Hertfordshire Volunteer Regiment and Home Guard

J.D. Sainsbury

 

NEW The Home Guard in Hertfordshire 1940–1945:An account of the Local Defence Volunteers and the Home Guard in Hertfordshire from raising in 1940 to disbandment in 1945

By May 1940 Britain had been at war, much of it ‘phoney’, for nearly nine months. With the evacuation from Dunkirk at the end of the month, huge quantities of equipment were abandoned to the enemy, there was a desperate shortage of armoured fighting vehicles and artillery and the Germans were known to have plans to invade. As this situation developed from April 1940, the government were forced to consider whether extra forces were needed. The regular Army was committed around the world; the Territorial Army had been mobilised but was behind with equipment and training. On 14 May the Secretary of State for War, Anthony Eden, broadcast an appeal for volunteers: ‘We want large numbers of ... British subjects between the ages of seventeen and sixty-five years to come forward ... The name of the new force ... will be the “Local Defence Volunteers”.’ Almost at once 500,000 men volunteered and within a few weeks the force was approaching 1.5 million. Unsurprisingly, in the early months, they were poorly trained and ill-equipped but over time the Home Guard, as they became known, were increasingly integrated into national defence plans so that the absolute maximum number of regular troops could be released for overseas theatres.

The Home Guard in Hertfordshire played their part in these duties to the full. Within a week of Eden’s appeal six thousand men had volunteered in the county, more than there were rifles available; they included a retired Field Marshal from Wheathampstead. Initially, the county’s L.D.V. were organised as a battalion of twenty companies (each on average at least 300 strong) with their headquarters in the towns and larger villages, although one was raised entirely from the staff of the De Havilland Aircraft Company in Hatfield. As the number of volunteers mounted, more companies were formed which were ultimately grouped into fifteen battalions. The Home Guard was formally stood down by the end of 1944 and disbanded a year later.

In this very detailed account of the Hertfordshire Home Guard, the local picture is set against the background of national developments. Over 130 illustrations also provide a fascinating pictorial history of the force in Hertfordshire. This book shows that there was much more to the Home Guard than the BBC’s Dad’s Army would have us believe.

ISBN 978-0-948527-12-8

December 2012, 282pp

Paperback £25.00

The Home Guard in Hertfordshire 1952–1957

From early 1948 to the autumn of 1951, the question of whether the Home Guard should be raised anew in peacetime was under constant consideration in the face of the real fear that Soviet forces might invade Europe. Whilst the Labour government’s policy was that in peacetime a Home Guard could be planned for but not actually raised, as soon as the Conservatives were returned to power in October 1951, the new force was raised and came into being in April 1952.

If Britain had been invaded, the Home Guard’s duties would have included keeping roads open for the passage of counter-attack forces, securing RAF radar stations and other key points and assistance to the Civil Defence services. Yet very many fewer men volunteered than had been planned for; in Hertfordshire the picture was even worse than in the country as a whole. Still, the new battalions organised training exercises, including one codenamed ‘Lumbago’ which drew unfavourable comment in the national press as a seeming jibe at the men ‘past the first bloom of youth’ who were the main targets of recruitment drives. In other exercises ‘major battles’ were fought near Sandridge and Codicote, with the role of the enemy being played by army cadets. Ultimately, though, it made sense to reduce the force to ‘cadre’ battalions – slimmed-down frameworks which would be ready to absorb large numbers of men if and when the crisis came.

As he had back in 1940, Prime Minister Winston Churchill took a close personal interest in the Home Guard and frequently voiced his support for their role in the defence of Britain. Indeed, it was only when he stepped down in 1955 that the Home Guard’s raison d’être could be openly questioned: within two years it had been disbanded.

This is the first properly researched account of the post-war Home Guard in any county and it also incorporates very full details of the national picture. An appendix details the weapons used by the force, and all commissioned officers in the Hertfordshire battalions are also listed.

ISBN 978-0-948527-10-4

February 2008, 120pp

Paperback £12.00

Herts V.R.: An account of the Hertfordshire Volunteer Regiment and other units of the Volunteer Training Corps and the Volunteer Force raised in Hertfordshire, 1914-1921

Following the outbreak of war in August 1914, patriotic men throughout the country formed local volunteer corps with a view to supplementing the Army in the event of German invasion. The government was unwilling to accept their services until the spring of 1916 and maintained an uneasy relationship with what became the Volunteer Training Corps. However, shortage of manpower and the need to regulate its use led to the conversion of V.T.C. units into units of the Volunteer Force – part of the Armed Forces of the Crown and a forerunner of Britain’s Second World War Home Guard.

Herts V.R. tells the story of the Volunteer Training Corps and the Volunteer Force in detail, both nationally and in Hertfordshire, where three infantry battalions were raised, together with medical and transport sub-units.

ISBN 978-0-948527-08-1

July 2004, 132pp

Paperback £12.00