German officer lay down a wreath on the memorial of the 54 German soldier and 16 Finnish white guard soldier who died during liberation of the Helsinki when Germans and Finnish White Guards push Red Guards out from the city 1918

Helsinki, Park of the old church 1943.04.12

Helsinki liberation anniversary

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.

More Home Guard donkey wallopers.

With weapons in critically short supply, even for the regular Army let alone the LDV/Home Guard, Winston Churchill declared that every Home Guardsman should have some weapon, be it only a bayonet or a knife.  Whether he was entirely serious about this is somewhat doubtful, but the War Office took it seriously, and responded by ordering 250,000 pikes for Home Guard use.  I am not sure that there was a regular standard for these pikes, but they generally consisted of a spike or redundant bayonet joined to a short length of steel or aluminum piping.  The steel pipe seems to have been supplied by using "off cuts" from industries producing metal piping for more important products.  The resulting weapon was, frankly, patently useless, as it would have left the user at a disadvantage even against a rifleman with a bayonet but without ammunition.  The reaction of the Home Guard to the pikes was very negative.  Some, clearly, were issued to the men.  However, many languished in Home Guard arsenals (and, probably, church halls), as Home Guardsmen were unwilling to use them, and Home Guard commanders often refrained from issuing the pikes for fear of adverse effects on morale.  JR.