– all this owing to endless changes of plan and complete vagueness as to what we are supposed to be aiming at … Nothing ever happens except continuous dithering, resulting in progressive disillusionment all round. The best one can hope is that it is much the same on the other side.’80
In spite of its myriad imperfections, however, the Home Guard went on to make a genuine difference. Ever since the start of the Blitz in September 1940, it had come to be valued not just, nor perhaps even primarily, as an anti-invasion force but also, and increasingly, as a vital contributor to civil defence – locating and extinguishing incendiary bombs, clearing rubble, guarding damaged banks, pubs and shops, directing traffic, assisting in rescue work, first aid and fire-fighting, and generally making itself useful in crisis situations. Tales of incompetence – often comic, occasionally tragic – would, inevitably, be told and retold (such as the time a bemused platoon from the 1st Berkshire Battalion mistook a distant cow’s swishing tail for some kind of inscrutable ‘dot-dash movement of a flag’, or the occasion when a Liverpool unit’s bid to train on a patch of waste land was thwarted by a gang of small boys who protested that ‘we was playing ‘ere first’),81 but the stories of compassion and courage were legion.82 One Buckinghamshire platoon, it was reported, ‘accommodated, fed and slept in their guardroom approximately 250 mothers and children turned out of their homes through time bombs. Half a dozen tired men of the night guard received and fed the refugees out of their rations, and then with umbrella and bowler hat went to town to do a “day’s work”.’83 Communities were comforted, spirits were lifted, and lives were saved.
For all its invaluable versatility, however, the self-image of the Home Guard remained resolutely that of a fighting force, so as the fears of invasion started to fade, the feelings of redundancy started to form, and it became increasingly necessary for the government to find ways of reassuring the Home Guard that it still meant something, and still mattered. In May 1942, for example, its second anniversary was marked by a host of measures intended to bolster its self-esteem: a day of parades and field-craft demonstrations – ‘Home Guard Sunday’ – was held. Lieutenant-General Sir Bernard Paget, the Commander of the British Home Forces, paid public tribute both to the progress that the Home Guard had made, and to the ‘spirit of service and self-sacrifice’ shown by its members;84 the Prime Minister reminded the force that it continued to be ‘engaged in work of national importance during all hours of the day’, and remained ‘an invaluable addition to our armed forces and an essential part of the effective defence of the island’;85 and King George VI announced that, as a sign of his ‘appreciation of the services given by the Home Guard with such devotion and perseverence’, he had agreed to become its Colonel-in-Chief.86 Early the following year, Churchill – fearing that a forthcoming satirical film by Michael Powell and Emeric Pressburger, The Life and Death of Colonel Blimp, would encourage people to regard the Home Guard as little more than a comical anachronism87 – urged the War Office to find further ways to make the force ‘feel that the nation realises all it owes to these devoted men’, adding that they needed ‘to be nursed and encouraged at this stage in their life’.88 That May, following Churchill’s prompting, the third anniversary celebrations were greater and grander than ever: there was another ‘Home Guard Sunday’ – Churchill had wanted a ‘Home Guard Week’89 – with ceremonial parades throughout the country and a march of 5,000 Home Guards through central London. The King, who took the salute, praised the force for attaining such a ‘high standard of proficiency’, and assured it that, as the Army directed its attention elsewhere, ‘the importance of your role will … inevitably continue to increase’.90 Churchill was in Washington during the time of these celebrations, but he still managed to make the most memorable contribution with a lengthy radio broadcast designed specifically to restore a sense of pride and self-importance within the force: ‘People who note and mark our growing mastery of the air, not only over our islands but penetrating into ever-widening zones on the Continent, ask whether the danger of invasion has not passed away,’ he observed. ‘Let me assure you of this: That until Hitler and Hitlerism are beaten into unconditional surrender the danger of invasion will never pass away.’ Noting that any prospect of invasion hinged on the strength of the forces deployed to meet it, he reaffirmed his faith in the Home Guard:
[I]f the Nazi villains drop down upon us from the skies, any night … you will make it clear to them that they have not alighted in the poultry run, or in the rabbit-farm, or even in the sheep-fold, but that they have come down in the lion’s den at the Zoo! Here is the reality of your work; here is that sense of imminent emergency which cheers and inspires the long routine of drills and musters after the hard day’s work is done.
The Allies, he added, were now moving overseas, leaving the Home Guard with greater responsibility than ever: ‘It is this reason which, above all others, prompted me to make you and all Britain realise afresh … the magnitude and lively importance of your duties and of the part you have to play in the supreme cause now gathering momentum as it rolls forward to its goal.’91
The celebrations and speeches seemed to work, but not for long, and before any more bouquets could be brandished the realities of the strategic situation had started to sink in. During the first half of 1943, it had still been possible to contemplate the possibility of some sudden reversal in Allied fortunes; by the end of the year it had become clear that the Germans, now without their Axis partner Italy, were well on their way to defeat. The Home Guard, as a consequence, gradually lost its sense of purpose. All except the keenest Home Guards came to resent the obligation to surrender their evening hours in order to train for a non-existent battle, and absenteeism grew increasingly common.92
The Home Guard’s long, slow, inexorable decline dragged on into 1944. The fourth anniversary of its formation was duly marked in May with the usual array of strenuously celebratory events; on this occasion, however, the applause failed to distract the men from their misgivings. After D-Day, in June, it was evident to all that what the future held in store was not battle honours but redundancy. On 6 September, it was announced that Home Guard operational duties were being suspended and all parades would from now on be voluntary.93 At the end of the following month came confirmation of the inevitable: the Home Guard was to stand down on 14 November. Although few volunteers were entirely surprised by the decision to disband, many were taken aback by the speed at which it was set to be executed. ‘We learned that, like the grin on Alice’s Chesire Cat’, wrote one embittered volunteer, ‘we were to fade out, leaving no trace of our existence.’94 It seemed for a time that the men would be ordered to give back their uniforms, but Churchill, anticipating the probable public reaction to such a patently mean-spirited act, intervened to cancel the plan, insisting that ‘there can be no question of the Home Guard returning their boots or uniforms’.95
The end, when it came, was met with dignity. On Sunday, 3 December 1944, more than 7,000 Home Guards, drawn from units all over Britain, marched in the rain through the West End of London, and concluded with a parade in Hyde Park before their Colonel-in-Chief, King George VI. ‘History,’ he told them, ‘will say that your share in the greatest of all our struggles for freedom was a vitally important one.’96 That evening, shortly
