Home Guard (United Kingdom)

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 launch an invasion of 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.[4] 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.[4]

Churchill argued that some form of home defence force should be raised from members of the population who were ineligible to serve in the regular forces but wished to serve their country. In a letter he wrote 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.[4]

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.[4] 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.[4]

A member of a Montgomeryshire Home Guard unit in 1941

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.[4] 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, and placed the government in an awkward position. The private forces, which the army might not be able to control, could well inhibit efforts of the army during an invasion, but to ignore the calls for a home defence force to be set up would be politically problematic.[4] 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.[4]

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 Local Defence Volunteers (LDV) and calling for volunteers to join the force: "You will not be paid, but you will receive a uniform and will be armed".[4]

Logistics and practical support issues

Lieutenant Percy Reginald Tucker Bermuda Home Guard (with the cap badge of the Bermuda Volunteer Rifle Corps)

The War Office continued to lay down the administrative and logistical foundations for the LDV organisation.[8] 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.[8] 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.[8]

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 between 27 May and 4 June 1940.[8] The apparent lack of focus led to many LDV members becoming impatient, particularly when it was announced that volunteers would receive only armbands printed with 'L.D.V.' on them until proper uniforms could be manufactured, and there was no mention of weapons being issued to units. The impatience led to many units conducting their own patrols without official permission, often led by men who had previously served in the armed forces.[8]

The presence of many veterans and the appointment of ex-officers as commanders of LDV units, only worsened the situation, with many believing that they did not require training before being issued weapons. That led to numerous complaints being received by the War Office and the press and to many ex-senior officers attempting to use their influence to obtain weapons or permission to begin patrolling.[8] The issue of weapons to LDV units was particularly problematic for the War Office, as it was recognised that the rearming and reequipping of the regular forces would have to take precedence over the LDV. All civilian firearms, especially shotguns and pistols, previously were to have been handed in to local police stations, and volunteers were allowed often by the police to retrieve these for their LDV duties. In rural areas, volunteer shotgun users initially organised themselves into vigilante groups, dubbed 'the parashots' by the press, to watch the early morning skies for German parachutists.

For public (and enemy) consumption, the government maintained that large stocks of Lee-Enfield rifles remained from the First World War, but the actual total reserve stockpile amounted to 300,000, and they had already been earmarked for the expansion of the army by 122 infantry battalions. Instead, the War Office issued instructions on how to make Molotov cocktails and emergency orders were placed for Ross rifles from Canada.[8] In the absence of proper weapons, local units improvised weapons, especially grenades, mortars and grenade projectors, from whatever came to hand, and the legacy of self-reliant improvisation in the face of what was interpreted as official disregard and obstruction was to remain as a characteristic of the Home Guard throughout its existence.

By the end of 1940, the Home Guard was established into 1,200 battalions, 5,000 companies and 25,000 platoons.[11] For its primary defensive role, each section was trained and equipped to operate as a single, largely independent 'battle platoon', with an operational establishment of between 25 and 30 men at any one time although, as volunteers would also have full-time jobs, the numbers of volunteers in each section would be around twice that establishment. In the event of an invasion, the Home Guard battle platoons in a town would be under the overall control of an Army military commander and maintain contact with that commander with a designated 'runner' (no Home Guard units were issued with wireless sets until 1942), who would usually be a motorbike owner. Otherwise, the battle platoon was static and would defend a defined local area and report on enemy activity in that area, but it was neither equipped nor expected to join up with the mobile forces of the regular army. Each Home Guard unit would establish and prepare a local strongpoint, from which 'civilians' (non-Home Guard) would be cleared if possible, and aim to defend that strongpoint for as long as possible. It might be forced to retreat towards a neighbouring strongpoint but would not surrender so long as ammunition held out. Most towns of any size would have a number such Home Guard units, each defending its own strongpoint and providing 'defence in depth', which should ideally be sited to offer supporting fire to cover one another and to control road access through the town from all directions.

Each battle platoon had a headquarters section; commander, second in command, runner, and at least one marksman 'sniper' with an M1917 rifle. The fighting force of the platoon consisted of three squads of around 8 men, each squad having a three-man automatic weapons group (usually with one either of a BAR or Lewis gun) and a rifle/bomb group armed with M1917 rifles, grenades and sticky-bombs, and a Thompson or Sten sub-machine gun if possible.[12] Men without rifles should all have shotguns, if available. The basic tactical principle was 'aggressive defence'; fire would be held until the enemy were within the defensive perimeter of the town in force and they would then be attacked with concentrated firepower of bombs, grenades, shotguns and automatic weapons (as much as possible from above and from the rear), with the object of forcing them into cover close by. Retreating enemy forces would be counterattacked (again preferably from the rear), the automatic weapons group of each squad providing covering fire while the bombing group attacked with grenades, submachine guns and shotguns. As many Germans as possible should be killed, and no prisoners would be taken.

Battle tactics were derived substantially from the experience of Spanish Republican forces although they also drew on the experience of the British Army (and the IRA) in Ireland. The emphasis was on drawing the Germans into fighting in central urban areas at short ranges, where stone buildings would provide cover; lines of communication between units would be short; the Home Guard's powerful arsenal of shotguns, bombs and grenades would be most effective; and German tanks and vehicles would be constrained by narrow, winding streets.

British Home Guard improvised weapons.

Colt Single Action Army "Battle of Britain".

A Home Guard platoon in 1941. All are equipped with US supplied weapons. The volunteer at the end of the front rank with a Browning Automatic Rifle; the volunteer at the end of the rear rank with a Mark III* Lewis machine gun; accompanied by one volunteer carrying a 47-round ammunition magazine. Other volunteers visible have M1917 Enfield rifles, and the sergeant has a Thompson sub-machine gun

For the first few weeks the LDV were poorly armed since the regular forces had priority for weapons and equipment. Since the government could not admit the severe shortage of basic armaments for the regular troops in 1940, the public remained deeply frustrated at the failure to issue rifles to the LDV. Rifles were a particular problem, as domestic production of new Lee-Enfield rifles had ceased after the First World War; and in the summer of 1940 there were no more than 1.5 million serviceable frontline military rifles available in total. Contracts had been placed in the UK, Canada and the United States to build new factories for an updated Lee-Enfield model (designated Rifle No. 4), but in 1940, they were still a long way from volume production. The LDV's original role had been envisaged by the army as largely observing and reporting enemy movements, but it swiftly changed to a more aggressive role. Nevertheless, it would have been expected to fight well-trained and equipped troops despite having only negligible training and only weapons such as home-made bombs and shotguns (a solid ammunition for shotguns was developed for that purpose), personal sidearms and firearms that belonged in museums. Patrols were carried out on foot, by bicycle, even on horseback and often without uniforms, although all volunteers wore an armband printed with the letters "LDV". There were also river patrols using the private craft of members.[18]

Many officers from the First World War armed themselves with Webley Mk VI .455 revolvers (officers had been expected to purchase their sidearms privately and retained them in civilian life). There were also numerous private attempts to produce armoured vehicles by adding steel plates to cars or lorries, often armed with machine guns.[19] These improvised vehicles included the Armadillo armoured truck, the Bison mobile pillbox and the Bedford OXA armoured car (some of these makeshift vehicles were also operated by RAF units for aerodrome defense).

Lord Beaverbrook, the Minister of Aircraft Production, had sponsored the emergency creation of Beaverette armoured cars for the British armed forces (attaching thin armoured panels to a commercial vehicle body) but, to the intense annoyance of the British Army command, he insisted on reserving considerable numbers for Home Guard units guarding key air components factories. LDV units broke into museums, appropriated whatever weapons could be found and equipped themselves with private weapons such as shotguns. Many veterans who had served in the First World War had retained German sidearms as trophies, but ammunition was scarce.[8] Members of the public deposited their sporting rifles at their local police stations, to be used (on loan) by the LDV, and local police forces themselves donated their stocks of military rifles, again on loan, but those expedients provided only around 8,000 rifles (although that number did not include volunteers' use of their own firearms).

Ex-communist and Spanish Civil War veteran Tom Wintringham, a journalist and key advocate of the LDV and later the Home Guard, opened a private training camp for the LDV at Osterley Park, outside London, in early July 1940. Wintringham's training methods were mainly based on his experience in the International Brigades in Spain. Those who had fought alongside him in Spain trained volunteers in anti-tank warfare and demolitions. Bert "Yank" Levy was one of the chief trainers,[20] and his lectures became the source for a book on guerrilla warfare.[21][22]

Supplies of small arms to the Home Guard improved radically after July 1940, when the active support of US President Franklin Roosevelt allowed the British government to purchase 500,000 M1917 Enfield Rifles and 25,000 M1918 Browning Automatic Rifles from the reserve stock of the US armed forces, but the very limited initial issue of standard Lee-Enfield rifles was withdrawn as the American arms became available, as were some 25,000 Pattern 14 .303 rifles (the British calibre version of the M1917 Enfield) and 60,000 Canadian Ross rifles. The M1917 Enfield rifles were a more modern design than the Lee-Enfield rifles issued to British regular forces, both harder hitting and more accurate, but were heavier and notably less handy to use. The M1918 Browning Automatic Rifles lacked the bipod stand and carrying handle that the US army had applied in an attempt to convert the weapon into a light machine gun but, when used primarily as a semiautomatic rifle fired from the shoulder (as was advised in Home Guard training manuals), one or two such weapons in a battle platoon could provide formidable additional firepower. In the hands of a trained soldier, each BAR could maintain a firing rate of up to 40 single shots per minute. Furthermore, the British government had placed large commercial orders for Thompson submachine guns, which were issued first to the Home Guard from 1941 onwards (especially to the secret Auxiliary Units). The British Expeditionary Force had lost almost its entire stock of Bren Guns in the Dunkirk evacuation and the regular army initially fell back on prewar and American Lewis Guns as a stopgap; but by the end of 1940, around 14,000 of these American Lewis guns (together with some 4,000 American M1917 Browning machine guns) had been released to the Home Guard. From the perspective of the War Office, this removed weapons using US ammunition from regular army use, and had the further advantage that the three volunteers in the machine gun team would not expect rifles. This model of Lewis gun had been designed to be swivel-mounted in aircraft; before issuing to the Home Guard the fitted spade-handle stock was extended into a crude shoulder stock, and a wooden fore-grip and rigid triangular bipod added.

Within a few months, the Home Guard had acquired proper uniforms and equipment as the immediate needs of the regular forces were satisfied. Special trains were laid on to rush the M1917 rifles and Browning Automatic Rifles to Home Guard units, and by the end of July, all had been distributed. Priority in mid-1940 was given to Home Guard units on the South Coast and Home Counties and those defending key air industry suppliers from air and paratroop attack, and had an invasion happened in September or October, those Home Guard units would have largely been well equipped and armed for a static defence role, the key remaining lack being an effective anti-tank grenade capable of being launched a reasonable distance. After September 1940, the army began to take charge of the Home Guard training in Osterley, and Wintringham and his associates were gradually sidelined. Wintringham resigned in April 1941. Ironically, despite his support of the Home Guard, Wintringham was never allowed to join the organisation himself because of a policy barring membership by communists and fascists.

An example of a Home Guard exercise is one in the small village of Dundry that defensively overlooks Bristol: the exercise involved the Home Guard units of several neighbouring villages.[23]

Standard Mk II Beaverette II light reconnaissance cars manned by members of the Home Guard in the Scottish Highlands, 14 February 1941.

Nevertheless, Home Guard members continued to express dissatisfaction with their armaments until 1943 since not all of the 1.5 million members could be provided with their own rifle or pistol. Although large numbers of M1917 Enfield rifles and Browning Automatic Rifles had been purchased for the use of the Home Guard, they had had to be laboriously cleaned of their heavy cosmoline packing grease by the Home Guard units themselves. All the American guns (M1917 Enfield Rifles, BAR, Lewis light machine guns, and Browing M1917 machine guns) used the .30-06 Springfield cartridge, an 0.30 inch round, a type of ammunition totally different from and more powerful than the 0.303 round used by the service issue British Lee–Enfield rifle. A 2-inch-wide (51 mm) red band was painted around the fore end of the stock of the Enfield and BAR weapons as a warning since a 0.303 round would load but jam the rifle.

The Thompson guns used .45 ACP pistol ammunition, again not British Army standard, which was one major reason that the weapons had been turned down for use by the regular army in the first place. Indeed, it rapidly became accepted that any weapons firing US calibre .30 ammunition would go to the Home Guard. Each gun came with an adequate supply of ammunition: 50 rounds for each Enfield, 750 for each BAR and up to 1,000 rounds for the 'Tommy Guns'. However, Home Guard units were commonly not allowed to fire them in practice shooting as until America entered the war, there were no reserve ammunition stocks, which reinforced the impression that they were not frontline weapons.

For regular shooting practice, the Home Guard mainly borrowed Territorial Army shooting ranges and guns, with limited issue of live .22 and .303 ammunition. From 1942, the Thompson guns (and their ammunition) were increasingly withdrawn to be issued to Commando forces but were replaced by large numbers of Sten submachine guns. For the first time, all Home Guard members could have their own issue firearm.

Home Guard training at Osterly Park had disseminated experience from Spanish Republican forces, in using improvised grenades and bombs in urban warfare against tanks. Two particular weapons were recommended for that purpose: the satchel bomb, a fused explosive charge in a canvas bag, and the Molotov cocktail, a glass bottle containg a mixture of petrol and a gelling agent.

The Home Guard inherited weapons that the regular army no longer required, such as the Blacker Bombard antitank weapon, and weapons they no longer desired, such as the Sticky bomb. The arsenal also included weapons that could be produced cheaply without consuming materials needed to produce armaments for the regular units such as the Northover Projector, a blackpowder-powered mortar; the No. 76 Special Incendiary Grenade, a glass bottle filled with highly-flammable material and the Smith gun, a small artillery gun that could be towed by a car.

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 popular 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.

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.

Two Local Defence Volunteers receiving instruction on either a Pattern 1914 or M1917 Enfield rifle. The two Volunteers are wearing the denim overalls over their ordinary clothes, one of them is wearing a collar and tie underneath. Note also the field service caps, the LDV armlets and civilian shoes worn without gaiters. The sergeant instructor is wearing standard battle dress.

On 22 May 1940, eight days after the formation of the LDV, the War Office announced that 250,000 field service caps were to be distributed as the first part of the uniform of the new force and that khaki brassards or "armlets" were being manufactured, each carrying the letters "LDV" in black. In the meantime, LDV units improvised their own brassards with whatever materials were available. Local Women's Voluntary Service branches were often asked to produce them, sometimes by using old puttees donated by veterans.[15]

The British Army used loose-fitting work clothes called "Overalls, Denim" which were made of khaki-coloured cotton twill fabric and consisted of a short jacket or "blouse" and trousers. They were cut to the same style as and were designed to be worn over the 1938 pattern Battle Dress. It was announced that 90,000 sets of denim overalls would be released from military stores at once and that more would be issued as soon as they could be manufactured.[27]

On 25 June, Anthony Eden announced in the House of Commons that LDV uniform was intended "to consist of one suit of overalls of design similar to that of battle dress, a field service cap, and an armlet bearing the letters 'L.D.V.'".[28] On 30 July 1940, Eden further announced that the Home Guard (as the LDV had been renamed) would be issued with military boots as supplies became available.[29]

The issue of uniforms proceeded slowly because of shortages and the need to re-equip and enlarge the army following the Fall of France On 14 August, Eden announced that the supply of material to make the denim overalls was insufficient and that regular battle dress would be released to the Home Guard as an interim measure. By the end of 1940, the Cabinet had approved the expenditure of £1 million for the supply of battle dress to the whole force.[27] On 20 August 1940, it was further announced that blankets were being issued and that the intention was to provide the Home Guard with greatcoats;[29]

As winter approached, there were many complaints from Home Guardsmen who had to patrol or stand sentry without the benefit of a uniform overcoat. Therefore, a large cape made of heavy serge fabric was hastily designed and issued in the interim. There was no prospect of being able to provide sufficient sets of the 1937 Pattern Web Equipment (including belt, ammunition pouches and a haversack) to the Home Guard and so a simplified equipment set made from leather and canvas was produced. Particularly unpopular were the awkward leather "anklets" which were issued in place of the webbing gaiters worn by the army. The lack of provision of steel helmets was keenly felt, especially by those Home Guardsmen required to be on guard duty during the Blitz when the risk of being hit by a shell splinter was high. That situation was only gradually rectified.[27]

When the Home Guard was first formed, it had its own rank structure. As a unit of volunteers, it was thought that there should be a system of appointed ranks, with officers who did not hold a King's Commission.

It was not until November 1940 that it was decided to bring the Home Guard structure into line with the regular army. From February 1941, officers and men were known by regular army ranks except that "Private" was not used until the spring of 1942, when the rank of "Volunteer" was dropped in favour of "Private".

After November 1940, officers were granted a King's Commission but were regarded as junior in rank to a regular army officer of the equivalent rank and senior to army officers of a junior rank.

Home Guard Pre-November 1940	Home Guard Post-November 1940		Regular Army Equivalents
Volunteer	Volunteer 1		Private
Squad Commander	Lance Corporal		Lance Corporal
	Corporal		Corporal
	Sergeant		Sergeant
N/A	N/A		Colour Sergeant
	Warrant Officer Class II		Warrant Officer Class II
	Warrant Officer Class I		Warrant Officer Class I
Platoon Commander	Second Lieutenant		Second Lieutenant
	Lieutenant		Lieutenant
	Captain		Captain
Company Commander	Major		Major
Battalion Commander	Lieutenant Colonel		Lieutenant Colonel
Group Commander	Colonel		Colonel
Zone Commander	Brigadier		Brigadier
N/A – no authorised rank 1 – Private after 1942

Winston Churchill inspects the 1st American Squadron of the Home Guard on Horse Guards Parade, London, 9 January 1941. They are fortunate to have already been issued with greatcoats, steel helmets, boots and leather anklets, which many of their colleagues were still awaiting.

Churchill had recognised that the Home Guard offered a powerful opportunity to promote pro-British sentiments in the United States and hoped that by encouraging US interest and participation in the Home Guard, it might be possible to advance his aspirations to bring the United States into the war against Germany. Although there were also strong practical advantages in directing weapons sourced in the United States towards the Home Guard, rather than the regular army, the prompt issuing of very large numbers of modern American rifles and machine guns to the Home Guard still offered a golden opportunity for British propaganda, which was widely exploited.

The messages sought to be disseminated in the propaganda was that 'Britain can take it' and would never concede to Nazi domination and would be a steadfast ally and also that the Britain being defended was a repository of traditional civility and humanitarian values. One consequence was to establish a representation of the Home Guard through popular films, such as Mrs. Miniver and Went the Day Well, as defending idealised rural English villages, but most Home Guard units were in fact in towns and cities, and most volunteers were industrial workers.

Home Guard soldiers training with a Blacker Bombard anti-tank mortar in May 1943. The mortar is mounted on a concrete pillar in a pre-prepared pit; of which around 18,000 were dug

The German invasion of the Soviet Union in 1941 clearly indicated that an immediate invasion of Britain was no longer to be expected. But initially, the British military command did not expect Soviet resistance to last more than a few months and so the Home Guard needed to be retained in full readiness should the German threat be resumed in greater strength once the Soviets had been defeated. The Home Guard remained in existence manning guard posts and performing other duties to free up regular troops for duties overseas, especially taking over the operation of coastal artillery batteries and anti-aircraft batteries (especially rocket batteries for the protection of key industrial sites). In 1942, the National Service Act allowed for compulsory enrolment in the Home Guard of men aged 42 to 51 years where units were below strength. Meanwhile, the lowest rank within the Home Guard, 'volunteer', was renamed to 'private' to match the regular army usage.

Recognition certificates

Defence Medal

Male members were rewarded with a certificate, bearing the words:

"In the years when our Country was in mortal danger, (name) who served (dates) gave generously of his time and powers to make himself ready for her defence by force of arms and with his life if need be. George R.I."[32]

If he had served more than three years and requested it, a member would be awarded the Defence Medal. It was only in 1945 that women who had helped as auxiliaries were recognised with their own certificate.

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".[33]

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".[26] The chief constable of Glasgow suggested that criminal elements joined the Home Guard to break, enter and loot during the blackout.[34]

Alison Uttley brought the Home Guard into her Little Grey Rabbit series of children's stories with Hare Joins The Home Guard in 1942.[35]

In the wartime Hollywood blockbuster film Mrs. Miniver starring Greer Garson, Clem Miniver (the father of the family) provides his own motor launch to form a Local Defence Volunteer 'River patrol'; together with whom he crosses the English Channel in support of the Dunkirk evacuation.

The British wartime propaganda film Went the Day Well? starring Thora Hird and made at Ealing Studios in 1942 focuses on how the Home Guard and the population of a village defeat the combined forces of German paratroops and local fifth columnists.

Noël Coward wrote a song in 1943, "Could You Please Oblige Us with a Bren Gun?" that pokes fun at the disorder and shortage of supplies and equipment that were common in the Home Guard, and indeed all of Britain, during the war.

The Home Guard also played a significant part in Michael Powell and Emeric Pressburger's 1943 film The Life and Death of Colonel Blimp. In it, the lead character, a career soldier who had retired from the active list, joins the Home Guard and rises to a leadership position in it. He has planned a Home Guard training exercise for the following day; in which he himself would be the designated 'flag target' for capture by the opposite side; but they break the rules and seize him in advance in a Turkish bath. The film celebrates and justifies the Home Guard fundamental philosophy, that in the combat against Nazism all the previous 'rules of war' had been rendered obsolete.

The 1943 British film Get Cracking starred George Formby as a Home Guard lance corporal who is constantly losing and winning back his stripe. Formby's platoon is involved in rivalry with the Home Guard sections of the local villages Major Wallop and Minor Wallop. At the end of the film Formby is promoted to sergeant after inventing a secret weapon – a home-made tank.

The Home Guard was immortalised in the British television comedy Dad's Army, which followed the formation and running of a platoon in the fictional south coast town of Walmington-on-Sea, and is widely regarded as having kept the efforts of the Home Guard in the public consciousness. It was written by Jimmy Perry and David Croft and broadcast on BBC television from 1968 to 1977. The sitcom ran for 9 series and 80 episodes in total, plus a radio version based on the television scripts, two feature films and a stage show. The series regularly gained audiences of 18 million viewers and is still repeated worldwide.

The Home Guard consisted of local volunteers otherwise ineligible for military service, either owing to age or by being in professions that were exempt from conscription (Dad's Army deals almost exclusively with the former), and as such the series mainly featured older British actors, including Arthur Lowe, John Le Mesurier, Arnold Ridley and John Laurie. Among relative youngsters in the regular cast were Ian Lavender, Clive Dunn (who played the elderly Jones), Frank Williams, James Beck (who died suddenly during production of the programme's sixth series in 1973) and Bill Pertwee.

In 2004, Dad's Army was voted into fourth place in a BBC poll to find Britain's Best Sitcom. It had been placed 13th in a list of the 100 Greatest British Television Programmes drawn up by the British Film Institute in 2000 and voted for by industry professionals. The series has influenced popular culture in the United Kingdom, with the series' catchphrases and characters being well known. It highlighted a forgotten aspect of defence during the Second World War. The Radio Times magazine listed Captain Mainwaring's "You stupid boy!" among the 25 greatest put-downs on TV. A film featuring Bill Nighy, Sir Michael Gambon, Toby Jones and Sir Tom Courtenay was released in 2016.

The Home Guard also featured in the 1971 Disney film Bedknobs and Broomsticks.

In the last of his 'Old Sam' series of monologues, Stanley Holloway wrote of the protagonist of the series, Sam, attempting to join the army at the outbreak of war in 1939. In the series, Sam is a serviceman who fought at the Battle of Waterloo and in the First World War as an adult. In the monologue dealing with World War II Sam is sent to the Home Guard instead of the front line, much to his bemusement, and whilst there finds that his stories of glory are debunked by another character who turns out to be the Duke of Wellington with whom he fought at Battle of Waterloo.

The Home Guard appears in a scene in the film Hope and Glory (1987) when a unit shoots down a wayward barrage balloon[36] and in the 2003 "War Games" episode of the British detective series Foyle's War, which is set in Hastings during World War II. In 2010, an episode of the Doctor Who spin-off The Sarah Jane Adventures featured Clyde Langer being transported back to the British coast during World War II, and featured the Home Guard.

Zulfiqar Ali Bukhari training with the BBC Home Guard at Bedford College in 1941.

• Tony Benn, Labour politician (Bromyard and Oxted Home Guard), pre-enlistment in RAF[43][44]
• John Brophy, Anglo-Irish soldier, journalist and author who wrote more than 40 books, mostly based on his experiences during World War I.
• Zulfiqar Ali Bukhari, Urdu broadcaster and first director-general of Radio Pakistan (BBC Home Guard)[45]
• Sir Henry Chilton, GCMG, Diplomat, Ambassador to Chile, Argentina, and Spain during the Spanish Civil War[46]
• Cecil Day-Lewis, poet and later Poet Laureate of the United Kingdom (Musbury Home Guard)[47]
• George Formby, actor, singer-songwriter and comedian (Blackpool Home Guard, Corporal Despatch Rider)[48]
• John Laurie, actor notably in Dad's Army (Paddington Home Guard)
• C S Lewis, writer (Oxford Home Guard)[49]
• Patrick Moore, astronomer and broadcaster (East Grinstead Home Guard)[50]
• Patrick Munro, Conservative politician and former Scotland rugby union football international (Private, 1st County of London HG Battalion, killed in training accident at Westminster – the only MP to die on duty in the Home Guard)[51][52]
• George Orwell, author and journalist (Sergeant, Greenwich Home Guard)[53]
• Jimmy Perry, scriptwriter, (Barnes and Watford Home Guard)[54]
• Felix Powell, songwriter (Peacehaven Home Guard – committed suicide on duty)[55]
• Arnold Ridley, another Dad's Army actor (Caterham Home Guard) [56]
• Frank Whitcombe, England rugby union international (Sergeant, Wibsey Home Guard)

• Operation Sea Lion, Nazi Germany's planned invasion of Britain
• Auxiliary Units, a British "stay behind" undercover force of 1940
• Dad's Army, a long running British sitcom based on a platoon in the Home Guard
• Military history of the United Kingdom during World War II
• Volunteer Training Corps (World War I), the British voluntary home defence force of World War I
• The American Committee for the Defense of British Homes, donated weapons, which went to the Home Guard.

International:

• Armia Krajowa, the dominant Polish resistance movement in World War II German-occupied Poland
• Black Brigades, one of the Fascist paramilitary groups operating in the Italian Social Republic during the final years of World War II
• Canadian Rangers, a group in Canada that functions like the Home Guard
• State defense forces, non-federal military forces in the United States of America that operate in various states, similar to the Home Guard
• Volkssturm, German national militia of the last months of World War II
• Volunteer Defence Corps, Australian Home Guard
• Volunteer Fighting Corps, armed civil defense units planned in 1945 in the Empire of Japan

• Fletcher, David (1989). The Great Tank Scandal: British Armour in the Second World War - Part 1. HMSO. ISBN 978-0-11-290460-1.
• Foster, Col. Rodney (2011). The Real Dad's Army (War diaries of a Home Guard officer). Viking. ISBN 978-0-670-91982-6.

Wikimedia Commons has media related to Home Guard (United Kingdom).

• Clarke, D.M. (2011). "Arming the British Home Guard, 1940–1944". Cranfield University. hdl:1826/6164. Cite journal requires |journal= (help)
• 23rd Sussex Home Guard British Re-Enactment Group
• 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
• The Humber Home Guard, Coventry Photos and Memorabilia
• Revealed: the real Dad's Army University of Manchester study.
• Home Guard operating in Bures, Suffolk
• Meldreth Home Guard Meldreth Home Guard: photographs and transcription of Home Guard diary
• Parashots Enrol – news item about volunteering for the LDV (Newsreel). British Pathé. 20 May 1940. Retrieved 8 March 2010.
• Britain's Citizen Army – news item about the duties of the Home Guard (Newsreel). British Pathé. 1 August 1940. 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!"

• The Home Guard Training Manual. (1940) by John Langdon-Davies