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THE
HOME GUARD was formed during May 1940, when the dark clouds
of war rolled over Britain and the nation stood alone, threatened
with a Nazi invasion.
Within
six weeks of a radio appeal for a new civilian army to guard
the Home Front, a staggering 1.5 million men had enrolled
for service, covering every city, town and village in the
country. Despite initial deficiencies in the provision of
training and equipment, the Home Guard later developed into
a cohesive force and one of impressive diversity.
David
Carroll draws on the personal accounts of those men and
eventually women who served, to reveal what it was really
like to spend long nights on duty watching for disguised
enemy parachutists to drop onto the fields of Britain, conducting
road blocks to identify everyone passing into the village;
or as part of the anti-aircraft Home Guard, who saw action
in real conflict, dispatching the enemy as they flew overhead.
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He conveys
the fighting spirit of the men while examining the Home
Guard's contribution to the war effort and the divided opinion
which surrounded its existence.
Dad's
Army is a comprehensive account of the Home Guard in
its many activities and guises in the Second World War -
from the early disorganised days of May 1940 until stand
down at the close of 1944, by which time they had become
a force to be reckoned with.
David
Carroll is a freelance writer and author of a pictorial
history on the same subject, The Home Guard (Sutton,
1999).
The book also contains a three page foreword by Bill Pertwee,
who relates some of his real wartime experiences to the
accuracy of the Dad's Army TV series.
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