I remember this song from my father, who was with the 12th Royal Lancers in Eighth Army through North Africa, and then in Italy. I clearly recall him singing the verses Clifton noted, probably from around the mid fifties onwards, and I'm pretty sure he meant every syllable. As his interest in "Folk" music was negligible, being from the music-hall, Harry Lauder, and ITMA generation, with the idea that Andy Stewart was Scotland's answer to Elvis Presley, he would have seen the song from a participant's viewpoint. He may have agreed with the extra verses Jim Dixon has noted, but it's fairly certain they seem to be tacked on to the original three/four verses afterwards, as part of the "Folk Process" by various people with their own personal axes to grind or messages to get across.

As a point of interest, my father never sang D Day Dodgers as a funny song with a sad verse, but as a trenchant comment on how the people doing the real work saw the upper crust and loud mouths with the soft jobs. And that's how it was generated - by the troops. Hamish henderson probably certainly collected it, but it's my bet it was produced originally by some squaddie and his mates as a bit of purely local comment which caught the imagination of the army who really did feel upset by Lady Astor's comments in the House, and it spread. The real start to any "Folk" song.