A WAR veteran has defended Britain's legendary Dad's Army after claims on national television that the home guard was a national laughing stock.

Furious Edward Walters was left seething after a Channel Four documentary called Secret History: Dad's Army.

The programme gave the impression that they were incredibly similar to the characters who starred in the BBC comedy of the same name, which portrayed the Home Guard as a group of well-meaning, but bungling, incompetents.

Edward, 77, of Lostock Hall, served with the Burnley-based Towneley Company of the Local Defence Volunteers - what the force was originally known as - exactly 58 years ago, aged 19.

He said: "I knew there were some damn good fighters with me.

"We also had several soldiers who had survived World War One. They taught me a lot so when I did go and fight abroad I knew what I was doing." Tales of prisoners cutting off the heads of their Home Guard captors have been used to suggest that the Home Guard was inept.

Even Hitler is believed to have said he wouldn't have bothered taking them as Prisoners of War because they were so incompetent!

But Edward insisted: "We were there to prepare areas for possible invasions. We were determined to protect our country and that is why it hurts so much to be called incompetent by the very people who have benefited from our winning the war."

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