What was the Home Guard? Who were the men and women who served in it?
And what can be said of their real role and significance once the popular myths
have been stripped away?
Despite the fame of the Home Guard – of Dad’s Army – the true story
of this wartime organization tends to be neglected. The myths obscure the
reality. Stephen Cullen’s aim in this thoroughgoing new study is to cut through
the misunderstandings in order to reassess the Home Guard and its contribution
to Britain’s war effort – and to deepen
our understanding of the men and women who were members of it.
He sets the Home Guard in the long historical context of domestic
defence planning, then focuses on the preparations made before the outbreak of
the Second World War. In detail he traces the changing role of the Home Guard
during its wartime existence as it adapted to meet the multitude of challenges
it faced – from civil defence and intelligence gathering to training for
guerrilla warfare.
Using vivid eyewitness testimony and oral history, he takes a
grassroots look at the men - and women – from all ages and social backgrounds
who made up this national defence force. The equipment, uniforms, weapons and
vehicles they used and the field defences they manned are described as their
role developed over the course of the war.
He also examines the evolution of popular views of the Home Guard
from wartime days to the present – the notion of the People’s Army, the thinking
of early Home Guard commentators like George Orwell, and the writings of more
recent historians who have sought to explain an organization that retains such
an extraordinary hold on the popular imagination.
