The Home Guard

New Zealand Listener, Volume 4, Issue 87, 21 February 1941, Page 4

The Home Guard

Guard is a new thing in British history, but all that is new about it is its sensational growth. Although Britain has never before experienced total war, provision was made early in the Napoleonic wars for total defence. It is true that the Levy En Masse Act of George III. broke down almost as soon as it was passed, but its purpose was the defence of the realm by all "His Majesty’s liege subjects." There is, however, no historical precedent for the assembling and arming in a few months of the host now standing on guard in England. It took four years in the reign of George III. to raise 214,000 men. Nearly two million men have been raised in the reign of George VI. in a little over six months-eight times as many in one-eighth of the time. And it must not be forgotten that when the call went out for these men England had just taken the biggest blow in her military history-the almost complete loss of all the rifles, guns, tanks, stores, and transport waggons of her whole overseas army; that the Home Guard’s 134 millions were uniformed and armed simultaneously with the raising, training, and equipping of a new regular army of approximately the same size; and that there is now not a road, bridge, or beach in the Kingdom that has not been prepared for defence. Remembering that, what can we say of New Zealand? We have started. One in every three or four eligibles has come forward to train. Many others will come forward when real training is possible. But we deceive ourselves if we think that we have done much more than that-or, without a new impetus, ever will. Some Home Guard Commanders realise what is wrong, but others seem to have learned nothing and forgotten nothing. Home Guards are not school cadets. They are not parade-ground soldiers. They have neither the time nor the inclination to acquire precision and snap. Instead of imitating regular soldiers, who need discipline and must have drill, the Guards should be examining their duties on the ground on which they will have to carry them out. It is far more important, and far more interesting, to ask where and how attack may come than to be wondering whether a turn is made on the left foot or on the right and which hand goes in which for "Stand At Ease." Byes M OST people suppose that the Home