Stand Down Home Guard

Copyright oggbashan December 2021

The author asserts the moral right to be identified as the author of this work.

This is a work of fiction. The events described here are imaginary; the settings and characters are fictitious and are not intended to represent specific places or living persons.

It was August 1944. Our Home Guard unit, along with all others throughout the UK, had just received orders to disband and return to our normal occupations. Now D-Day had happened, the risk of a German Invasion was thought impossible, so we weren't needed anymore.

We had decided to make an occasion of our last parade. We should have disbanded last week but decided to wait until our next monthly parade on Thursday. We had been cheered at the church service last Sunday, but today was our final appearance as a military unit. We would march from the town to the late Victorian Artillery fort that had been our base since we were formed, initially as the Local Defence Volunteers.

Our role had been to delay any German invasion that intended to use our town's small port. The fort had been originally armed with large muzzle-loading cannon but had been updated during WW1 to have old 9.2-inch breech-loading rifled guns. The muzzle loaders had a range of about four miles. The 9.2 inch? Seven miles but accuracy beyond five miles was dubious.

Our wives and girlfriends would be in the NAAFI hut making a feast for us -- the best that could be achieved with severe rationing. But our sergeants had acquired -- don't ask how -- several barrels of local cider and even two barrels of beer. We were used to being told in the public houses 'beer's off' or restricted to half a pint all evening so two barrels was fantastic.

As we marched from the main square out of town our route was lined with cheering spectators, many waving Union Jacks. That was great for what for us would be a sad occasion.

At the massive fort we still had sentries on the main gate and around the ramparts. At seven thirty all of them would be relieved by a small regular army detachment. Since early May our fort had ben a hive of activity in preparation for D-Day. Now those troops had left and the fort would seem deserted, past its military usefulness except as a base for some AA guns that had nothing to fire at because the Luftwaffe, what was left of it, was trying to attack the Normandy troops.

We lined up on the fort's familiar parade ground for a final inspection by our commanding officer. When we had been told to stand at ease, he read out a letter our unit had been sent, signed by the Prime Minister, Winston Churchill himself, thanking us for our service to the war effort. I assumed a similar letter had been sent to every home guard unit. If so, Winnie must have had writer's cramp from signing hundreds of similar letters.

At seven thirty-five our sentries joined our parade just before we were dismissed for the feast in the NAAFI hut.

My girlfriend, Mabel, presented me with a brimming pint of beer and waited until I had drunk some before sitting on my lap. Mabel is a decade younger than me. Her husband Charles had been a regular sergeant in the Army after the First World war, unlike me, who had first retired in 1912. I re-joined in 1914 and left again in 1929. He and I had survived that war. In 1939 he was on home sick leave after a training accident and had helped to set up the LDV.

He had been partly responsible for my acceptance into the LDV. Those in charge were doubtful because I was so old and had a useless left arm, a relic of the Third Ypres (or Passchendaele). After that I had become a small arms instructor in the UK and ended in 1929 as a sergeant-major, like Charles. He had been killed defending the Dunkirk perimeter in 1940. But his intervention had meant I was taken on by the LDV, again as a small arms instructor.

Mabel and Charles, and my wife and I, had been long term friends. They had helped me when my wife had died in 1938. I had helped Mabel after she got the news of Charles' death. It took another year before she decided to be my girlfriend. Until then she was grieving and although she appreciated having me around, she didn't want another relationship -- then. In September 194o she told me she wanted me to pretend to be her boyfriend to deter other men, and we had been friendly ever since.

Mabel had retired as a teacher in 1938. She had started again in the Autumn term 1939 to replace a teacher who was in the army reserve. She was teaching Mathematics to University entrance level. But her part time job was as an aimer of a mixed-sex AA battery. She could work out speeds and vectors in her head in seconds. Her gun was almost always on target. During the Battle of Britain in 1940 her battery had shot down three German bombers and two fighters -- mainly from Mabel's gun. In the September the Germans had mounted an attack on our fort. Mabel had been ecstatic because her gun had destroyed four Stuka Dive bombers and only one had released its bomb to fall harmlessly on the beach below the cliff on which the fort was built.

As Mabel and I walked back to the town in the early hours of the morning she had startled me by hugging me fiercely.

"Tonight I feel I have avenged Charles," Mabel said. "Four Stukas and not a single pilot ejected. Add the earlier bombers and my aiming has cost the Germans heavily. I miss Charles and I will mourn him but killing Germans has helped. And I have Mike..."

"You have Mike?" I queried.

"You've been a friend for a long time, and even since I lost Charles, that's all you have been. But..."

"But?"

"Some of the men in our battery think I want sex. That's insulting and the last thing I feel like now. But you are just what you have always been -- my friend."

"What does that mean, Mabel?"

"I need someone who will seem to be my boyfriend to deter the others. I think that could be you."

"You want me to pretend to be your boyfriend?"

"Yes. You're a Sergeant, if only in the Home Guard. That would deter the privates and corporals."

"More than that, Mabel. You haven't noticed..."

I pointed at the chevrons on my sleeve.

"For the last two months I have been a Sergeant-Major."

"You are? Belated congratulations. A Sergeant-Major would really scare them off. At present, all I want from you is the pretence, but, maybe, in a few months..."

"I can pretend to be your boyfriend but what is the maybe?"

"If I ever want a real boyfriend, Mike, you would be it. How about this? Neither of us are on duty tomorrow evening. Would you come to my house for dinner?"

"I'd be delighted. I'm not a good cook and I don't have enough time for it. Do I need to bring any food because of rationing?

Mabel's laugh was almost hysterical.

"No. One of last year's students did very well in his Mathematics examination. He has a deferred place at Oxford -- deferred until after the war because he's now a second lieutenant. He and his father were very pleased because he had expected a bare pass before I started teaching him. His Dad is a farmer and he sent me two hams, two dozen eggs and a sack of vegetables. How does ham and eggs sound?"

"Nearly as good as the company, Mabel. I often feel lonely in my big house."

"This evening you won't be. But it will only be this evening. My loss is still too raw for anything else."

"I miss him too, Mabel."

That evening was the first of a series of dinners with Mabel. I went to her house about once a month. She came to mine, for my cooking about once every two months. We walked to and from the fort hand in hand, having arranged for our duty hours to match. Our apparent relationship deterred her fellow gunners from suggesting liberties with her. But the pretend relationship was becoming more than that. We became essential to each other.

+++

Back to our stand down parade. Half an hour after we had been dismissed, we were drinking hard and singing songs, some from WW1 when most of us had been regular soldiers, and some rude ones about Herr Hitler.

Suddenly we heard the unmistakable whistle of heavy shells passing overhead shortly followed by explosions in the port area.

Our commandant issued some quick orders.

"Gunners? To the guns! Ammunition party? Get ammo to them as quick as you can! Radar operators? Get the set operational fast!" You four to the beach caponier!"

We were very proud of our radar set, as far as we knew we were the only Home Guard unit to have one. I was the owner of what had been a radio factory before the war that now made radar sets. The radar set we had was an experimental one that had been tested at the fort before a modified version was approved for quantity production. Because it was experimental and temperamental, we had been allowed to keep it. It was far more accurate than the standard ones, but its major disadvantage was its size. It was twelve feet wide, three feet deep and ten feet high -- too large for most ships. The production model was two feet square and four feet high. Our radar set could be awkward to use. I hoped it would work today when we needed it.

"Naval party? Get the trawler ready to move!"

We had eight members who had been Royal Navy in the Great War. But with their best efforts, as the trawler was coal fired and steam driven, it would be at least half an hour before she could move. Even then, what use would she be against a ship that could fire such large shells? It had a two-pounder gun and a twin Vickers machine gun.

"Mike? George? Help the ladies evacuate the NAAFI! Put them in that bomb-proof room."

He pointed to a room under a brick arch that was on the sea side of the fort. Any shells aimed at us from the sea couldn't hit that.

I and George grabbed two four wheeled trolleys. The ladies wanted the precious beer moved first, followed by the cider.

One of the Regular army sentries shouted down from the ramparts:

"It's an Admiral Hipper class cruiser with two destroyers and a submarine. She has launched boats, filled with men that are heading for the West Beach, but they are at least two miles out."

A Hipper class cruiser has 8-inch guns. That was seriously heavy metal. Almost as soon as he had shouted that, our four 9.2-inch guns fired. I hoped that the radar set was working because that would give range and what elevation was needed.

Our gunners cheered as they worked to reload. I knew they only had three shells each in the ready use store. I could see our ammunition party struggling up the ramp with more shells and propellant. The ammunition hoists, installed in the 1870s, had rusted into uselessness in the 1920s.

A gun captain shouted down to the Commandant:

"Three hits on the cruiser with our first salvo, sir. I think it only has one gun turret still operational, but the ship is listing."

Seven minutes later, George and I and the ladies had moved all the food and drinks into the bomb proof room. I was on the way back for tables and chairs when our guns fired again.

There was more cheering. The Radar set must be working because hitting at that range without accurate radar would have been difficult.

"She's gone, turned turtle and sinking!"

I could see the gunners frantically trying to reload their last ready-use shells. By the time they had they might have received at least two more loads. Two guns fired, followed by half a minute's delay and the other two fired.

"One hit on each destroyer. I think they've had it but..."

The gun captain went back to his gun. Another seven minutes elapsed before all four guns fired again.

"Destroyers gone, Sir! Now for the submarine which is turning away. But the boats are only one hundred yard off the beach."

"OK, The Commandant shouted back. The twin six should deal with them."

I heard the rattle as the twin six pounder on West Beach opened up. It fires six-pound shells at a fantastic rate. It is not much use against an armoured ship but against wooden boats? It would be devastating.

I and George had finished moving anything valuable out of the NAAFI hut but there was no one, except perhaps the submarine, to fire at us. We went up to the parapet overlooking the harbour. We could see a couple of fires in the harbour buildings and the local fire brigade hosing them down. Our trawler with an amount of smoke, presumably because her fires weren't fully lit, was moving slowly toward the harbour mouth.

I saw the Commandant go into the radio room. Within a few seconds the trawler gained speed and moved out, presumably looking for survivors. The twin six had shattered every boat and men were struggling in the water. Some might manage to swim ashore. We now had a dozen of our men on the beach with rifles and a Bren gun to meet them.

The big guns fired one last time. They had been firing at the U boat, but it was submerging and as far as the gunners knew, had escaped unscathed.

Afterwards was an anti-climax. We had about eighty German prisoners that the regular army came to collect. Mabel and the others had set up the NAAFI again in the bomb proof arch. They served the prisoners with hot drinks and sandwiches which they seemed to appreciate. We shouldn't have interrogated them but one volunteered that the raid had been to cut the undersea supply pipe delivering fuel to the troops in Normandy.

We didn't say so, but as far as we knew that pipe had never been run from our town which was of little strategic importance in the grand scheme of things. The Germans had lost a cruiser and two destroyers for an objective that wasn't here.

The Naval party reported that most of the shells had fallen on open ground in the harbour, but two warehouses had been destroyed. Before D-Day one had been full of ammunition and the other of armoured vehicles but now they were empty.

When the prisoners had left, we resumed our feasting. Mabel gave me another pint of beer before sitting on my lap again.

"Mike? You risked your life to move me. You're too old for such things."

"Too old? I'm not Mabel, or I wouldn't be a Home Guard."

"But you're not a Home Guard anymore, Mike. The Home Guard stood down tonight..."

"I wonder? Perhaps the Germans knew that and assumed our guns wouldn't be manned. If we had stood down last week when we were told to, there would have been no one here except the AA gunners and they don't know how to fire the big guns. It would have taken half an hour at least for us old boys to get here and open fire -- far too late."

"But you old men did well. Sinking three German ships with so few shells..."

"The radar must have been spot on this evening. I know we had practiced at differing ranges but three hits with the first four? That's amazing. -- nearly as good aiming as you, Mabel."

"And tonight I want some aiming from you, Mike. Your coming home with me and staying the night."

"You're sure, Mabel?"

"Yes. Charles was killed four years ago. You've been beside me as a friend almost all the time since. I want to celebrate tonight with you."

"Before we do, Mabel, there is one thing I must do."

I felt in my tunic pocket to find what I wanted. I brought out a small box.

I went down to one knee, not easy or elegant at my age. Mabel's hand went to her mouth. She knew what was coming. I proposed. She accepted and I gave her the engagement ring.

That night I stopped being her pretend boyfriend. The new fiancé and fiancée celebrated their engagement in bed. I was worn out but very happy by the morning.

Over breakfast we agreed to wait to get married until after the war but until then Mabel would move into my house and we could pretend to be a happily married couple. The happiness wasn't a pretence. The marriage? Late 1945 and attended by most of the Home Guard in their now redundant uniforms. They might have stood down. Mabel and I hadn't.

+++

Author's note: This is fiction. No Hipper class cruiser had ever fired on the UK coast. No British coastal battery ever sunk a German ship. 9.2 guns were used on land, relics of pre-Dreadnought battleships that had been scrapped. But British radar was superior to anything the Germans had even if the first sets had been very large. When cavity magnetrons became available later in the war, radar was miniaturised and could be fitted on any ship or aircraft.