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Date Posted: 11:13:18 05/03/03 Sat
Author: Mr John D Clare
Subject: Home Front preparations - some ideas
In reply to: chappie 's message, "home front" on 12:04:12 05/02/03 Fri

What you would say depends on the date – I suspect you mean Sept 1940, when Hitler was hoping to launch his invasion (Operation Sealion).

The easy answer is ‘hardly at all’. There is a story (probably apocryphal) that the stretch of coast earmarked by Hitler for his main invasion attack was guarded by a Home Guard platoon with a machine gun!

The key pages for this answer are <a rel=nofollow target=_blank href="http://www.johndclare.net/wwii3.htm">http://www.johndclare.net/wwii3.htm</a> on the Phoney War, <a rel=nofollow target=_blank href="http://www.johndclare.net/wwii6.htm">http://www.johndclare.net/wwii6.htm</a> on the Battle of Britain, <a rel=nofollow target=_blank href="http://www.johndclare.net/wwii7.htm">http://www.johndclare.net/wwii7.htm</a> on conscription and <a rel=nofollow target=_blank href="http://www.johndclare.net/wwii8.htm">http://www.johndclare.net/wwii8.htm</a> on the Battle of the Atlantic.

Essentially:

FOR:
Some things were done, though often in a flawed way:
1. Evacuation HAD been done (3 Sept) – though many children came back at Christmas, when nothing seemed to be happening.
2. Air Raid Precautions enforced from the beginning – Blackout/ barrage balloons/ gas masks/ yellow pillar boxes sandbags. 1 million coffins were made.
3. Rationing started (petrol 22 Sep 1939) and was soon extended to butter, sugar and bacon, paper and meat. Salvage campaigns after Jan 1940. Lord Woolton was appointed in April 1940. But Women’s Land Army only begun in Oct 1939 – AND they needed training. In May 1940, the Emergency Powers Act gave the government the power to move workers into essential industries and the Essential Works Order introduced conscription to vital industries in March 1941.
4. Air defences were quite good and well-prepared – radar (1935), Dowding appointed and reorganised Fighter Command (1937), Hurricane (1935) and Spitfire (1936) developed – BUT still small numbers, Beaverbrook was not put in charge of aircraft production until May 1940.
5. The Home Guard were formed, but they did not get weapons until late in the war – farmers lent them shotguns etc. The Home Guard were not quite the joke of 'Dad’s Army', but they could not have stopped the Nazi Army.
6. Ministry of Information organised propaganda from Jan 1940 on – eg ‘Careless Talk costs lives’ campaign.
7. The Military Training Act was passed in May 1939 but 2 million men aged 20–27 were only called up to join the armed forces in Jan 1940 – and they needed training.
8. Key event was the appointment of Churchill (10 May 1940) – the whole war machine moved up a number of gears.

But there were some things that just had not been/could not be addressed at all:
1. Militarily, little was achieved – eg dropping leaflets on Germany – Wow!/ BEF sent but only 158,000 men/ defeats in Norway and at Dunkirk.
2. U-boats – convoy system started 15 Sep 1939, but not properly defended because not enough battleships. Decoding of Enigma/ sonar and adequate protection not until 1942.
3. During Phoney War many of the regulations were forgotten, and the ‘war mentally’ of the British people relaxed. This changed with Dunkirk and Churchill (May 1940).

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