Post by Dave Homewood on Jul 22, 2014 16:03:53 GMT 12
Actually the Home Guard could and did call on a lot of vehicles for their use when needed, in a scheme that saw civilian lorries (haulage and carting firms, farm trucks and whatever they could get) brought in to move them around when necessary (for example when they staged manoeuvres, including some big exercises with the Army). the Cambridge Home Guard, which comprised an entire Battalion strength by 1942, even had a unit of WWSA (Women's War Service Auxiliary - or Home Guard version of the WAAC's) set up to drive the trucks.
They also had their own bridge builders, machine gunners, infantry, motorcycle despatch rider section, signallers, wire specialists, demolition specialists, snipers, a bomb making factory, etc. And that was from a small town and district an hour inland. Some of the bigger city Home Guard organisations must have been pretty incredible in their resourcefulness and ingenuity.
However regarding the vehicles, the Home Guard was not actually meant to be 'mobile' and moved round the country, that was not the purpose of the force. They had their own patch which their local units defended, and even if there was an invasion at, say Kawhia, you won't have seen the Hamilton and other Waikato HG units piling in there to the beach head. Not at all. The Kawhia HG and those units in their region were to slow the landing as best they could till the regular force Army arrived. If they got mown over before then, the next line of defence would standfast and hold the enemy till the Army arrived there. That is how the entire network worked. You defended your own patch, not someone else's. It would have had some great advantages. The local HG members a) knew their local area like the back of their hands, so they knew all the access points, good defensive strongholds, etc. b) They knew were all the traps were that they'd set in case of an invasion. c) They had a genuine will to defend against an invader as it was THEIR town or countryside, not just a battlefield they'd not been to before.
You're right that weapons and equipment were slow in coming and short in supply but by the time the Japanese would have got to New Zealand I think there would have been sufficient weapons and training among the HG to do a fine job in slowing up the enemy till the Army brought in their infantry and artillery, etc.
I think that sadly the NZ Home Guard is widely misunderstood. Documentaries in recent years about NZ's war effort and Home Front have painted them in a terrible light. I recall one woman in a doco, I think it was "In Fear Of Invasion", who dismissed the Home Guard which her father was in as "Oh they were just a pack of old drunks". Maybe her father was a drunk but most of the men took the defence of their country very seriously, and they worked hard and sacrificed their free time to ensure that stupid little girls like her were not fodder for the Germans, and later the Japanese. My blood boiled when I saw that in the doco, and then followed by footage of HG members using Molotov cocktail bombs to attack a mock tank with lighthearted music over the top like it was a kid's game. Hurrumph.
They also had their own bridge builders, machine gunners, infantry, motorcycle despatch rider section, signallers, wire specialists, demolition specialists, snipers, a bomb making factory, etc. And that was from a small town and district an hour inland. Some of the bigger city Home Guard organisations must have been pretty incredible in their resourcefulness and ingenuity.
However regarding the vehicles, the Home Guard was not actually meant to be 'mobile' and moved round the country, that was not the purpose of the force. They had their own patch which their local units defended, and even if there was an invasion at, say Kawhia, you won't have seen the Hamilton and other Waikato HG units piling in there to the beach head. Not at all. The Kawhia HG and those units in their region were to slow the landing as best they could till the regular force Army arrived. If they got mown over before then, the next line of defence would standfast and hold the enemy till the Army arrived there. That is how the entire network worked. You defended your own patch, not someone else's. It would have had some great advantages. The local HG members a) knew their local area like the back of their hands, so they knew all the access points, good defensive strongholds, etc. b) They knew were all the traps were that they'd set in case of an invasion. c) They had a genuine will to defend against an invader as it was THEIR town or countryside, not just a battlefield they'd not been to before.
You're right that weapons and equipment were slow in coming and short in supply but by the time the Japanese would have got to New Zealand I think there would have been sufficient weapons and training among the HG to do a fine job in slowing up the enemy till the Army brought in their infantry and artillery, etc.
I think that sadly the NZ Home Guard is widely misunderstood. Documentaries in recent years about NZ's war effort and Home Front have painted them in a terrible light. I recall one woman in a doco, I think it was "In Fear Of Invasion", who dismissed the Home Guard which her father was in as "Oh they were just a pack of old drunks". Maybe her father was a drunk but most of the men took the defence of their country very seriously, and they worked hard and sacrificed their free time to ensure that stupid little girls like her were not fodder for the Germans, and later the Japanese. My blood boiled when I saw that in the doco, and then followed by footage of HG members using Molotov cocktail bombs to attack a mock tank with lighthearted music over the top like it was a kid's game. Hurrumph.