Home Guard.

[wizz123]

I have just joine the group,and was just looking through,when l came across this forum.
Yesterday while chatting to a 93 year old relative that served during the second world war,he decided to show me a few things he still had.
One of these being a home guard hand book,on what to do ect,if an invasion occured,cannot remember the author,but it made me chuckle at some of the advice given,
Sorry if l seem to go on,but thought ld share this with you all.

WIZZ

[sapper]

Very serious at the time as I know having served in Southampton and Poole HG.
Sapper

[Gerry Chester]

Hi Wizz,

As Sapper states, for those of us who served with the Local Defence Volunteers, later renamed the Home Guard, it was a very serious business.
The North Irish Horse - By Gerry Chester

Cheers, Gerry

[wizz123]

l can understand,the seriousness behind the book and what the Home Guard did at the time.l was in noway trying to be demeening in what l wrote in my orignal thread.

WIZZ

[sapper]

Don't worry, a sense of humour takes care of everything. As Gerry started we ..started off as the LDV Local Defence Volunteers.

That was humorously described as LDV that stood for: Look, Duck, and Vanish.
But it was serious, the Home Guard trained and released the regular army from guarding important areas, as well as preparing to take on the enemy. Having seen a lot of action from Sword to the German border. I realise now... Fat chance they would have had!
Sapper

[Kitty]

Ah yes, the HG. Congleton battle simulation.

Captain: Okay chaps, who's for another go?
Private: I've been shot twice and killed once, but I'm game.

Bayonet practice. Private puts his bayonet through foot, prompting a drive in the Commanders Rolls to the hospital. Also official troop transport.

Laying dinner plates upside down on the road to simulate mines. Disguising pill boxes as haystacks. They were good blokes.

[von Poop]

Anyone know if there's a decent dedicated LDV/Home Guard museum? Lots have a section devoted to them but I was just wondering if there's anything more substantial out there.
Excellent Home Guard Website here, including clear copies of many manuals and such, still seems to be a little construction underway though..

Edit: Just adding the direct Url of the history pages as the front page may imply just the reenactment site that now shares it:
History of the Home Guard

[Kiwiwriter]

Today, it's remembered for the TV show, "Dad's Army," but they played an important role, even if they didn't go further than Pevensey or Leeds.

They were important during the Blitz, they did a lot of patrol and security work, reported planes, assisted in recovering shot-down or crashed airmen, and thus released a lot of other troops for battlefields across the world.

But I think the most important thing the Home Guard did was that it helped unite the British nation and people behind the war effort at a time when things were absolutely desperate. Sapper can testify to this better than I, but in the summer of 1940, the situation was worse than grim. Hitler was expected at any time, and he had conquered everything in his path. Britain was the last defense, and the British people were in the front line. The Home Guard helped end the "Phoney War" attitudes and made everybody part of the fight. It built morale, and I think that morale does win wars.

[Harry Ree]

Don't forget that a number died in service for their country.I know of a Home Guard Volunteer who lies in a local cemetery who was killed on duty during a river patrol at a time when the invasion was said to be imminent.I think he saw service in the First World War.

Four years later,his only child, a son was killed in RAF air operations over Germany and has no known grave.A holder of the DFC he was barely 21 years old and had been in the ATC from its inception to entering RAF service.He survived the Nuremburg raid in March 1944 only to lose his life,6 months later.

[ChrisM]

Originally Posted by wizz123

what to do etc, if an invasion occured

Wizz,

If you would like to see a contemporary description of the sort of things which were done in a typical Home Guard platoon to meet the threat - which as Sapper and Gerry have pointed out was regarded as very real indeed - this is quite an interesting article:
staffshomeguardP29

Chris