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Description: | The 20th Battlion of the South Staffordshire Home Guard regiment was part of the Group 1 division, and along with the 21st, 22nd and 23rd Division, known as the Town Battlations. They were assigned to the defence of Wolverhampton. Comprised mainly of local volunteers, the Home Guard (earlier known as the LDV, Land Defence Volunteers) were civilian volunteers who for one reason or another could not take part in the war effort, due to professional requirments, age, or other factors. An account by an unknown staff officer on the battalions reports: "Col. W. J. Beddows, M.C., is Sector Commander. Rightfrom the start of the Sector (at that time referred to as a Group) there was a tremendous rush to 'sign on'. Col. Beddows made a strong appeal to the townspeople to rally and give the L.D.V. full support. He expected to see between 600 to 800 on the recruiting ground. He was not the only one surprised, and proudly so, to find well over that number present to enroll. It was a wonderful sight, and there were only two men in uniform - Col. Beddows and Sgt. Major E. T. Morse (now a Captain). Slowly but surely the Sector took shape from that date, and many of the senior officers recall how at the start there were only fifty rifles between hundreds of men, and this issue was two weeks after the formation of the L.D.V. However, rapid steps were taken to collect sporting guns and old rifles, and a local firm came to the rescue by manufacturing a large number of pikes. The ingenuity shown by the members of the Sector in its initial stages in making their own weapons was extraordinary. The Tettenhall Battalion produced a first-class home-made flame-thrower. One former member of the battalion recalled in his memoirs: "Guard duty was carried out at Bantock House, the Black Horse, Goldthorn Hill (at the top of the water tower), and the Park Hall Hotel. Some of our training was carried out on adjacent fields next to the hotel." This group photo shows men of the Home Guard, Platoon A. (denoted by a small "A" written on the lower right corner of the photo). On the back of the mounting is written "HQ Coy 20th Bt. SS H Guard 1942."
Photograph of the 20th Brigade South Staffordshire Home Guard in front of a pavilion. | License: | http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/2.0/uk/ | Publisher: | Wolverhampton Arts and Museums Service | Rights holder: | Wolverhampton Arts and Museums Service | Subjects: | Civil defence Home Guard Army Black Country Men Photographs Soldiers Local History Civil Defence Second World War (1939-1945) Wolverhampton | Temporal: | 1942
Second World War (1939-1945)
20th century (1900-1999) | Source: | Black Country History | Identifier: | http://www.blackcountryhistory.org/colle... | Go to resource |
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