The Home Guard
The Home Guard

Author: Neil R. Storey

Publisher: Shire Publications

Published: 2010-01-19

Total Pages: 56

ISBN-13: 9780747807513

DOWNLOAD EBOOK

During the uncertain early months of World War 2, many feared that it was only a short time before an attempt would be made to invade a woefully undefended British mainland. What became Home Guard was formed in February 1940 to help defend Britain's shores from attack, initially just in Dover, but, after the beginning of Hitler's Blitzkrieg, all over Britain. Originally called the Local Defence Volunteers, this army of men, drawn from those too old and too young to enlist in the regular army were equipped with uniforms, equipment and the know-how to repel the invader-at least such was the goal. Huge numbers volunteered and by midsummer 1940 1.5 million men had been recruited. They were promised uniforms, weapons and training, but at first weapons were in short supply, the Home Guard becoming well known for its old, worn weapons shared by many men at best, and pitchforks and shotguns at worst. Training and equipment later improved, but the image of the Home Guard as an ill-equipped force persisted and was affectionately mocked in the BBC's 'Dad's Army' which has turned the Home Guard into legend. This concise history of the LDV and Home Guard is illustrated throughout with photographs and ephemera, and includes the '202' battalions - 'Churchill's Secret Army' which received special covert training to lead resistance had the German army succeeded in invading the British mainland.

Contesting home defence
Contesting home defence

Author: Penny Summerfield

Publisher: Manchester University Press

Published: 2013-07-19

Total Pages: 328

ISBN-13: 1847791549

DOWNLOAD EBOOK

Contesting home defence is a new history of the Home Guard, a novel national defence force of the Second World War composed of civilians who served as part-time soldiers: it questions accounts of the force and the war, which have seen them as symbols of national unity. It scrutinises the Home Guard’s reputation and explores whether this ‘people’s army’ was a site of social cohesion or of dissension by assessing the competing claims made for it at the time. It then examines the way it was represented during the war and has been since, notably in Dad’s Army, and discusses the memories of men and women who served in it. The book makes a significant and original contribution to debates concerning the British home front and introduces fresh ways of understanding the Second World War.

The Home Guard
The Home Guard

Author: S. P. Mackenzie

Publisher: Oxford University Press, USA

Published: 1996

Total Pages: 0

ISBN-13: 9780192853318

DOWNLOAD EBOOK

The extraordinarily popular British television program "Dad's Army" suggests that Britain's Home Guard during the Second World War was home to charming incompetence and lighthearted buffoonery. In 1940, however, the threat of a German invasion of Britain appeared very real. S. P. MacKenzie's detailed and readable history of the Home Guard offers a new perspective on the men who took up the challenge. Despite its popular image of old men and teenagers playing soldiers, the Home Guard, often as large as the wartime army, became an astonishingly strong political force in its own right. Quite literally the people in arms, it proved able to exert a good deal of influence on policy. The Home Guard was never called upon to fulfil its military role, though there was a brief attempt to resurrect it in the 1950s. Since then it has been largely neglected by military historians and there have been few serious examinations of the part it played in the Home Front. This book fills that gap.

The American Home Guard
The American Home Guard

Author: Barry M. Stentiford

Publisher: Texas A&M University Press

Published: 2002

Total Pages: 340

ISBN-13: 9781585441815

DOWNLOAD EBOOK

Since colonial times Americans have used the militia to maintain local order during both war and peacetime. States have intermittently created, maintained, deployed, and disbanded countless militia organizations outside the scope of the better-known National Guard. Barry M. Stentiford tells the story of these militia units--variously called home guards, State Guard, National Guard Reserve, and State Defense Forces. Stentiford traces the evolution of the militia over the past century, demonstrating its transformation from an amalgamation of state militia units into the National Guard, a reserve of the army. Ironically, the very existence of the National Guard made the creation of other militia forces necessary during periods of war. The home guards or State Guard were organized to fill the vacuum left when the National Guard was called up, depriving states of an organized militia that could be mobilized for repelling invasions, suppressing riots, controlling strikes, or guarding the waterfront. Stentiford carefully analyzes the challenges that faced the State Guards as states sought to build their new militia with leftover men and material. He also examines the role of the State Guard: providing relief during and after natural disasters, providing military training for future draftees, and broadening participation in military units during wartime by giving a role to men who, because of their age or occupation, could not join the federal forces. The State Guard gained a new significance in the Cold War, especially as the political unpalatability of a draft and reductions in the size of the full-time military expanded the functions of the National Guard in military policy. Today modern state militias, born to an ancient tradition, must define a role for themselves in a society that increasingly views them as anachronistic. They mut also compete ideologically with so-called unorganized militias for the title of true heir to the American militia tradition.

We Remember the Home Guard
We Remember the Home Guard

Author: Frank Shaw

Publisher: Random House

Published: 2012-05-10

Total Pages: 388

ISBN-13: 1448147565

DOWNLOAD EBOOK

'I remember standing on top of our local glen with a block of wood, expecting thousands of Germans coming down from the sky. What was I going to do with the block of wood? I never knew.' Leonard Jackson On 22 June 1940 France surrendered to Germany and the invasion of Britain seemed a very real possibility. The Home Guard was formed to defend our villages and towns. Members came from reserved occupations, those who had failed their medicals, the elderly and the young, with miners and farmers training alongside former majors. Their weapons and ammunition were negligible at first, but slowly these amateur soldiers began to produce professional results. In this unique book of reminiscenses about life on the home front, we see these men as they practise with pitchforks and fall into ditches after a pint or two of ale on the job. But we also see them learning how to fire grenades after a day studying engineering and undertaking night watches after exhausting factory shifts - knowing they could be the last stop between the enemy and their families and homes.

The British Home Guard Pocketbook
The British Home Guard Pocketbook

Author: A.F.U. Green

Publisher: Bloomsbury Publishing

Published: 2018-03-22

Total Pages: 218

ISBN-13: 1472835573

DOWNLOAD EBOOK

'The Home Guards are an attacking force lying in wait for, and ready to destroy, any enemy who dares to set foot on out shores.' The Home Guard has been immortalised in British culture in the TV series Dad's Army. Formed by men not eligible for active service – too old, too young, in reserved occupations vital to the war effort – who were expected to resist a German invasion with any resources they had to hand, the Home Guard is the embodiment of plucky British resolve against the odds. The British Home Guard Pocket-Book evokes this spirit. Written by Brig-Gen Green, commanding 4th battalion, Sussex Home Guard and Training Adviser for the Sussex Zone, this book is based on his experience and, in his own words, 'is the result of my ransacking the dusty pigeon-holes of memory and the condensation of many books, official instructions and writings'. Its tone is informal and colloquial: 'March discipline. Troops will always march off the parade ground at the Slope. As soon as this has been done the order "March at Ease" should be given. When marching at ease the rifle may be carried in any way a soldier fancies.' Nevertheless, the book is full of sound advice on training, organisation and discipline, fire arms, reconnaissance and field engineering, the responsibilities of the Group Pigeon Officer, the proper position to adopt for surviving a dive bomb attack, and how to set a trap for an unwary advancing German cyclist!

The Home Guard
The Home Guard

Author: David Carroll

Publisher:

Published: 1999

Total Pages: 136

ISBN-13:

DOWNLOAD EBOOK

A text which uses over 200 photographs to bring to life the Home Guard during a unique period in British history. The images recall the activities of the auxiliary force otherwise known as 'Dad's Arm'. The book draws on the early days of the Local Defence Volunteers from the moment when Anthony Eden broadcast an appeal, to the official stand-down of the Home Guard n 1944. This title evokes memories of World War II in a domestic setting and asserts life on the Home Front from the perspective of those left behind to defend it.

In Search of the Real Dad’s Army
In Search of the Real Dad’s Army

Author: Stephen Cullen

Publisher: Pen and Sword

Published: 2012-02-29

Total Pages: 257

ISBN-13: 1848842694

DOWNLOAD EBOOK

What was the Home Guard? Who were the men and women who served in it? And what can be said of their real role and significance once the popular myths have been stripped away? Despite the fame of the Home Guard – of Dad’s Army – the true story of this wartime organization tends to be neglected. The myths obscure the reality. Stephen Cullen’s aim in this thoroughgoing new study is to cut through the misunderstandings in order to reassess the Home Guard and its contribution to Britain’s war effort – and to deepen our understanding of the men and women who were members of it. He sets the Home Guard in the long historical context of domestic defense planning, then focuses on the preparations made before the outbreak of the Second World War. In detail he traces the changing role of the Home Guard during its wartime existence as it adapted to meet the multitude of challenges it faced – from civil defense and intelligence gathering to training for guerrilla warfare. Using vivid eyewitness testimony and oral history, he takes a grassroots look at the men - and women – from all ages and social backgrounds who made up this national defense force. The equipment, uniforms, weapons and vehicles they used and the field defenses they manned are described as their role developed over the course of the war. He also examines the evolution of popular views of the Home Guard from wartime days to the present – the notion of the People’s Army, the thinking of early Home Guard commentators like George Orwell, and the writings of more recent historians who have sought to explain an organization that retains such an extraordinary hold on the popular imagination.

Hitler's Home Guard: Volkssturmmann
Hitler's Home Guard: Volkssturmmann

Author: David Yelton

Publisher: Osprey Publishing

Published: 2006-09-26

Total Pages: 0

ISBN-13: 9781846030130

DOWNLOAD EBOOK

Osprey's study of Germany's Home Guard during the latter part of World War II (1939-1945). The creation of the German Home Guard or Volkssturm on 18 October 1944 was a desperate measure by the Nazi regime to utilize every available manpower resource in their last-ditch attempts to delay their inevitable defeat. All able-bodied males between the ages of 16 and 60 who were not already members of the German Armed Forces were conscripted into one organization. The aim of the Volkssturm was to shore up the defense of the Reich, but also to restrict any possible revolt or dissent by exercising military discipline over the entire male population of fighting age. This Nazi fantasy was the creation of a new force of highly-motivated Aryans dedicated to the heroic defense of their fatherland. However, the Volkssturm failed due to poor equipment, lack of training, and low morale. Men who had no experience of combat and little or no inclination to fight, and who had little interest in the Nazi regime found themselves sent into battle against impossible odds and achieving little or nothing. The focus of the book is the section of Germany's western front where the Volkssturm fought in vain to slow the advance of Canadian forces and where the desertion rate was very high. David K. Yelton follows the experience of a Volkssturm conscript from his call-to-arms, into action and through to his capture and time as a POW, examining his personal reaction to the creation of the German Home Guard and his response to the fighting into which he was thrust.