Firemans trying to put out fires from a bombing in Helsinki, July, 9th. 1941
Helsinki was bombed 39 times during the Continuation War. 245 people were killed and 646 wounded, the majority in the three big raids of 1944.

Fight against fire 1941

The early days of the Local Defence Volunteers/Home Guard in the UK threw up some formations much odder than the Walmington-on-Sea platoon.  One of these was Home Guard mounted units.  Of course, horse riders were used for communications in the early days, but these were fully-fledged cavalry/dragoon formations.  This photo - dated 7 August, 1940, shows the York (Mounted) Home Guard on exercise.  The York Press claimed that this was "England's only mounted section of the Home Guard" (note the Home Guard armbands worn by a number of the riders), and that it mounted nightly patrols over 100 square miles of Yorkshire's North Riding.  Not, perhaps, the prime target for German parachutists; nonetheless, this unit testifies to the strength of the invasion panic in Britain during the Autumn of 1940, as well as the general enthusiasm for Home Guard enlistment in the early days.

It is worth bearing in mind that WW1 produced its share of frustrated cavalrymen, and that enlistment in mounted local defence formations known as "yeomanry" was a time-honoured response of the English horse-owning classes to threats of invasion.  Whether this form of Home Guard service persisted into the later history of the Guard ... I really do not know.  Like much of the early history of the Home Guard, evidence is fragmentary.  One thing is certain, however - the York troop's claim to be "England's only mounted section of the Home Guard" does not stand up ... Best regards, JR.

Send the (Home Guard) Cavalry !

A unit photo of a Home Guard mounted unit, provenance unclear.  Looking at the members, the Captain Square/Sir Bufton Tufton/local hunt character of this group comes through.  Like the English Yeomanry of old, Home Guard mounted units were always clearly a minority compared to the common "militia" represented by the general HG rank-and-file.  When the Home Guard came into formal existence in June, 1940, it would have been consistent with general practice to allow de facto Local Defence Volunteer mounted units to be absorbed into the new force as established facts.  But how long did they continue in existence ?  Evidence is, really, fragmentary.  Best regards, JR.