CAPTAIN MAINWARING is set for a comeback, but this time he is more likely to be marching down the streets of Basra than Walmington-on-Sea. A review of the Territorial Army, Britain’s part-time soldiers, has opted to increase the upper age limit for officers to 60 to cope with a drastic manpower shortage.

A memo from Major-General Nick Cottam, military secretary of the army, informs TA commanders that the increased age limit will be implemented next April and that a similar move for other ranks is also being considered.

The change means the TA will no longer automatically lose officers willing to back up regular forces in Iraq and Afghanistan when they reach 55, the current retirement age.

While it is unlikely that officers in their late fifties would serve in the front line they may well be sent to places such as Basra in Iraq.

Mainwaring was the portly commander of a Home Guard unit in the BBC comedy Dad’s Army, not a TA officer, but if he were a part-time soldier today he could face losing his day job. Such is the workload that many TA members are deciding to leave rather than risk being made redundant.

Several thousand TA officers have already served in Afghanistan and Iraq but there is a dwindling supply of members of all ranks prepared to serve abroad. The numbers are further reduced by tight limits on how often they can be called up.

Lieutenant-General John McColl, inspector general of the TA, who has served as Britain’s most senior officer in both Iraq and Afghanistan, conducted the review, which concluded that changes are critical to maintaining the usefulness of the TA.

The TA should be around 40,000-strong but since the initial deployment to Iraq in early 2003, numbers have dropped to fewer than 37,000.

Insiders says the real figure for those available is closer to 25,000. A large number of those have recently been sent on operations and would find it difficult to persuade their employers to let them go again.

“When the [first] call went out for Iraq, thousands of people responded and employers in the main were very supportive,” one senior TA officer said. “But it is very difficult to keep asking for time off to deploy again. I have to say there is a feeling of exhaustion within the TA.”

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