Editing Harry Secombe (section)

==Army service==
After leaving school in 1937, Secombe became a pay clerk at Baldwin's store. With war looming, he decided in 1938 that he would join the [[Army Reserve (United Kingdom)|Territorial Army]]. Very [[short sighted]], he got a friend to tell him the sight test, and then learnt it by heart. He served as a [[Lance Bombardier]] in [[132nd (Welsh) Field Regiment, Royal Artillery|No.132 Field Regiment]] of the [[Royal Artillery]].<ref name="telegraph.co.uk">{{Cite web|url=https://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/obituaries/1315822/Sir-Harry-Secombe.html|title=Sir Harry Secombe|website=www.telegraph.co.uk|date=12 April 2001 }}</ref> He referred to the unit in which he served during the [[Second World War]] in the [[North African Campaign]], [[Allied invasion of Sicily|Sicily]], and [[Italian Campaign (World War II)|Italy]], as "The Five-Mile Snipers".  While in North Africa Secombe met [[Spike Milligan]] for the first time.<ref name="entertainmentscene360.com">{{cite web|url=http://www.entertainmentscene360.com/index.php/biography-harry-secombe-7369/|title=Celebrity Biographies – Harry Secombe|access-date=10 November 2013|archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20131110201442/http://www.entertainmentscene360.com/index.php/biography-harry-secombe-7369/|archive-date=10 November 2013|url-status=dead}}</ref> In Sicily he joined a concert party and developed his own comedy routines to entertain the troops.

When Secombe visited the [[Falkland Islands]] to entertain the troops after the 1982 [[Falklands War]], his old regiment promoted him to the rank of sergeant – 37 years after he had been [[demobbed]].<ref name="BBCWales"/>