go and arrest him they said they were too busy. Eventually she went down to the station and insisted and they arrested him. He was sentenced to a month in Mountjoy and released after three hours due to overcrowding. He still hasn’t paid a penny.
@john Appleseed: +1
And what about parents who don’t pay for children under the age of 7 who chose not to work etc….
Is there anything for those in that category. Or is it just a case of there no real ramifications for not supporting your child?
Is there a penalty to stop one parent to not allow the other parent see their children too?
@gjpb: Yes, go to court and get an order for visitation. If the parent with custody breaks this order then bring them back to court. The penalty is a fine and/or prison.
@gjpb: of course there is.
@gjpb: it’s not fit for purpose. Anyone denying a child it’s father should have custody removed in my opinion
@Alan Leahy: It’s never enforced, the mother of my child broke court agreed access 100% and admitted it to the judge and laughed…..the judge did nothing.
There;s a growing industry in Ireland in keeping kids alienated from their parents.
I’m paying maintenance and I don’t see my children anybody who don’t see there children should not pay maintenance FF would want to look at the judge’s and the family court it’s a joke sending a father to jail because they don’t have the money to pay it father’s have no rights FF would want to look at the rights of father’s first before looking for money every mother and FATHER have a right to see there kids
@Fran O’Keeffe: how come you don’t see your kids? Why don’t you go back to court? It’s a child’s right to know BOTH their parents.
@Deborah ….the courts refuse to penalize mothers who break court ordered access, its a joke!
I’m paying maintenance and I don’t see my children FF would want to look at the judges and father’s rights first family court is a joke
@Fran O’Keeffe: Why don’t you see your children.
@Alan Leahy: It’s called parental alienation and it’s growing. There are no laws in this country that recognise it unlike the UK.
@Fran O’Keeffe: It isn’t the childs fault that parents split up, however it is right for the father to want to give that child a decent upbringing rather than just walk away.
@Alan Leahy: because my xwife told lies instead of bringing the children into court and asking them what they would like
@Fran O’Keeffe: Family court was always a joke, my granny and father looked after me and my sibling as they always did without any contact from my mother but she always had the child allowance book and kept that money for herself. Then when we were teens my mother then wanted visiting rights and she got them with a payment of 25 pounds a week to cover expenses from my father. She was the one earning more than my father and it was my father who looked after us without a single look or penny from her. All she wanted visiting rights for was to show us off to her friends to back up her lies as she was a bitter woman. The judges are eejits and they haven’t a clue about sly parents or how dysfunctional families behave…
@Fran O’Keeffe: sounds like a pile of poo to me, no judge is gonna deny a father seeing their kids (or vice verse) without genuine reason…. You need to keep talking here and explain… And yes you should explain as you brought it up.
@Alan Madden: Yes they will, they might make orders granting access and use scary words to try to get mothers to give access but they never enforce the rulings no jail or fines on mothers, its common knowledge fathers have no rights in Ireland.
Pay up or get out of the bed.
A Wedding to follow once a child turns 7 years, may be the norm…
Always laws to chase maintenance, but of course in Ireland they’d never dream of tackling Parental Alienation Syndrome ….they never enforce access arrangements.
Abusing children is worth too much money to them
And again it will be a mess when they get round to sorting it out as everything becomes a mess when these people try to fix anything?
God I wish Willy would shave off that moustache.
He reminds of someone. You know you’re man from Germany! I think he’s dead now though.
@gerry fallon: I thought it was a hairy Mary lol.
have your say