As the Germans advanced towards Britain, there was a mad dash to rearm. Previously overlooked women started working furiously day and night in munitions factories. All over Britain, the scramble for weapons intensified; compulsory weapons collections recovered a few rifles and shotguns. Britain was so desperate; they raided museums to recover antique weapons from WW1. But the rearmament was working. Britain was slowly building back its forces.
Maybe for propaganda, maybe for genuine security, Churchill introduced the ‘Homeguard’ or L.D.V. (local defence volunteers). These were groups around the country consisting of mainly old men. This led to the nickname ‘Dads Army’. These groups were poorly equipped, having no uniforms at first and having little or no operational weapons, therefore having to drill with brooms, pitchforks and anything resembling a rifle. Their purpose was to stop the invasion but really ended up building bomb shelters and reassuring the public.
Unlike the Homeguard, Churchill took the status of beach defences very seriously as this was the Germans most likely point of invasion. All manner of obstacles were placed to block them; concrete blocks, barbed wire and pillboxes to shoot down advancing German soldiers. Many other objects were placed to stop the Germans such as tanktraps, iron drums and make shift roadblocks. To stop the risk of gliders landing on the roads, iron hoops were situated along major roads to rip off the wings of the landing gliders.
There was also the matter of internal security. Britain couldn’t take the chance of having spies inform Germany of the terrible state of Britain’s defences and that the extra divisions were really just a group of incompetent old men. To combat this, i.d. papers were introduced and internment was put into effect. This was where foreigners were detained under suspicion at the Isle of Wight. Regular i.d. checks took place at roadblocks. There was also the lucrative notion of taking down signposts in order to confuse the invading enemy. All this succeeded in doing was making the British Publics life a lot more difficult.
Propaganda had a great effect on Britain’s morale in the lead up to invasion. Churchill delivered invigorating speeches with gusto. Disasters like Dunkirk were changed into gallant victories for the whole of Blighty. The BBC showed emotive films and even the Homeguard appeared to be one propaganda campaign. This propaganda bombardment was vitally important to Britain and without it, morale would have plummeted.
In the end Hitler called off the invasion, but why was this? It is not very likely that Hitler pulled on the leashes of Blitzkrieg just because of the homeguard and Britain’s pitiful defences, instead it is a lot more likely that when Hitler lost the Battle of Britain, it was a major blow to him as he was relying on his air attacks to conquer Britain so that his main body of men could concentrate on the formidably numbered Russia. So no the defences did not very likely turn Hitler away from Britain but instead it was the R.A.F. and the fact that Germany had bigger fish to fry in the form of Russia.
Ben Bowden 11C
