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Home Guard (United Kingdom)

The Home Guard (initially Local Defence Volunteers or LDV) was an armed citizen militia supporting the British Army during the Second World War. Operational from 1940 to 1944, the Home Guard had 1.5 million local volunteers otherwise ineligible for military service, such as those who were too young or too old to join the regular armed services (regular military service was restricted to those aged 18 to 41) and those in reserved occupations. Excluding those already in the armed services, the civilian police or civil defence, approximately one in five men were volunteers. Their role was to act as a secondary defence force in case of invasion by the forces of Nazi Germany.[1][2]

Home Guard
Initially "Local Defence Volunteers"

14 May 1940 – 3 December 1944

31 December 1945

Defence from invasion

The Home Guard were to try to slow down the advance of the enemy even by a few hours to give the regular troops time to regroup. They were also to defend key communication points and factories in rear areas against possible capture by paratroops or fifth columnists. A key purpose was to maintain control of the civilian population in the event of an invasion, to forestall panic and to prevent communication routes from being blocked by refugees to free the regular forces to fight the Germans. The Home Guard continued to man roadblocks and guard the coastal areas of the United Kingdom and other important places such as airfields, factories and explosives stores until late 1944, when they were stood down. They were finally disbanded on 31 December 1945, eight months after Germany's surrender.


Men aged 17 to 65 years could join, although the age limits were not strictly enforced. One platoon had a fourteen year old and three men in their eighties enrolled in it. Service was unpaid but gave a chance for older or inexperienced soldiers to support the war effort.

Background[edit]

Early ideas for a home defence force prior to the Second World War[edit]

The origins of the Second World War Home Guard can be traced to Captain Tom Wintringham, who returned from the Spanish Civil War and wrote a book entitled How to Reform the Army. In the book, as well as many regular army reforms, Wintringham called for the creation of 12 divisions similar in composition to that of the International Brigades, which had been formed in Spain during the conflict. The divisions would be raised by voluntary enlistment targeting ex-servicemen and youths.[3] Despite great interest by the War Office in the book's assertion that 'security is possible', Wintringham's call to train 100,000 men immediately was not implemented.

Fifth Column[edit]

The German invasion of Poland in September 1939 had been supported by prepared irregular units raised from ethnic German populations in western Poland. Linking with the Brandenburg Regiment, troops equipped to fight in the uniforms of their opponents or disguised as civilians. As the German armed services refused to countenance regular troops engaging in such clearly irregular tactics, the Brandenburgers in Poland served under the command of the Abwehr, German military intelligence. Counterpart tactics were employed in the spring of 1940 in support of the German invasions of Norway, Belgium and the Netherlands, but German success in those invasions was more substantially because of the use of paratroopers to seize and hold key defence points behind the front line and to prevent the defending forces from concentrating against the main German ground forces. British public opinion conflated the two tactics and concluded that the rapidity of the German victories in Norway, Belgium and the Netherlands had to be caused by German paratroops linking with a prepared 'fifth column' in each country of Nazi sympathisers and ethnic Germans.


Now that Britain might potentially face invasion, the British press speculated that the German Gestapo had already prepared two lists of British civilians: "The Black Book" of known anti-fascists and prominent Jews who would be rounded up following an invasion and 'The Red Book' of 'Nazi sympathisers' who would support the German invaders as a fifth column. The police and security services found themselves deluged with a mass of denunciations and accusations against suspected fifth columnists. General Ironside, Commander in Chief, Home Forces, was convinced that substantial landowners in the British fifth column had already prepared secret landing strips in South East England for the use of German airborne forces. The Imperial General Staff, spurred on by Churchill, pressed for widespread internment of Nazi- sympathisers.


The government's worst fears were briefly thought to have been confirmed on 20 May 1940. Tyler Kent, a cipher clerk in the US embassy spying for the Germans, was apprehended by MI5. Kent had in his possession a locked ledger of 235 names, which was the prewar membership records of the "Right Club", an anti-war and anti-Semitic association run by the Conservative MP Archibald Maule Ramsay. None of that was made public at the time, but there was widespread public demand that if the names in the 'Red Book' could be obtained by the Security Services, they should be supplied to local Home Guard units in the event of an invasion. Lord Swinton was ordered by Churchill to determine the true extent of the threat and to propose measures to deal with it. Lord Swinton's immediate response was that internment of British nationals with pro-German sympathies should be greatly extended, and Oswald Mosley and other leaders of the British Union of Fascists were interned on 21 May 1940, with some 700 other suspects.


However, following the loss at sea on 2 July 1940 of the SS Arandora Star, carrying German and Italian internees to Canada, the impracticalities and potential injustices of internment became more apparent, and the public understanding of the fifth column threat changed from being directed towards enemy nationals towards upper and upper-middle class Englishmen. Within a few weeks, the Security Services admitted that it had been unable to confirm any actual instance of organised fifth column activity or even any actual confirmed fifth columnist. Churchill, "with an impressive display of amnesia", asserted in the House of Commons at the end of August 1940 that he had always considered the fifth column threat to be exaggerated, and many of those detained were silently released. From then on, however, the primary official response to fears of fifth column activity was that the names of those for whom there was substantial grounds for suspicion would be added to the 'Invasion List' and that fifth column activity otherwise would be countered by the Home Guard.


There had been no active Fifth Column actually established by the Germans in Britain in 1940 although numbers of fascist sympathisers might have joined one had they been approached. Nevertheless, Home Guard volunteers continued to assume that a major part of their military role would be to apprehend potential fifth columnists, hunt down and kill any that might mobilise in support of an invasion and prevent their linking up with German paratroops.

Paratrooper defence[edit]

The use of German paratroopers in Rotterdam, where Fallschirmjäger landed in a football stadium and then hijacked private transport to make their way to the city centre, demonstrated that nowhere was safe. It was widely reported that the paratroops in the Netherlands had been assisted and guided by ethnic German servants in reaching their targets and that was reported as fact by the British ambassador. From July 1940, to counter the threat of an airborne assault, the Home Guard manned observation posts, where soldiers spent every night continuously watching the skies and were initially armed with shotguns but rapidly re-equipped with M1917 rifles.


Official British intelligence reports in 1940 gave credence to the belief that German paratroops routinely engaged in 'dirty tricks' by appearing in the uniforms of opposing forces or masquerading as civilians. Stray parachutists separated from their units were claimed to have feigned surrender to overpower and kill their captors with concealed weapons. In the first (unofficial) published Home Guard training manuals such warnings were re-enforced, with the advice that "the pretenders should be promptly and suitably dealt with" although otherwise official Home Guard guidance would avoid putting 'shoot to kill' orders in writing.


Following the German airborne capture of Crete in May 1941, further advice was rapidly disseminated throughout the Home Guard on defence against paratroops in the light of what was now learned about Fallschirmjäger tactics. In particular, it was noted that in German parachute drops, the paratroops themselves were armed only with a pistol and knife and for a period would be highly vulnerable until they had located and unpacked their separate dropped equipment containers. To disperse British regular forces around the country to provide rapid response cover for potential drop areas would severely deplete the main Home Defence order of battle, but that role appeared tailor-made for local Home Guard units and so throughout 1940 and 1941, defence against paratroops dominated much Home Guard thinking and training. Even after the immediate threat of an invasion had passed, Home Guard units associated with key industrial plants were provided with extra equipment, and Beaverette armoured cars, specifically to defend against possible paratroop raids.


To spread word in the event of an invasion, the Home Guard set up a relatively simple code to warn their compatriots. For instance, the word "Cromwell" indicated that a paratrooper invasion was imminent, and "Oliver" meant that the invasion had commenced. Additionally, the Home Guard arranged to use church bells as a call-to-arms for the rest of the LDV, which led to a series of complex rules governing who had keys to bell towers, and the ringing of church bells was forbidden at all other times.

Social impact[edit]

Anthony Eden summarised the raising and equipping of the British Home Guard during a debate in the House of Commons in November 1940, when he was Secretary of State for War: "No one will claim for the Home Guard that it is a miracle of organisation... but many would claim that it is a miracle of improvisation, and in that way it does express the particular genius of our people. If it has succeeded, as I think it has, it has been due to the spirit of the land and of the men in the Home Guard".[32]


General Sir John Burnett-Stuart, the commander of the 1st Aberdeen Battalion, commented that the Home Guard "was the outward and visible sign of the spirit of resistance".[25] The chief constable of Glasgow suggested that criminal elements joined the Home Guard to break, enter and loot during the blackout.[33]

Labour politician (Bromyard and Oxted Home Guard), pre-enlistment in RAF[43][44]

Tony Benn

Anglo-Irish soldier, journalist and author who wrote more than 40 books, mostly based on his experiences during World War I.

John Brophy

Urdu broadcaster and first director-general of Radio Pakistan (BBC Home Guard)[45]

Zulfiqar Ali Bukhari

GCMG, Diplomat, Ambassador to Chile, Argentina, and Spain during the Spanish Civil War[46]

Sir Henry Chilton

poet and later Poet Laureate of the United Kingdom (Musbury Home Guard)[47]

Cecil Day-Lewis

actor, singer-songwriter and comedian (Blackpool Home Guard, Corporal Despatch Rider)[48]

George Formby

actor notably in Dad's Army (Paddington Home Guard)

John Laurie

journalist and travel writer (Binsted platoon commander)[49]

H. V. Morton

writer (Oxford Home Guard)[50]

C. S. Lewis

children's author (captain in the Hartfield and Forest Row Home Guard)[51]

A. A. Milne

astronomer and broadcaster (East Grinstead Home Guard)[52]

Patrick Moore

Conservative politician and former Scotland rugby union football international (Palace of Westminster Home Guard), died during training at Westminster – the only MP to die on duty in the Home Guard.[53][54][55]

Patrick Munro

author and journalist (Sergeant, Greenwich Home Guard)[56]

George Orwell

scriptwriter, (Barnes and Watford Home Guard)[57]

Jimmy Perry

songwriter (Peacehaven Home Guard – committed suicide on duty)[58]

Felix Powell

another Dad's Army actor (Caterham Home Guard)[59]

Arnold Ridley

England rugby union international (Sergeant, Wibsey Home Guard)

Frank Whitcombe

Nazi Germany's planned invasion of Britain

Operation Sea Lion

a British "stay behind" undercover force of 1940

Auxiliary Units

Military history of the United Kingdom during World War II

the British voluntary home defence force of World War I

Volunteer Training Corps (World War I)

donated weapons, which went to the Home Guard.

The American Committee for the Defense of British Homes

International:

(1989). The Great Tank Scandal: British Armour in the Second World War - Part 1. HMSO. ISBN 978-0-11-290460-1.

Fletcher, David

Foster, Col. Rodney (2011). The Real Dad's Army (War diaries of a Home Guard officer). Viking.  978-0-670-91982-6.

ISBN

Clarke, D. M. (2011). (Thesis). Cranfield University.

Arming the British Home Guard, 1940–1944

British Re-Enactment Group

23rd Sussex Home Guard

The Home Guard

Stonehouse Home Guard – 1945

BBC History Home Guard pages

The Home Guard of Great Britain - a website covering the entire country but with particular emphasis on units in the West Midlands - Shropshire, Staffordshire, Warwickshire and Worcestershire

Photos and Memorabilia

The Humber Home Guard, Coventry

University of Manchester study.

Revealed: the real Dad's Army

Home Guard operating in Bures, Suffolk

Meldreth Home Guard: photographs and transcription of Home Guard diary

Meldreth Home Guard

(Newsreel). British Pathé. 20 May 1940. Archived from the original on 27 August 2011. Retrieved 8 March 2010.

Parashots Enrol – news item about volunteering for the LDV

(Newsreel). British Pathé. 1 August 1940. Archived from the original on 11 June 2011. Retrieved 8 March 2010. Home Guard inspected by General Sir Henry Parnall; procedure on seeing a parachutist. Fiery speech 'Your Motto is: kill the Boche!'

Britain's Citizen Army – news item about the duties of the Home Guard