STAFFORDSHIRE HOME GUARD WEBSITE

LINKS and FURTHER READING

This is a page within the www.staffshomeguard.co.uk website. To see full contents, go to SITE MAP.
Most recent update: 2nd February 2009

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.

 

 

 

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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