Home Guard (United Kingdom)

Uncommon card · No. 142169

The Home Guard (initially Local Defence Volunteers or LDV) was an unpaid armed citizen militia supporting the 'Home Forces' of the British Army during the Second World War. Operational from 1940 to 1944, the Home Guard comprised more than 1.5 million local volunteers otherwise ineligible for military service, such as those who were too young, too old or medically unfit to join the regular armed services (regular military service was restricted to those aged 18 to 41) and those in reserved occupations. Excluding those already in the armed services, the civilian police or other civil defence volunteer organisations, approximately one in five men were Home Guard volunteers. Their primary role was to act as a secondary defence force in their home locality in case of invasion by the forces of Nazi Germany. The Home Guard were initially ordered to observe, and report back to GHQ Home Forces, any airborne or seaborne invading forces in their local area; an order extended subsequently to harassing...

Read on Wikipedia · Image Kessell (Mr) War Office official photographer., Public domain