The Impact of the Second World War

Question 5

On a London Borough: Bexley

Source K is an advert for the BBC sitcom dad’s Army. This program does suggest that many of the efforts made by the Home Guard to protect and defend the country were not very effective. For example in an episode called ‘The Deadly Attachment’ this episode ridicules the men in the Home Guard, for example a part of the episode shows the Soldiers sleeping instead of guarding the area, they could not even order a portion of chips properly, one of the men was afraid of climbing a ladder let alone catching a German and all the men seemed to be old, stupid and inexperienced Trained for the job. The fact that they are old suggests that all the young men had been injured or doing something else instead of being in the Army, so the older men was all that was left, the last resort. It also suggests that the men were afraid, uncourageous, and clumsy and that they may as well be old, helpless, lazy men. Therefore it can be said that the Home Guard were unable to deal effectively with the German purposes of war. It became a farce. However, source K may not be a totally accurate version of the Home Guard because it is a comedy. It is not a true historical account, as there is no actual evidence.

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Other sources also suggest that measures taken in Bexley to protect and defend the borough were not that effective. For example, Source B shows a member of the Home guard obstruction gang. ‘Our best effort was made from scaffold poles and barbed wire and would not have harmed a ‘jeep’ let alone a panzer tank’. This would suggest that the Home Guard did not have enough experience or money to do the job correctly. Source E shows an Erith resident saying that he will die weather in the trench or not. ‘If am in the shelter and its meant for me, mi still going to get hit’ this shows that the resident was unconfident about the protection provided by the trenches. Source H is a table showing the effects of enemy action in the borough from September 1939 to May 1945. ‘1’233 alerts, 1’233 incidents …. In Bexley M.B’ this source shows that a lot of damage was caused even though the war effort was high. This evidence may be fairly reliable because as most of these sources were written post-war and they are secondary sources which are more likely to tell people the whole truth and to explain and describe in detail what really happened without fearing that moral could be put down by this. However, there are also reasons to doubt the accuracy of the sources as they were written so long after the war, they could be biased and only tell the most dramatic events while exaggerate them.

Further evidence, which supports the idea that efforts made to protect and defend Bexley were not very effective includes the fact that the Home Guard wee not capable of protecting a family living in Bexley, their home was destroyed and blown up they were injured as this is a true historical fact it can be assured that this happened often and was common. Furthermore, the Home guard also had an scheme called ‘The scrap metal scheme’ in this scheme the people were told to called all sorts of metals suck as nails, cans, milk bottle tops and other metallic objects to make bombs and tanks, off course this was completely useless as the materials were all made out of different sorts of metals and could not be molten together. The point of the scheme was more likely to be to keep moral up as this would make the people believe that they were being helpful and as a result feel safer and more involved in promoting safety and thinking that they had more resources to fight and defend the borough.

On the other hand, some sources seem to suggest that the efforts to suggest that the efforts to protect and defend Bexley from enemy action were actually quite effective. For example source C is a photograph showing the HM King George V inspecting the Home Guard unit in Coldbow in 1940, this suggests that the Home Guard were well prepared and considered important enough that the king himself took the time to inspect it. Source F is a propaganda photograph showing a woman dressed in her best clothes ready to fight fires, the caption tells the reader that the woman had previous fire training this would encourage people to join the neighbourhood watch as it seems enjoyable while helping out and it keeps moral high. Source J is a drawing of a reconstruction of post E28 in Erith museum this suggests that even though the war was happening it did not stop post and normalities in the borough.

However, these sources may be less accurate because they are primary and only show a second of the event as they are photographs or drawings, as they were all published at the time of war and possibly be aimed to raise moral and most of the reality was concealed.

We can also learn from an article in ‘History review’ by Stephen Cullen, the article describes that there were a very large amount of men in the Home Guard, equipment use provided, uniforms were used, and guerrilla strategies were used to get to enemy land faster and to delay enemy attacks. These show that the Home guard had a lot of force and expertise during the war. ‘The Home Guard was uniformed, and was well equipped with 8000,000 Springfield rifles.

In conclusion, measures taken in Bexley to protect the Borough were useful because they kept the people safe and enthusiastic about promoting safety, they were all involved in helping the country in some form and they contributed in schemes. However, they wee limited in their efforts to keep everyone secure, as when they were helping one place, other certain places got attacked bringing down moral and war effort could have been much higher resulting in the Home Guard being more successful.

Camila Jaramillo

Year 11 BKI