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LINKS
Specific
Home Guard Units
Links to MANY other sites
with information on individual HG units throughout the country
- listed by 1940s county - are to be found elsewhere
within this website.
Go to the MEMORIES
AND INFORMATION pages which are divided into sections
dealing with Shropshire,
Staffordshire,
Warwickshire,
Worcestershire
and All Other Counties
and Regions.
Home Sweet Home Front
An interesting site dealing with most
aspects of the Home Front during WWII and including a section
on the Home Guard.
The
Home Guard
The above pages, part of The
Fire Watch website which contains a wealth of fascinating
information about the Home Front as a whole, provide a useful
overview of the Home Guard's history.
BBC
WW2 People's War Archive
A huge archive of individuals' reminiscences of all aspects
of WW2. There are links from this site to many of the more
interesting Home Guard references - see the MEMORIES
AND INFORMATION pages.
Wartime Memories
Project
Contains many first hand memories of life in the Home Guard
in all parts of the country.
The Home Guard - History of the Home
Guard, Chatham Living History Group
A major, still developing resource devoted
to the Home Guard and containing much information and many
images.
Whispers
from Walmington
A very comprehensive site devoted to the BBC TV series "Dad's
Army" and containing links both to similar sites and
to historical Home Guard and ARP sites.
The
Staffordshire Past Track Project
Contains images of other Staffordshire
HG units and individuals.
(Click link, then type "home
guard" in the Quick Search box. Alternatively use the
shortcuts on this site's Mems.
and Info.- Staffordshire page).
UK
Pillboxes
Details of another aspect
of the defence of Great Britain in WW2 - surviving pillboxes
and other invasion defences throughout the country.
P.O.W. Sites
A comprehensive summary
of the hundreds of prisoner of war sites in the British Isles
during WW2. Click above. A second interesting site on the
same subject is here.
The
Home Guard Pocket Manual
This site reproduces in full the above 1940-1944 manual by
Capt. A. Southworth of the Sevenoaks Battn. There is much
information on weapons, drill, training, fieldcraft etc.
(Click
link, then go to WW2 Reference)
The
Defence of Britain Project
provides a huge, searchable, online database
of surviving defensive military sites throught the UK, most
of them with a HG involvement.
Auxiliary
Units
Much information on these highly secret units, loosely associated
with the HG but operating quite separately and established
to act as a resistance movement after invasion, can be found
by clicking the above title.
Further information is available here,
here
and here; and also at the Coleshill House website (the original training centre).
British Pathe Gazette
This website contains some Home Guard clips
within its 3500 newsreel items.
(If you find the site a little
daunting to get into, click
here for a quick guide).
More
Film Clips
This website provides fascinating clips showing
units in Birmingham, Cornwall, Kendal, Sheffield, Thornton
Bradford, W. Sussex and elsewhere.
Home
Guard Forum
This WW2 re-enactment forum contains a wealth
of informed discussion and facts relating to the Home Guard.
WW2 Memories is a well-presented site, recently reintroduced, giving an overview and memory of many aspects of WW2 life on the Home Front, including an excellent Home Guard section.
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FURTHER
READING
The Home Guard: A Military and Political
History
By S.P. MacKenzie. Oxford University
Press, 272pp, £16.99, published May 1995
ISBN 0-19-820577-5
(A comprehensive historical analysis of the Home Guard)
The Home Guard of
Britain
By Charles Graves. Hutchinson, London, 1943
Dad's Army: The Home Guard, 1939-1945
By David Carroll.
Sutton Publishing Ltd., Stroud, 2002 RRP £9.99
ISBN 0-7509-1823-3.
The Real Dad's Army
- The Story of the Home Guard
By Norman Longmate. Arrow Books, 1974
ISBN 0-09-909830-X
Mr. Brown's War
- A Diary of the Second World War
Edited
by Helen D. Millgate. Sutton Publishing Ltd., Stroud, 1998,
2003
ISBN 0 7509 3170 1
(An excellent day-to-day diary including many descriptions
of ARP and HG activities)
Home Guard List
1941
Savannah Publications, London SE23 3HZ
ISBN 1 902366 plus suffix below.
This
is a series of 7 volumes which list all serving Home Guard
officers at 1st February 1941, as follows:
1. Eastern Command ISBN....22 0
2. London District ISBN....23 9
3. Northern Command ISBN....24 7
4. Scottish Command ISBN....25 5
5. Southern Command ISBN....26 3
6. South Eastern Comm. ISBN....27 1
7. Western Command ISBN....28 X
Many local libraries hold a copy of the volume relevant to
their area.
(N.B. The 32nd Battn. falls within Western
Command. The webmaster can provide a look-up service for individuals
in the West Midlands counties).
The Mercian Maquis
By Bernard Lowry and Mick Wilks
Logaston Press, ISBN: 1873827970
(Describes the secret Auxiliary Units set up in Herefordshire
and Worcestershire to act as an underground resistance movement
after invasion)
Uniforms of the Home Guard
by
R. Hunt; Format: 32pp Pb.
Barbarossa Books, Tiptree, Essex
ISBN:1901313166
(Illustrated book, featuring contemporary black and white photographs and colour re-enactments to show how the uniforms of the Home Guard changed).
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MORE LINKS
Local History
Sites
(relevant to the 32nd
Battn.)
The
Aldridge Website
This website contains a wealth of information
about Aldridge, past and present.
Alton
Douglas Books
Alton Douglas has produced historical pictorial records of
many West Midlands areas. Click above to go to his site.
Pelsall
Online
provides much information on Pelsall,
past and present; and a link to the Crutchley family history
site.
The
Proud Years
contains memories and images of Little
Aston between 1921 and 1948 and particularly the village
school.
Staffordshire
History
is an excellent site containing a wealth of
information on the county's history.
The Streetly Website
a sister website to that for Aldridge.
Walsall
Local History Centre
provides a short history of most of the towns and villages
mentioned in this 32nd Battalion part of this site. (Go to
"Walsall's History").
The Staffordshire Regiment Museum holds some limited information on Home Guard matters and will respond to queries.
North Staffs 1940s Association is a group commemorating life in the 1940s in their area.
Please advise the Webmaster of any
link which no longer works.
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