Dad's Army: The Home Guard 1940-1944

by David Carroll, David L. Carroll

Overview

Immortalised by 'Dad's Army' - this is the true story of the men who manned the British frontline.

Product Details

ISBN-13:	9780752499895
Publisher:	The History Press
Publication date:	03/30/2009
Sold by:	Barnes & Noble
Format:	eBook
Pages:	120
File size:	615 KB
Age Range:	18 Years

About the Author

David Carroll is a freelance writer historian and the author of Burns Country.

Read an Excerpt

Dad's Army

The Home Guard 1940â"1944

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By David Carroll

The History Press

Copyright © 2013 David Carroll
All rights reserved.
ISBN: 978-0-7524-9989-5

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CHAPTER 1

ALEXANDER'S RAG-TIME ARMY?

There is an affecting little song which has proved to be extremely popular in recent years and whose laconic opening line proclaims that '... it started with a kiss'. Well, needless to say, the Home Guard did not begin in that way at all, although its origins were arguably almost as spontaneous; barely more than a brief flurry of hastily-convened meetings held at the War Office during that warm, unique and – for anyone who lived through it – never to be forgotten spring of 1940. It was a time, of course, when Britain lay vulnerable, seemingly defenceless and dauntingly ripe for the taking by Hitler's massive War Machine. By this time, after all, the German army had already occupied Austria and Czechoslovakia; Poland, Holland and Belgium had suffered the same fate and, with the imminent surrender of France, the narrow English Channel would be all that separated Britain from the unthinkable prospect of Nazi domination.

The Ministry of Information, in co-operation with the War Office, issued a leaflet entitled 'If the Invader Comes ...', which listed a series of rules for the civilian population at home to follow should they wake up one morning to find the enemy at their door.

1. If the Germans come by parachute, aeroplane or ship, you must remain where you are.

2. Do not believe rumours and do not spread them.

3. Keep watch. If you see anything suspicious, note it carefully and go at once to the nearest police officer or station.

4. Do not give the German anything.

Do not tell him anything.

Hide your food and your bicycles.

Hide your maps.

See that the enemy gets no petrol.

5.Think before you act. BUT THINK ALWAYS OF YOUR COUNTRY BEFORE YOU THINK OF YOURSELF.

No one who read these stark instructions could fail to realise the gravity of Britain's position. C.H. Rolph, who was (among other things) a journalist and broadcaster, recalled 'that desperate document, which should have been so frightening but which no one remembers', in his memoirs Further Particulars. 'It may be that I remember it because I saw some parcels of these messages of controlled panic stacked in our City ARP office – the leaflets were to be delivered by hand, not by post. The bundles had been piled, temporarily and untidily, in an ill-chosen corner near a much-used door, and someone accidentally sent them spinning across the floor. Two parcels burst open, and anyone with a fanciful mind could have seen it as an omen.'

On the evening of 14 May, in the light of the ever-worsening situation at home, and with the widespread fear that an invasion was possible almost by the hour, the newly-appointed War Minister Anthony Eden made a BBC broadcast that was to have an enormous impact on many of those people listening. It would also lead very swiftly to the creation of the largest civilian army that this country had ever gathered together. It is not hard to picture the scene – in that pre-television age – as families throughout the land huddled around their wireless sets to hear what the speech contained. Holland had surrendered on that same day, France would follow suit a month later and the Dunkirk evacuation was imminent. These were truly some of Britain's darkest hours and, at 9.10 p.m., after the routine news bulletin had been read by the BBC announcer Frank Phillips, the microphone was handed over to Mr Eden, whose voice came over the air-waves, piercing the metaphorical gloom.

In view of the grave national situation, listeners must have wondered what on earth was coming but, quite unknown to the general public, the Under-Secretary of State at the Home Office had sent earlier in the day two telegrams to Chief Constables throughout the country preparing the police force for the War Minister's announcement. 'Since the war began,' Eden explained, 'the Government have received countless enquiries from all over the kingdom from men of all ages, who are for one reason or another not at present engaged in military service and who wish to do something for the defence of their country. Well, here is your opportunity. We want large numbers of such men in Great Britain, who are British subjects, between the ages of seventeen and sixty-five, to come forward now and offer their services. ... The name of the new force which is now to be raised will be the Local Defence Volunteers. This name describes its duties in three words. ... You will not be paid but you will receive a uniform and you will be armed. ... In order to volunteer, what you have to do is to give in your name at your local police station; and then, as and when we want you, we will let you know. ... Here, then, is the opportunity for which so many of you have been waiting. Your loyal help, added to the arrangements which already exist, will make and keep our country safe.'

Whitehall issued a statement on the subject simultaneously with Eden's broadcast. Volunteers should be '... men of reasonable physical fitness and with a knowledge of firearms', it read. 'The need is greatest in small towns, villages and less densely populated areas. The duties of the force can be undertaken in a volunteer's spare time....'

Of course, civilian armies of this kind were by no means a new concept. Indeed, they had a distinguished pedigree, as Major E.A. Mackay in his History of the Wiltshire Home Guard (1946) so eloquently pointed out. 'The trained bands of Elizabeth; the Somerset men raised against Monmouth; the Fencibles of the North; the Militia and Yeomanry and the Loyal Corps of Infantry of the South, raised to repel the invasion of Bonaparte; the National Reserve of the last Great War, and now the Home Guard. Truly a wonderful cavalcade. Stout hearts determined to defend their beloved [country] to their last breath....'

Although Eden's speech undoubtedly came as a great surprise to nearly everyone who heard it on the evening of 14 May, there had nevertheless been a growing desire among people up and down the country who were not directly engaged in the war for the opportunity to provide some form of localised defence in the event of an invasion. This impulse manifested itself in a variety of ways, but is perhaps best illustrated in the highly organised and colourful example of the well documented Much Marcle Watchers, whose existence was recorded by Charles Graves in The Home Guard of Britain (1943): 'It was a bright spring afternoon of March 1940 that a lady had called at the Battalion Headquarters of the KSLI stationed at Ross-on-Wye. She ... said she was alarmed at the possibility of German parachute troops landing in the thinly populated areas of Herefordshire and the Welsh Border. She had therefore organised her staff and tenantry, to the number of eighty, into bands of watchers, whom she had stationed on the high ground in the vicinity of the ancestral home at Much Marcle. These men went on duty each night and everyone had a white arm-band stencilled "Much Marcle Watchers". She asked for the loan of eighty rifles and some ammunition, "with a couple of machine guns if you have any.'" Needless to say, the Battalion Commander turned down her request, but there is no doubt that she embodied the spirit of the times. 'There, two months before the LDV were born,' commented Graves, 'was the first Home Guard complete with watchers, brassards, organisation, even to lack of arms.'

The response to Eden's broadcast was both immediate and overwhelming, and queues began forming at police stations almost before the War Minister had finished speaking. Bertram Miller of Ilford, Essex, who had been a sergeant in the Royal Engineers during the First World War, was among the earliest volunteers to enrol. 'At the end of the appeal I rose from my chair and reached for my jacket that was hanging behind the door. ... I made my way to Ilford Police Station, thinking I might be the first person to offer his services in my locality, but on arrival I found that I had just been beaten by a Mr Jack Louis. The police were surprised as they had not received any official instructions. However, they got busy on the telephone and eventually took our names and addresses. Shortly afterwards we received a letter asking us to report to a temporary headquarters in Cranbrook Road, Ilford, where we met our new Commanding Officer. ... We were split into groups or sections of twelve who were living fairly close together....'

Ron Yates listened to the broadcast at home in Preston. 'I went along to Earl Street Central Police Station that same evening after convincing my mother that it was my duty, especially as I was in a reserved occupation on skilled war work. I must have been the eighty-sixth volunteer there that evening in Preston, for that was the number with which I was issued.'

In Monmouthshire, too, as Captain Warren Jenkins explained in his history of the 6th Battalion Monmouthshire Home Guard, the response '... was truly staggering. The police stations, drill halls and, at Rhymney, the Brewery Offices, that had been temporarily converted into Recruiting Stations for the new army, were beseiged. During that night and throughout the succeeding days and nights harassed police officials, backed by volunteers, strove valiantly to enrol, tabulate and, as far as was humanly possible, advise members as to future action. Overnight an army was born, a people's army, a child of the people. No shrinking infant, but a vigorous and decidedly healthy child....'

The obvious sense of relief that many men felt now that there was something tangible they could do to help fend off a possible invasion, was captured by George Beardmore in his wartime diary (published in 1984 under the title Civilians at War). He lived in Harrow and worked as a clerk at Broadcasting House in the heart of London. 'Dreadful, unthinkable visions enter my head of what would happen if [Germany] won and crossed the Channel. Mentally I have already sent [my wife and baby daughter] to Canada, and seen Harrow bombed, and parachutists seize Broadcasting House. The imagination makes these fantastic notions so real, but of course they are purely mischievous. To counter them, we heard the new War Minister last night appeal for Local Defence Volunteers to deal with parachutists. That at least is something I can do....'

Despite the two telegrams despatched to Chief Constables by the Under-Secretary of State at the Home Office, some sections of the police force seemed to be remarkably ill-informed of the situation in the immediate wake of Eden's broadcast. Alan Lawrie was another of the earliest volunteers. He went along with a friend to enrol at the police station in Cambridge on the morning of 15 May. 'The sergeant knew nothing of the Local Defence Volunteers. ... However, he took our names and recorded them on the back of an envelope!'

Meanwhile, in Sussex early the same day the novelist and biographer Ernest Raymond was equally swift to answer the call. '... I confess I expected some praise for this promptitude. ... It was not forthcoming. The uniformed policeman behind his desk sighed as he said "We can take your name and address, that's all." A detective-inspector in mufti, whom I knew, explained this absence of fervour. "You're about the hundred and fiftieth who's come in so far, Mr Raymond, and it's not yet half-past nine. Ten per cent of 'em may be some use to Mr Eden but, lor' luv-a-duck, we've had 'em stumping in more or less on crutches. One old codger who we knew for a cert is seventy-odd came in and swore he was sixty-one. I said "Make it sixty-two, Charlie," but he said, "No, sixty-one. Last birthday." And the kids! Gawd-aw'mighty, we've had 'em coming in and swearing they were seventeen last March. We've taken their names but, Gawd's truth, this is going to be Alexander's rag-time army"....'

Although, during the course of his broadcast, Eden had emphasised (by repeating several times) the age-range for those men who were eligible to enrol as Local Defence Volunteers, many – some no more than boys and others approaching their second childhood – simply ignored that stipulation and enrolled anyway, in a desperate bid for the welcome opportunity to 'do their bit'. Given that within a day or so of the War Minister's appeal nearly a quarter of a million men had signed up for service in the new civilian army it was hardly surprising that, for a dauntingly overstretched police force, the verification of potential volunteers' ages was something of a hit or miss affair. Sixteen year-old Norman Ford was a schoolboy in Bournemouth. 'I was an evacuee in a seaside town which could well have been a landing place for Hitler's invading army. ... Most of the group I associated with could hardly wait to join the new force, not so much to die for our island home but to combat the humiliation of looking old enough to serve while being treated like children and compelled to wear a school cap at all times. ... So, when Eden's call came we did not seek official permission but enrolled next day at Boscombe drill-hall. No one questioned our ages. We were immediately accepted without reference to school or parents.'

Philip Longes enrolled at Surbiton, but his introduction to the LDV came about in a slightly different way. 'I was taking my usual evening stroll with my wife. ... As we rounded the corner of a road and came to a stretch of open country consisting of a sports and recreation ground, a small procession hove into sight. It consisted of half a dozen men clad in a motley assortment of garments: old flannel trousers, gardening clothes, old mackintoshes. ... One of the men in the procession [made] his way towards us. ... He wanted to know if I lived locally, whether I was doing anything in the national effort and finally whether I would care to join his platoon of Local Defence Volunteers. He told me to give the matter my earnest consideration and, if I [decided] to join he would make arrangements for me to [be enrolled]. ... The next evening I presented myself at the sports pavilion, which I found was the HQ of the local (Surbiton) company of the LDV, and I was duly taken by car with three other recruits to the Police Station to be sworn in....'

No one could have possibly predicted the extent to which War Minister Eden's appeal for men to form a new civilian army to help defend the Home Front would catch the public imagination. One observer in Abingdon (then the county town of Berkshire but now in Oxfordshire) described what happened there. 'Men of all shapes and sizes literally flocked in. Veterans of the [last] war, considered too old for this one, ever eager to show there was "life in the old dog yet", and the middle-aged whose civilian occupation was of a character essential to the war effort, and lads of seventeen who were sure they could "put up a good show". The most elastic interpretation was put on the condition of "reasonable physical fitness".'

In the nearby village of Fyfield some of the 'regulars' at the White Hart Inn decided to take prompt action. 'A few of us were having a drink and discussing the war ... when Mr Eden's call came for Local Defence Volunteers to defend Britain,' explained one of the pub's denizens. 'That night ... after some talk it was decided to form a Fyfield and Tubney [a neighbouring village] platoon of the LDV ... It was fixed for a police sergeant from Cumnor to come to the White Hart and enrol members. A good number were enrolled and some time later formally sworn-in at Tubney School by Captain Cheshire, who was in charge of the [local] area.'

Everywhere in the country the reaction was the same. The War Minister had exactly caught the mood of the times and men up and down the land – those too old or too young for active service, and others of all ages who were in reserved occupations and therefore prevented from joining the Regular Forces – were more than eager to take up the opportunity that Eden had offered them. No wonder, then, that supplies of hastily-prepared enrolment forms soon proved to be inadequate, and that volunteers found themselves signing their names on odd slips of paper and the backs of envelopes. Just over four and a half years later, when the story of the Home Guard reached its wartime conclusion, King George VI, in a valedictory broadcast to members of the force, summed up those first chaotic days perfectly. 'Throughout Britain and Northern Ireland the nation answered [the] summons, as free men will always answer when freedom is in danger. From fields and hills, from factories and mills, from shops and offices, men of every age and calling came forward to train themselves for battle....'

Couching the same sentiment in slightly different terms, a patriotic Christmas card that was in circulation at the end of 1940 bore the following (entirely unseasonal) doggerel verse:

The man who owns a mansion
The chap who keeps a pub
The tradesman, the mechanic
The veteran, the cub
The black coat office worker
The toiler on the land
And every other sort of bloke
Has come to lend a hand.

CHAPTER 2

LOOK, DUCK AND VANISH

In the late spring of 1940, having observed the form of warfare that had been so successfully employed in Holland, Belgium and elsewhere in occupied Europe, the Government felt there was a real threat that German troops might be dropped in the remoter areas of Britain by parachute. The popular perception was that these invaders would land in disguise; dressed as policemen, perhaps, or air-raid wardens. Imagination ran riot, and people half expected to see Nazi paratroopers dropping from the sky kitted out even as nuns and choir boys! In his BBC broadcast of 14 May, Eden had outlined the purpose and consequences of these clandestine tactics. 'The troops are specially armed, equipped, and some of them have undergone specialised training. Their function is to seize important points such as aerodromes, power stations, villages, railway junctions and telephone exchanges – either for the purpose of destroying them at once or of holding them until the arrival of reinforcements. The purpose of the parachute attack is to disorganise and confuse, as a preparation for the landing of troops by aircraft.'

(Continues...)

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Excerpted from Dad's Army by David Carroll. Copyright © 2013 David Carroll. Excerpted by permission of The History Press.
All rights reserved. No part of this excerpt may be reproduced or reprinted without permission in writing from the publisher.
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Table of Contents

Contents

Acknowledgements,
Foreword,
1 Alexander's Rag-Time Army?,
2 Look, Duck and Vanish,
3 All the Bells in Paradise,
4 Playing at Soldiers?,
5 Arms and the Men,
6 Shoot Them Down Yourself,
7 Dad's Diverse Army,
8 Dad's Daughter's Army,
9 Dad's 'Secret Army',
10 Last Orders,
11 Time, Gentlemen, Please – A Postscript,
Bibliography,