If any VBCW researchers care (or dare) to "cross the time streams", some basic information on the organisation of the Home Guard in Herefordshire during WW2, abstracted from an information leaflet produced by the Herefordshire Light Infantry Museum. According to the leaflet, Herefordshire had six Battalions of Home Guard, with perhaps as many as 10,000 men serving throughout the war, distributed as follows:
1st Bn. (Leominster) - Lt Col A J Mellor ("HFD 1")
2nd Bn. (Bromyard) - Lt Col J Knott CMG, DSO ("HFD 2")
3rd Bn. (Hereford City) - Lt Col FP Loder-Symonds CMG (late RN) ("HFD 3")
4th Bn. (Hereford Rural) - Lt Col RNH Verdin TD ("HFD 4")
5th Bn. (Ledbury) Lt Col JL Pearson CMG (Late RN) ("HFD 5")
6th Bn. (Harewood End) Lt Col BF Murray DSO ("HFD 6")
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| Clehonger & Allensmore Home Guard (Hereford Times). This is likely to have been taken relatively late on in WW2 (post 1943), as the section is well uniformed, all have rifles, and two have Sten Guns. |
The Herefordshire Home Guard's duties were many and varied. According to the leaflet:
"There were detachments throughout the County, including a mounted patrol in the west of the County. In Ledbury duties included mounting a road block on the Gloucester Road at Underdown, providing guards at both ends of Ledbury Tunnel and the viaduct, and manning an observation post in Churchill’s Meadow (now the Churchill Meadow estate – then a field!). There were also ‘works’ units at Baroni Metals (making aircraft components) in Hereford, [together with the Royal Ordnance Factory at Rotherwas] and the Great Western Railway, these units carried out specifically local security duties."
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| GWR Home Guard, Hereford, on "local security duties" (Hereford Times). This was probably taken much earlier in WW2 - sidecaps rather than helmets, and only three HG have rifles. |
What strikes me about pictures of Home Guard units is that the elderly 'Corporal Jones' image from the 'Dads Army' TV show was not really true - most of them were probably in their 40s or 50s, and far from old dodderers. Plus of course many of them would have been experienced soldiers from 20 years before. Not to be laughed at, perhaps!
ReplyDeleteThanks for an Interesting and fun blog, and thanks for adding my 'Ragged Soldier' to your links list.
Hi David, yes all true. Many of the HG, I think, would have been men in reserved occupations "doing their bit" in the evenings and weekends, on top of their demanding day jobs. The irony is that when invasion was most likely, in 1940, the HG were at their most under-equipped and vulnerable - by 1943/1944, when there was no prospect of invasion at all, they were really quite a well trained and equipped lot! Glad you like the blog, and am following "Ragged Soldier" with interest - all good luck to you!
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