It was one of the most important reviews of his life. Critics would later think him brilliant but, standing before a medical officer in Colchester Military Hospital in the summer of 1918, Noël Coward was found to be “permanently unfit” for service.

Thanks to this critique of his abilities, Coward was spared the trenches and sent back to the stage. His discharge form is one of 32 million documents available online from today, following a three-year digitisation programme of service records held at the National Archives. They document the progress of over two million men through the Great War.

Coward only made it as far as Colchester but other Cowards went further. Harry Coward, a chauffeur who enlisted at the age of 39, was deemed fit enough and would later be punished for “drunkenness during active service”. A private by the name of Andrew Coward, demobbed in 1919, was regularly absent without leave.

Fellow actors also turn up in the online archive. Basil Rathbone enlisted in the London Scottish Regiment in 1916. The man who would be Sherlock Holmes in 14 films was described as having “dark” eyes and hair and a “fresh” complexion.

In the middle of no man’s land, while scouting enemy positions, Rathbone gave a convincing performance as a tree wearing a hat of fresh foliage, his face blackened with burnt cork. When a German soldier approached the tree shot him. For such performances Rathbone would be awarded the Military Cross in September 1918. A year later he had transferred from the trenches to Stratford where he was playing Romeo.

Heroic feats are captured by the paperwork, and some records are more expansive than others. The service record of George Peachment shows that he was awarded the Victoria Cross, for saving the life of an officer near Hullach in France. It also contains a letter from his mother, requesting his personal effects after his death.

While some give only a place and date of death, the paperwork following the death of Private Henry Allen, includes pages of reports and witness accounts of how he came to be killed by a faulty grenade.

Noël Coward was spared the hardship that would shape the later writings of J. R. R. Tolkien — discharged in 1916 suffering from trench fever — or C. S. Lewis, who captured 60 German soldiers in April 1918.

The forms show that his complexion was pale, his eyes were grey, his hair was dark brown, his girth “when fully expanded” was 40in and that he made his living as an actor. There was a scar on his left leg. His military character was “good”, he was “steady and well conducted” but the medical officer found him to be “pale, shaky, merry”. He “cannot stand any noises and complains of constant headaches” he wrote. His family history was “bad”.He was unsuitable for warfare.

Later he would remark: “I can take any amount of criticism as long as it is unqualified praise”. But that particular piece of criticism was probably very welcome.

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