Richard Andrew Palethorpe-Todd OBE (11 June 1919 â 3 December 2009) was an Irish-British actor known for his leading man roles of the 1950s. He received a Golden Globe Award for Most Promising Newcomer â Male, and an Academy Award for Best Actor nomination and a Golden Globe Award for Best Actor nomination for his performance as Corporal Lachlan MacLachlan in the 1949 film The Hasty Heart. His other notable roles include Jonathan Cooper in Stage Fright (1950), Wing Commander Guy Gibson in The Dam Busters (1955), Sir Walter Raleigh in The Virgin Queen (1955), and Major John Howard in The Longest Day (1962). He was previously a Captain in the British Army during World War II, fighting in the D-Day landings as a member of the 7th (Light Infantry) Parachute Battalion.
Todd enlisted soon after the outbreak of the Second World War, entering the Royal Military College, Sandhurst in late 1939. On 29 January 1941, he was one of 26 cadets injured when ‘D’ Block of New College was hit by a German bomb in an attack by the Luftwaffe. In his memoirs, he describes seeing the bomb pass through the ceiling in front of him before he was blown out of the building by its blast, landing on a grass bank and suffering lacerations; five cadets were killed in the incident. Todd passed out in the spring of 1941; i.e, completed the course. On the day he received his commission, he tried to join several friends at the Café de Paris in London, but could not get a table booked for the evening. That evening, the venue was destroyed in an air raid and 15 newly commissioned subalterns were killed.
He was commissioned into the 2nd/4th Battalion of the King’s Own Yorkshire Light Infantry (KOYLI). Following arctic warfare training in Iceland he returned to the UK as a lieutenant (having been promoted to that rank on 1 October 1942). For a short while he was posted, at his request, as liaison officer to the 42nd Armoured Division then applied to join the Parachute Regiment to have a better chance at seeing action. He was accepted and after training was posted to the 7th (Light Infantry) Parachute Battalion as part of the 6th Airborne Division. On 6 June 1944, he participated in Operation Tonga during the D-Day landings. He was among the first British soldiers to land in Normandy and the first Irishman. His battalion parachuted after glider-borne forces had landed to capture the Pegasus Bridge near Caen. During the operation he met Major John Howard on the bridge and was involved in helping to repulse counter-attacks by the Heer forces in the area. Five days after D-Day, while still in the bridge defence area, he was promoted to captain. Todd later played Howard in the 1962 film The Longest Day, recreating these events.
After three months fighting in Normandy, the 6th Airborne Division returned to the UK to reconstitute and went back to the continent three months later as emergency reinforcements to halt the Battle of the Bulge the German offensive in the Ardennes. Short of transport as they advanced into Germany, Todd, as the motor transport officer, was responsible for gathering a rag-tag selection of commandeered vehicles to ferry troops forward. After VE day, the division returned to the UK for a few weeks, then was sent on counter-insurgency operations in Palestine. During this posting he was seriously injured when his Jeep overturned, breaking both shoulders and receiving a concussion. He returned to the UK to be demobilised in 1946.
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