British Home Guard

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.

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 upper age limit was not strictly enforced. Service was unpaid but gave a chance for older or inexperienced soldiers to support the war effort.

Background

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

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. 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.

Establishing a home defence force

When Britain declared war on Germany on 3 September 1939, debates began in official circles about the possible ways in which the German military might invade Britain. In the first week of the conflict, numerous diplomatic and intelligence reports seemed to indicate that there was the possibility of an imminent German amphibious assault.MacKenzie, S.P. (1995). ''The Home Guard: A Military and Political History.'' Oxford: Oxford University Press. 18-33. . Many government ministers and senior army officials, including the Commander in Chief Home Forces, General Walter Kirke, believed that the threat of invasion was greatly exaggerated and were sceptical, but others were not, including Winston Churchill, the new First Lord of the Admiralty.

Churchill argued that some form of home defence force should be raised from people who were ineligible to serve in the regular forces but wished to serve their country. In a letter to Samuel Hoare, the Lord Privy Seal, on 8 October 1939, Churchill called for a Home Guard force of 500,000 men over the age of 40 to be formed.

Early local grassroots formation of home defence forces

While government officials were debating the need for a home defence force, such a force was actually being formed without any official encouragement. In Essex, men not eligible for call-up into the armed forces were coming forward to join the self-styled "Legion of Frontiersmen". Officials were soon informed of the development of the legion, with the Adjutant-General, Sir Robert Gordon-Finlayson, arguing that the government should encourage the development of more unofficial organisations. The fear of invasion in 1939 quickly dissipated as it became evident that the German military was not in a position to launch an invasion of Britain; official enthusiasm for home defence forces waned and the legion appears to have dissolved itself at the same time.

The Battle of France began on 10 May 1940, with the Wehrmacht invading Belgium, the Netherlands and France. By 20 May, German forces had reached the English Channel, and on 28 May, the Belgian Army surrendered. The combination of the large-scale combined operations mounted by the Wehrmacht during the invasion of Norway in April and the prospect that much of the English Channel coast would soon be occupied made the prospect of a German invasion of the British Isles alarmingly real. Fears of an invasion grew rapidly, spurred on by reports both in the press and from official government bodies, of a fifth column operating in Britain that would aid an invasion by German airborne forces.

Increasing pressure on Government to form a home defence force

The government soon found itself under increasing pressure to extend the internment of suspect aliens to prevent the formation of a fifth column and to allow the population to take up arms to defend themselves against an invasion. Calls for some form of home defence force soon began to be heard from the press and from private individuals. The press baron Lord Kemsley privately proposed to the War Office that rifle clubs form the nucleus of a home defence force, and Josiah Wedgwood, a Labour MP, wrote to the prime minister asking that the entire adult population be trained in the use of arms and given weapons to defend themselves. Similar calls appeared in newspaper columns: in the 12 May issue of the ''Sunday Express'', a brigadier called on the government to issue free arms licences and permits to buy ammunition to men possessing small arms, and the same day, the ''Sunday Pictorial'' asked if the government had considered training golfers in rifle shooting to eliminate stray parachutists.

The calls alarmed government and senior military officials, who worried about the prospect of the population forming private defence forces that the army would not be able to control, and in mid-May, the Home Office issued a press release on the matter. It was the task of the army to deal with enemy parachutists, as any civilians who carried weapons and fired on German troops were likely to be executed if captured. Moreover, any lone parachutist descending from the skies in the summer of 1940 was far more likely to be a downed RAF airman than a German ''Fallschirmjäger''.

Nevertheless, private defence forces soon began to be formed throughout the country, often sponsored by employers seeking to bolster defence of their factories. This placed the government in an awkward position. The private forces, which the army might not be able to control, could well inhibit the army's efforts during an invasion, but to ignore the calls for a home defence force to be set up would be politically problematic. An officially-sponsored home defence force would allow the government greater control and also allow for greater security around vulnerable areas such as munitions factories and airfields; but there was some confusion over who would form and control the force, with separate plans drawn up by the War Office and General Headquarters Home Forces under General Kirke.

The government and senior military officials rapidly compared plans and, by 13 May 1940, worked out an improvised plan for a home defence force, to be called the Local Defence Volunteers (LDV). The rush to complete a plan and announce it to the public had led to a number of administrative and logistical problems, such as how the volunteers in the new force would be armed, which caused problems as the force evolved. On the evening of 14 May 1940, Secretary of State for War Anthony Eden gave a radio broadcast announcing the formation of the LDV and calling for volunteers to join the force: "You will not be paid, but you will receive a uniform and will be armed."

Official recognition and enlistment

In the official radio announcement, Eden called on men between the ages of 17 and 65 years in Britain who were not in military service but wished to defend their country against an invasion to enroll in the LDV at their local police station.Summerfield, Penny and Corinna Peniston-Bird. ''Contesting Home Defence: Men, Women and the Home Guard in the Second World War.'' Manchester: Manchester University Press, 2007. 26-27. . It was anticipated that up to 500,000 men might volunteer, a number that conformed generally with the Army's expectation of the total numbers required to fulfill the LDV's expected functions. However, the announcement was met with much enthusiasm: 250,000 volunteers tried to sign up in the first seven days, and by July this had increased to 1.5 million. Social groups such as cricket clubs began forming their own units, but the bulk were workplace-based, especially as co-operation from employers was necessary to ensure that volunteers would be available for training and operational patrols. Indeed, many employers envisaged the LDV units primarily as protecting industrial plants from fifth column attack.

Women and the Home Guard

The Home Guard did not initially admit women to its ranks. Some women formed their own groups like the Amazon Defence Corps. In December 1941, a more organised but still unofficial Women's Home Defence (WHD) was formed under the direction of Dr Edith Summerskill, Labour MP for Fulham West. WHD members were given weapons training and basic military training. Limited female involvement was permitted later, on the understanding that these would be in traditional female support roles (e.g. clerical, driving) and not in any way seen as combatants.

Logistics and practical support issues

The War Office continued to lay down the administrative and logistical foundations for the LDV organisation.MacKenzie, S.P. (1995). ''The Home Guard: A Military and Political History.'' Oxford: Oxford University Press. 34-49. . Eden's public words were generally interpreted as an explicit promise to provide everyone who volunteered with a personal firearm. In retrospect, it was recognised that recruitment would have been better limited to the numbers required (and capable of being armed), with later volunteers given places on a waiting list. However, once volunteers had been enlisted, it was considered impossible from a public relations perspective to then dismiss them. Nevertheless, the regular forces saw no priority in providing more arms and equipment to the new force than would have been needed had numbers been properly constrained in the first place.

In telegrams to the lord lieutenants of each county it was explained that LDV units would operate in predefined military areas already used by the regular army, with a General Staff Officer coordinating with civilian regional commissioners to divide these areas into smaller zones. In London this was organised on the basis of police districts. On 17 May, the LDV achieved official legal status when the Privy Council issued the ''Defence (Local Defence Volunteers) Order in Council'', and orders were issued from the War Office to regular army headquarters throughout Britain explaining the status of LDV units; volunteers would be divided into sections, platoons and companies but would not be paid and leaders of units would not hold commissions or have the power to command regular forces.

Implementation of the legislation proved to be extremely difficult, particularly as the primary focus of the War Office and General Headquarters Home Forces was on Operation Dynamo, the evacuation of the British Expeditionary Force from Dunkirk

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