Englefield in World War 2
The Home Guard
On 10 May 1940 the "phoney war" came to an abrupt end with the German "blitzkrieg" invasion of Belgium and France. The British Expeditionary Force were pushed back to the Channel coast and it was only by a miracle that nearly 350,000 were evacuated back to England in Operation Dynamo between 26 May and 4 June, thanks to the hastily-assembled flotilla of "little ships" crewed by their civilian owners. On 22 June the French capitulated.
It was well recognised that the Battle of France would be succeeded by a Battle of Britain and on 14 May the Secretary of State for War, Anthony Eden, made a broadcast calling for men between the ages of 17 and 65 to enrol in a new force, the Local Defence Volunteers (LDV). By July, nearly 1.5 million men had enrolled and the name was changed to the more inspiring Home Guard. The Home Guard were all volunteers who were otherwise ineligible for military service, such as those too young or too old to join the regular armed services or those in reserved occupations. Their role in the event of an invasion was to try to slow down the advance of the enemy in order to give the regular troops time to regroup, and to maintain control of the civilian population, forestalling panic and preventing essential communication routes from being blocked by refugees, as had happened in France and Belgium. They were also used to defend key communications points and factories in rear areas against possible capture by paratroops or fifth columnists.
Many of the men of Englefield were in reserved occupations so could not be accepted as volunteers in the armed forces. Reservation did not preclude service in the ARP (formed from volunteers in 1938) or the Home Guard and some 28 men from Englefield answered Anthony Eden's call, including some of the older men who had been among those early volunteers of 1914.
The names of the men listed as joining in 1940 are shown below. A few who initially signed-on resigned before the end of the year and are not listed here. Jack Smith volunteered for the RAF in December 1940 and served until the end of the war. James Strang was subsequently commissioned as a second lieutenant in the Home Guard on 1 February 1941.
Arthur Claydon | William Chandler | Billy Cooper | Ernest Bonham | Frederick Dry |
George Day | Arthur Dance | Norman Dance | Lewis Evans | Wilfred Hedges |
Frederick Hayward | Tom Harris | Donald Large | Louis Lamb | William Midwinter |
Bert Newman | William Parsons | William Partridge | James Strang | Jack Spiller |
FW "Jim" Smith | Jack Smith | C Stanbrook | William Steeds | Ted Van Veen |
Ernest Why | Mark Wise | Henry Young | ||
Arthur Claydon had been a member of the Berkshire Yeomanry, a Territorial Force unit, before the start of WW1, was wounded at Gallipoli and later commissioned into the Royal Field Artillery. Ted Van Veen was another in the Berkshire Yeoman embodied at the start of the War. Arthur Dance also served from the very start, was wounded in 1916, taken prisoner in 1918 and awarded the Military Medal. Donald Large too was already serving, in the Royal Navy, at the start of the Great War and was awarded the Distinguished Service Medal. He left the Royal Navy in 1924 and subsequently became Butler at Englefield House.
Louis Lamb was the farm bailiff at Chalkpit Farm and James Strang the tenant at Wickcroft Farm. Frederick Dry was the Estate Clerk of Works. James Strang was subsequently commissioned as a second lieutenant in the Home Guard on 1st February 1941. Ernest Bonham was a gamekeeper and would later become the Head Keeper and William Partridge a forestry worker whose son, also William, became the Head Gardener. The remainder were workers in the Estate Yard, the farms and the Gardens.
Englefield and Theale together formed a Company of the 4th (Pangbourne) Battalion of the Home Guard, affiliated to the Royal Berkshire Regiment whose cap badge they wore - once they were issued with uniform that is, all they had initially was an "LDV" armband. The TV comedy Dad's Army contains many a grain of truth and another was the fact that in the first days the only weapons they had were ones they owned themselves or managed to obtain somehow. These were mostly shotguns and .22 rifles that were in regular use around the estate for potting rabbits and vermin. Firearms legislation was less onerous in those days and there was also the odd full bore rifle or pistol, probably a souvenir retained from the earlier war. Later in 1940 there was an issue of 20 rifles but none of that first batch seems to have found its way into the hands of the Englefield platoon.
The German invasion of Russia in 1941 was a definite sign that the invasion of Britain was at least postponed and the pressure for home defence eased somewhat . Nevertheless, the Home Guard was kept at full readiness as the Russians were not expected to hold out for long. When the Russians were definitely seen to be holding out against the Germans in 1943 the military need for the Home Guard receded but they were kept active in case of sea or airborne raids on southern England intended to disrupt preparations for the Allied invasion of France. Once that had been a success and the Allies were well on their way to the heart of Germany the Home Guard was disbanded on 31st December 1944. A formal stand-down parade was held in Reading on Sunday 3rd December.