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Defence of the realm
• YOUR story of the Home Guard (Plaque for Jack, poster boy of a war campaign, April 24) refers to readiness to defend one’s home village and to do guard duty.
Some of those who pressed for the Home Guard to be set up had served as volunteers defending the Spanish Republic against the invading fascist insurgents.
They were well aware of the need to prepare for underground resistance in the event of German invasion across the English Channel.
Those of us who were children during the Second World War were brought up on stories of partisans in the Soviet Union and Italy, resistance in Norway, Poland, France, the whole of German occupied Europe, and indeed in Germany itself.
My memory is of my father bringing home and showing us his gun, a more substantial weapon than Jack’s shotgun, and explaining that it was either a Bren or Sten gun. I forget which and also the significance of the difference between them: perhaps other readers will know.
Had the invasion happened and proved successful, our administration would have been composed of Germans and any local Quislings.
My dad and Jack and others in the Home Guard would have been armed and ready to take on that more serious role.
My thoughts today are of what those men - there would have been brave women too – would have been called by the German authorities and in the media... “terrorists”.
Nicola Seyd
Foundling Court, WC1
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