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Home Guard

Great! We have a date - and a very rough indication of where: Home Guard Western Command which means a huge swathe of the country from the north-west down to Gloucestershire and including all of the West Midlands (and Wales).

Chris
 
paul stacey said:
#349, looks like a Vickers .303, heavy, but may be wrong, my dear Uncle Horace Manton, was a dispatch rider for the Home guard, Handsworth Div, and is in one of the "Birmingham" magazine articles!!
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It's the World War One version of the Browning called the "M1917" - It fired the American .30 calibre round. The Americans gave some to the British in WW2. Because of the different ammunition, it was not issued to regular troops, so they ended up with the Home Guard (who also had quantities of American rifles that used the same calibre round). The Americans themselves used the model M1917 throughout WW2 and the Korean War up until the 1970s. It was mostly used in a defensive role, its water jacket meant it could go on firing for long periods. It does look very similar to the British Vickers gun.

M1917 Browning machine gun - Wikipedia

en.wikipedia.org en.wikipedia.org
 
mw0njm. said:
View attachment 183948
armourersbench.com

US M1917s in British Home Guard Service

The transfer of rifles began in the autumn of 1940, with the training pamphlet ‘The Home Guard .300 Rifle P.17 (American Manufacture)’ published in September by the government. Which began “it now …
armourersbench.com armourersbench.com
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Indeed, the US military had a strange way of allocating names to anything they purchased "M" for "military" then the year it was adopted for each type - Thus there is an "M1917" machine gun and an "M1917" rifle. Completely different yet given the same name. In fact, if you look at the original photo posted - The soldier kneeling on the right is not holding a British Lee Enfield rifle - it's actually one of the American M1917 pattern rifles. - You can tell by the different style of fore-sight and the way the barrel protrudes from the "woodwork". That would make sense since it would mean both the rifle and machine gun would use the same .30 calibre ammunition. Simplifying logistics for this particular Home Guard unit.
 
Dinger said:
Indeed, the US military had a strange way of allocating names to anything they purchased "M" for "military" then the year it was adopted for each type - Thus there is an "M1917" machine gun and an "M1917" rifle. Completely different yet given the same name. In fact, if you look at the original photo posted - The soldier kneeling on the right is not holding a British Lee Enfield rifle - it's actually one of the American M1917 pattern rifles. - You can tell by the different style of fore-sight and the way the barrel protrudes from the "woodwork". That would make sense since it would mean both the rifle and machine gun would use the same .30 calibre ammunition. Simplifying logistics for this particular Home Guard unit.
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yes i did notice under a mag glass
 
The British army's two primary machine guns were the VickersMark I and the Bren Marks 1 and 2. The Vickers was a water-cooled mediumgun that was mounted on a tripod, while the Brens were air-cooled lightmachine guns usually fired from bipods. Both were considered among thebest of their class of weapons. Only limited numbers of each wereprovided to the Home Guard and photos of them in service were oftenstaged for propaganda purposes.

As production of Vickers and Bren guns got up to speed, the regularforces were able to hand their Lewis Guns down to the Home Guard. Theair-cooled Lewis had been the standard LMG of British forces from 1915until the Bren was adopted in 1938. While on the heavy side, it wasknown for its reliability and was the most common Home Guard automaticweapon.

The Home Guard also received Lewis Mark 2 and Mark 3 aircraft gunsthat had their barrel jackets removed, the buttstock replaced by a spadegrip and used 97-round pan magazines. They were usually retrofitted withmakeshift buttstocks and bipods for ground use. Some American .30 cal.M1918 Lewis Aircraft Guns obtained through Lend-Lease were modified in asimilar manner.

Another veteran of the Great War that was fielded by the Home Guardwas the Mark I Hotchkiss light machine gun. Adopted by the British armybefore World War I, it was air-cooled and featured a quick-change barreland were usually used by mounted troops and on armored vehicles. Many ofthem were fitted with crude metal buttstocks and issued to the Guard.

The U.S. Lend-Lease program provided the Home Guard with additionalmachine guns--obsolete and not. The most useful of the lot was the M1918Browning Automatic Rifle (BAR), the standard squad automatic weapon ofthe U.S. Army from 1918 to 1940. While its fixed barrel design and20-round magazine limited its rate of fire, its light weight andfirepower made it a popular infantry weapon.
 
Strange article ? Mayor TS Dick, seems a nice chap.

MIDLAND MOVE FOR TIGHTER HOME GUARD DISCIPLINE.
(Birmingham Gazette 30 November 1940)

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I wish I knew what the numbers mean.....
The 199 /105 Warwicks Home Guard (Number 7 Relief).... Eh?

My father is under the red arrow in the photo.... What used to make us giggle as kids was the guy 3 to the left of my Dad who looked like a cross between an alien and a raving lunatic! :)
 

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Jaffa said:
I wish I knew what the numbers mean.....
The 199 /105 Warwicks Home Guard (Number 7 Relief).... Eh?

My father is under the red arrow in the photo.... What used to make us giggle as kids was the guy 3 to the left of my Dad who looked like a cross between an alien and a raving lunatic! :)
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some of our members maybe able to help you with that...great photo as well

lyn
 
Jaffa said:
My father's Birmingham Home Guard certificate for the 'instuction of' and 'live throwing' of grenades.... Ooooh look out! :D
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I never realised there were so many grenades !
The 36 grenade was the most used and could be launched from a rifle.
The 68 was anti-tank, (good luck with that one !).
And the 76 was an incendiary.
 
maypolebaz said:
I never realised there were so many grenades !
The 36 grenade was the most used and could be launched from a rifle.
The 68 was anti-tank, (good luck with that one !).
And the 76 was an incendiary.
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I still have his demonstration N° 36 Mills bomb and a bakelite N° 69 grenade.... All complete, apart from the H.E. obviously! :p
 
maypolebaz said:
Great ! I wonder what the 69 grenade was for ? (The only bakelite thing I ever saw was a wartime trip flare).
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Fragmentation grenade... Used at close quarters as it had a smaller dectructive radius than a 36 Mills..... It had a length of tape wrapped around a ball-bearing inside with a weight at the other end of the tape. When you threw it, the tape pulled out and released the ball-bearing. Upon impact with your target the ball-bearing would prime the detonator. 1715071244433.jpeg
 
Jaffa said:
Fragmentation grenade... Used at close quarters as it had a smaller dectructive radius than a 36 Mills..... It had a length of tape wrapped around a ball-bearing inside with a weight at the other end of the tape. When you threw it, the tape pulled out and released the ball-bearing. Upon impact with your target the ball-bearing would prime the detonator. View attachment 191289
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Blimey !
 
This discussion about Home Guard weaponry reminds me that I was surrounded by objects of death and destruction such as these for about five years of my childhood, growing up in a Home Guard family - revolvers, rifles, grenades and other ammunition. I wrote a memoir about it many years ago. (Can't remember if I've mentioned this before but sorry if I have!)

This is how it starts, with Dad and his revolver:

It was a summer's evening. The war might be raging all around the globe; but here in this house in Streetly we were protected by the might of the 32nd Staffordshire (Aldridge) Battalion, Home Guard, and, at that moment, all was quiet. I had finished playing and was now enthroned in the smallest room of the house, my short trousers at my ankles and my feet still several years away from reaching the floor. The latest issue of "Comic Cuts" lay on my knees and I was totally engrossed and at peace with the world.

It was not only the loudness of the nearby bang which shocked me but also the fact that it was utterly unexpected. Its impact on me was so great that I fell sideways off the seat and found myself on the lino floor, firmly wedged between wall and pedestal. Adjusting my attire only sufficiently to enable me to run, I rushed out of the lavatory and across the landing, past the familiar group of anti-incendiary sand and water buckets and into my parents' bedroom at the back of the house. There the window was wide open. Sitting on the windowsill and gripping the frame with his left hand to steady himself, my father was leaning out as far as he could, his right arm outstretched as he again took aim with his revolver at some hidden target........

(The rest of it can be read here, if anyone is interested: It's safe to click on, even if your browser nags you about security certificates and whatnot).

Chris
 
Jaffa said:
I wish I knew what the numbers mean.....
The 199 /105 Warwicks Home Guard (Number 7 Relief).... Eh?

My father is under the red arrow in the photo.... What used to make us giggle as kids was the guy 3 to the left of my Dad who looked like a cross between an alien and a raving lunatic! :)
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Very interesting information, thanks, Jaffa.

The November 1944 Orders of Battle for the Home Guard show that the 105 Warwickshire Home Guard battery was one of six in the Warwickshire area excluding Birmingham, all making up 26 Anti-Aircraft Regiment Home Guard. There were a further six within the city boundary making up 25 Regiment.

The 105 was based in Sutton Coldfield. (Not quite sure precisely where but my own brother-in-law - previously a member of a Birmingham factory unit - served in a battery which was always described as being in Walmley). This battery was, in the Orders of Battle and also in your father's qualification certificate , described as a Rocket Battery, but that isn't to say that there weren't also more conventional weapons within it or hadn't been re-equipped as time went on. It's interesting that, despite apparently serving in an a-a unit which would have occupied all his HG hours, your father was qualifying as an instructor in much of the normal, infantry-type equipment as late as September 1944.

The designation 199/105 was that given to the battery to denote, first, its reference number in Royal Artillery terms and, second, the title by which it was known in the Warwickshire Home Guard. I have to guess at the significance of the Relief number but I suspect it denotes a particular title given to one of several teams of men trained and ready to man the battery as and when their turn came around. (Home Guard men were at that time expected to devote a minimum of 48 hours per month to Home Guard duties and for anti-aircraft duties this necessitated a system requiring much shift-working). All these men would normally have been transferred from nearby existing, general service Home Guard units in the area during 1942 and early 1943; or would have been new, younger recruits only just joining the Home Guard during and after that period and immediately entering a-a service.

(I note that the 26 Anti-Aircraft Regiment was commanded in 1944 by Lt.-Col. T.S. Dick DSO, OBE, whose name has cropped up recently in this thread).

Chris
 
ChrisM said:
Very interesting information, thanks, Jaffa.

The November 1944 Orders of Battle for the Home Guard show that the 105 Warwickshire Home Guard battery was one of six in the Warwickshire area excluding Birmingham, all making up 26 Anti-Aircraft Regiment Home Guard. There were a further six within the city boundary making up 25 Regiment.

The 105 was based in Sutton Coldfield. (Not quite sure precisely where but my own brother-in-law - previously a member of a Birmingham factory unit - served in a battery which was always described as being in Walmley). This battery was, in the Orders of Battle and also in your father's qualification certificate , described as a Rocket Battery, but that isn't to say that there weren't also more conventional weapons within it or hadn't been re-equipped as time went on. It's interesting that, despite apparently serving in an a-a unit which would have occupied all his HG hours, your father was qualifying as an instructor in much of the normal, infantry-type equipment as late as September 1944.

The designation 199/105 was that given to the battery to denote, first, its reference number in Royal Artillery terms and, second, the title by which it was known in the Warwickshire Home Guard. I have to guess at the significance of the Relief number but I suspect it denotes a particular title given to one of several teams of men trained and ready to man the battery as and when their turn came around. (Home Guard men were at that time expected to devote a minimum of 48 hours per month to Home Guard duties and for anti-aircraft duties this necessitated a system requiring much shift-working). All these men would normally have been transferred from nearby existing, general service Home Guard units in the area during 1942 and early 1943; or would have been new, younger recruits only just joining the Home Guard during and after that period and immediately entering a-a service.

(I note that the 26 Anti-Aircraft Regiment was commanded in 1944 by Lt.-Col. T.S. Dick DSO, OBE, whose name has cropped up recently in this thread).

Chris
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Great knowledge... Thanks for taking the time to share it here.

I think my father was living in Erdington during the war, so would that have come under Birmingham or Sutton I wonder?

He never said much, that generation never did, but I do remember him saying something about A.A. (either guns, rockets or both) being on the roof of Lewis's department store... There was some irony about most people taking shelter underground during an air raid whilst the Home Guard were going onto the roof of the tallest building in the city!... I've never heard any other accounts of A.A. on the roof of Lewis's, maybe it was a big secret?... I really don't know.

I'll have to dig out his notebook.... Due to wartime restrictions, army instruction books were in short supply and volunteers had to copy the instructions and drawings in their own hand.... There may well be more info in his notebook.
 
I have unearthed my late father's H.G. grenade instructor's memo book....

It's crazy to imagine now but due to wartime shortages, all the info, diagrams and instructions for mines and grenades used by the Home Guard had to be copied out by hand... Here's just a quick scan of one of the open pages, talking about a 'Number 68' anti-tank grenade (see photo).... And there's pages and pages of this stuff.

It's hard to imagine that these guys could have been expected to take on Panzer Tanks in the streets of Brum with a box full of grenades and a hand written memo book!!

Oh and if you wish to complain... Here's the phone number!
B'Ham Zone Grenade School - Tel - MID2093
 

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HOME GUARD OF HONOUR
Home Guard of Honour for Mr. Henry Norman Smith, of Hall Green, and his bride, Miss Doris Lucy Manning, of Spark-brook, after their marriage at St. Barnabas' Church, Ladypool-road, Birmingham.
(Birmingham Gazette February 1941)

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