Download or read book The Home Guard of Britain by Charles Graves written by Charles Graves and published by . This book was released on 1944 with total page pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt:
Download or read book In Search of the Real Dad s Army written by Stephen Cullen and published by Pen and Sword. This book was released on 2012-02-29 with total page 257 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: What was the Home Guard? Who were the men and women who served in it? And what can be said of their real role and significance once the popular myths have been stripped away? Despite the fame of the Home Guard of Dads Army the true story of this wartime organization tends to be neglected. The myths obscure the reality. Stephen Cullens aim in this thoroughgoing new study is to cut through the misunderstandings in order to reassess the Home Guard and its contribution to Britains war effort and to deepen our understanding of the men and women who were members of it. He sets the Home Guard in the long historical context of domestic defense planning, then focuses on the preparations made before the outbreak of the Second World War. In detail he traces the changing role of the Home Guard during its wartime existence as it adapted to meet the multitude of challenges it faced from civil defense and intelligence gathering to training for guerrilla warfare. Using vivid eyewitness testimony and oral history, he takes a grassroots look at the men - and women from all ages and social backgrounds who made up this national defense force. The equipment, uniforms, weapons and vehicles they used and the field defenses they manned are described as their role developed over the course of the war. He also examines the evolution of popular views of the Home Guard from wartime days to the present the notion of the Peoples Army, the thinking of early Home Guard commentators like George Orwell, and the writings of more recent historians who have sought to explain an organization that retains such an extraordinary hold on the popular imagination.
Download or read book The Home Guard of Britain written by Charles Graves and published by . This book was released on 1943 with total page 374 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Bog med rapporter fra det engelske hjemmeværn, den såkaldte "Home Guard", under den 2. Verdenskrig 1939-45.
Download or read book Churchill s Army written by Stephen Bull and published by Bloomsbury Publishing. This book was released on 2016-09-22 with total page 370 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Winston Churchill, Britain's iconic war time Prime Minister, is inextricably linked with the victorious British Army of 1939 to 1945. Yet hindsight, propaganda, and the imperative of the defeat of Hitler and Imperial Japan, have led to a tendency to oversimplify the image of Churchill the war leader, and 'his' Army. For whilst Churchill was undeniably a towering statesman, his relations with both the Army and War Office were ambiguous and altered considerably not only with the progress of the Second World War, but over decades. In this comprehensive book, Stephen Bull examines every aspect of the British Army during the Second World War, and considers in detail the strengths and weaknesses of an organisation that was tested to its limits on many fronts but made an immense contribution to the successful Allied outcome. The book explores the structure of military power from the men who ran it, the Generals to the detail of the regiments they commanded. It looks at the uniforms the soldiers wore and the badges and insignia they bore on their uniforms. The weaponry Churchill's army used is discussed in detail, from small arms including rifles, bayonets, grenades, carbines and machine guns to the massed firepower of the artillery along with the increasing sophistication of tanks and other military vehicles during the period. Finally the role of auxiliary and special forces and their contribution to the campaign is considered. The comprehensive text is enhanced by more than 200 contemporary photographs.
Download or read book Fortress Britain 1940 written by Andrew Chatterton and published by Casemate. This book was released on 2024-08-15 with total page 294 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: "Through meticulous research in archives and crumbling ventilation shafts, Chatterton paints a picture of Britain in the Second World War that turns our popular narrative on its head. This is important, shocking, and impressive.” — Dan Snow MBE, historian, broadcaster and television presenter Alone, unprepared and weak. These are generally the words used to describe Britain’s position in 1940, part of a narrative that has been built up ever since the end of World War II. However, the reality is very different. On land, sea and in the air, Britain was prepared. It had the most powerful navy in the world; the RAF was relatively strong, but more importantly, was operating as part of a plan and a joined-up group system that was in reality never in any real danger of being defeated; even the post-Dunkirk British Army was better armed than the post-war narrative tells us. These forces were backed up by the Home Guard, and thousands of men and women in secret roles ready to help fight the invasion of the country. Even if all of this had gone wrong and the Nazis had defeated Britain militarily then a separate, highly secret civilian group were ready to become active only after the occupation had started. One word associated more than any other during this period of the Second World War is ‘Alone’ – Churchill played upon this in his speeches but in 1940, Britain had a hugely powerful empire. Although in many cases this support was thousands of miles away, the Empire and other Allies would have played a huge role had the Germans had invaded, one that has been overlooked in many accounts.
Download or read book The Real Dad s Army written by Norman Longmate and published by Amberley Publishing Limited. This book was released on 2010-08-15 with total page 202 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: A narrative history of the Home Guard from its creation in May 1940 to the end of the Second World War.
Download or read book Britain s Secret Defences written by Andrew Chatterton and published by Casemate. This book was released on 2022-08-09 with total page 239 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: The first full history of the highly trained and ruthless civilian volunteers secretly trained across Britain to be deployed in the case of a German invasion. The narrative surrounding Britain’s anti-invasion forces has often centered on ‘Dad’s Army’-like characters running around with pitchforks, on unpreparedness and sense of inevitability of invasion and defeat. The truth, however, is very different. Top-secret, highly trained and ruthless civilian volunteers were being recruited as early as the summer of 1940. Had the Germans attempted an invasion they would have been countered by saboteurs and guerrilla fighters emerging from secret bunkers, and monitored by swathes of spies and observers who would have passed details on via runners, wireless operators and ATS women in disguised bunkers. Alongside these secret forces, the Home Guard were also setting up their own ‘guerrilla groups’, and SIS (MI6) were setting up post-occupation groups of civilians – including teenagers – to act as sabotage cells, wireless operators, and assassins had the Nazis taken control of the country. The civilians involved in these groups understood the need for absolute secrecy and their commitment to keeping quiet meant that most went to their grave without ever telling anyone of their role, not even their closest family members. There has been no official and little public recognition of what these dedicated men and women were willing to do for their country in its hour of need, and after over 80 years of silence the time has come to highlight their remarkable role.
Download or read book Faces of the Home Front 1939 1945 written by Neil R. Storey and published by Pen and Sword History. This book was released on 2022-01-31 with total page 218 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Faces of the Home Front presents a fascinating insight into the people, wartime organisations, events, life and work on the British Home Front during the Second World War. This is the story of ordinary people in extraordinary times told through an array of previously unpublished rare photographs, illustrations and ephemera. If you have wondered how Air Raid Wardens, Ambulance crews, Home Guard, Firemen, Special Constables, Women's Voluntary Service and the Women's Land Army were recruited and trained, how they were uniformed and what their duties entailed in wartime were, this is the book for you. Drawing on the authors’ own extensive archives of original photographs, training manuals, documents, decades of research and interviews with those who were there, there are stories of well-known events such as the Blitz on London and many other often lesser known events and incidents around the country, some deeply moving, some harrowing and some that show how the kindness and selfless bravery of people that helped get Britain through its darkest hours. The combination of images and stories vividly bring to life the experiences of people in cities, towns and countryside in wartime as they experienced evacuation, rationing, the black-out and air raids touched the lives of everyone. This volume is a valuable addition to the bookshelf of any family historian, collector, re-enactor.
Download or read book Britain and the European Union written by Alistair Jones and published by Edinburgh University Press. This book was released on 2017-07-28 with total page 200 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: This updated guide examines the different relationships between the various tiers of government in the UK and the EU, and how the EU's powers affect the UK, from a range of perspectives. It evaluates the role of the media, political parties, pressure groups, social media and the ever-changing position of public opinion, and places the relationship in its historical context to show how it has evolved over time. Each chapter includes an introduction, learning goals, a glossary, likely exam questions, helpful websites and suggestions for further reading. This new edition has two new chapters, 'Europeanisation' and 'The British Media and the EU', includes the fallout from the 2015 UK Parliament general election and the 2014 European Parliament election and draws on freshly updated examples, tables and figures updated throughout.
Download or read book The Defense of the United Kingdom written by Basil Collier and published by . This book was released on 1957 with total page 672 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt:
Download or read book Dad s Army written by David Carroll and published by The History Press. This book was released on 2009-03-30 with total page 150 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Immortalised by ' Dad's Army' - this is the true story of the men who manned the British frontline.
Download or read book To the Last Man written by Malcolm Atkin and published by Pen and Sword. This book was released on 2019-04-30 with total page 434 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: This historical study of the UK’s WWII homeland defense service dispels the propaganda and pop culture myths to reveal its true wartime role. In 1940, Britain formed an armed citizen militia to act as the first line of defense in case of Nazi invasion—an essential, if suicidal, mission intended to buy time for the organization of regular forces. Officially, they were the Home Guard. Later, a British sitcom that ran for nearly a decade in the 60s and 70s dubbed them Dad’s Army. That show contributed to a distorted perception of the Home Guard that persists today. But as Malcolm Atkin reveals in this thought-provoking book, the Home Guard’s image was manipulated from its earliest days. Sifting through official documents and contemporary histories, as well as stories, artwork and poetry of the era, and comparing these with postwar films and histories, Atkin explores how the myths of the Home Guard arose and were exploited. He also shows how the strong sense of gallows-humor amongst its volunteers—which fits in with a long tradition of self-deprecating humor in the British army—was taken out of context and became the basis of the TV series. To the Last Man strips back the myths, analyzing how the modern perception has evolved. The result is a new, gritty, and sometimes shocking appreciation of the role that the Home Guard was expected to play in the Second World War.
Download or read book A Guide to the Sources of British Military History written by Robin HIgham and published by Routledge. This book was released on 2015-10-05 with total page 688 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Designed to fill an overlooked gap, this book, originally published in 1972, provides a single unified introduction to bibliographical sources of British military history. Moreover it includes guidance in a number of fields in which no similar source is available at all, giving information on how to obtain acess to special collections and private archives, and links military history, especially during peacetime, with the development of science and technology.
Download or read book The Home Front in World War Two written by Neil R. Storey and published by Amberley Publishing Limited. This book was released on 2017-11-15 with total page 131 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: The Second World War was fought not only in the skies above Kent, but also in the streets and front rooms of the nation. Air Raid Wardens, Land Girls and members of the WI formed just a part of the Home Front that would help bring Britain victory.
Download or read book Personal Perspectives written by Timothy C. Dowling and published by Bloomsbury Publishing USA. This book was released on 2005-09-27 with total page 367 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: A compelling account of the personal experiences of groups who were affected by World War II, both on and off the battlefields. Personal Perspectives: World War II brings to life the experiences of specific segments of soldiers and civilians as they were affected by the conflict, capturing special characteristics of each group and the unique ways they experienced the war. Twelve essays written by top international scholars portray what it was really like to experience the war for groups ranging from marines, naval aviators, and liberators of concentration camps to prisoners of war, refugees, and women in factories. Of interest to both students and nonexperts, the book tells the stories of Japanese Americans forced into internment camps and African Americans who experienced intense discrimination, the call to activism, and opportunity in the armed forces. It offers the perspectives of Navajo "code talkers," diplomats like U.S. ambassador to Poland Anthony J. Biddle, who fled his post to avoid death, and scientists who worked on the Manhattan project, thereby introducing the most destructive form of warfare known to humanity.
Download or read book A Wander Through Wartime London written by Neil Bright and published by Casemate Publishers. This book was released on 2011-02-23 with total page 209 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Through a series of five walks this book discovers the sights, sounds and experience of the capital at war; it details the remaining tangible evidence of the dark days via air raid shelter signs, bomb damage on buildings and memorials detailing heroic and often tragic events. The new routes cover a wide area of London and reveal further evidence of the experiences of four years air war in the skies above our capital city. The East End & Docks, Greenwich, Holborn, Bermondsey, Southwark and the West End are all featured, along with detailed maps and numerous contemporary photographs that accompany the text for each walk. The book also contains a number of appendices relating to the wider picture of the war. A well deserved story of Londons Home Guard is told. A list of Civil Defense casualties that occurred within the boroughs covered by the walks is included as well as a detailed list of the locations of wartime fire and ambulance stations across the capital.This book will appeal to both the enthusiast and anyone with an interest in Londons past. It is a further record of the memories and tangible evidence of this dramatic period of our capitals past and a tribute to those who lived through the Blitz and sadly so often, those who did not.
Download or read book Sherman s Wife written by Julia Camoys Stonor and published by eBook Partnership. This book was released on 2012-09-13 with total page 552 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Sherman's Wife is Julia Camoys Stonor's blackly humorous childhood memoir. Her mother, Jeanne, came from an impecunious Catholic aristocratic family and careened her way through the bedrooms of Mayfair, Madrid and Rhode Island. Her father was Sherman, the half-American 6th Baron Camoys whom Jeanne effectively blackmailed into marriage. Jeanne insisted that she and Sherman spend their honeymoon with one of her lovers, Hitler's foreign minister, Joachim von Ribbentrop. Once installed at the Stonor Park estate, Jeanne set about acquiring money and power through any means possible, including but not limited to theft, sexual blackmail, and murder. In this frank and unflinching portrait of English upper class life in the 1940s, Julia Camoys Stonor manages to evoke Mommie Dearest and Brideshead Revisited in equal measure.
