A great and unusual shot. I have never seen the two badges worn together.
The extract below from my Home Guard book In the Space of a Single Day published in 2002 explains the relationship between the two services and why the badge was being worn.
Jon
The country’s Air Raid Precautions (ARP) services, renamed Civil Defence (CD) from late 1940 were a pre-war organisation. As such they had benefited from a period of peacetime training before being called upon to face the enemy. As the longer-established organisation, many excellent volunteers who would have made first-class Home Guards were, by May 1940, fully occupied with CD duties. This did not prevent some of them holding down two jobs. The history of the Essex Home Guard records that one officer who raised and trained an MT unit in 1943, was at the same time his area’s Senior Air Raid Warden!
Once enemy air attack started in September 1940, the Home Guard worked closely with the ARP services. They cleared rubble, cordoned-off streets and stood guard over damaged shops and houses to prevent looting. In many cases men from factory bomb disposal units recovered and defused dangerous bombs. But everything done was the result of a local initiative and no training syllabus prepared units for the very different tasks undertaken by ARP and CD. At the height of the Blitz the War Office recognised this and the Directorate minuted on 31st December 1940 that Home Guard aid to CD was to be put on a proper basis.
It was the perpetual manpower problem that finally produced a coming together of these two volunteer forces. In early 1942, as it became obvious that the immediate threat of invasion had passed, the C-in-C Home Forces sent instructions that units were to train to assist Civil Defence, albeit in ways which would not interfere with Home Guard duties. This was reinforced by an instruction issued on 19th October pointing out that it was not desirable to lay down a rigid division between HG and CD duties. This co-operation between the forces was not simply one way. In February 1942 the Directorate was told that the Ministry of Home Security, responsible for the CD services, had agreed that CD personnel in certain services might join the Home Guard. Ever conscious of the need to save materials, it was ruled that if a CD member already possessed “Boots, Ankle, or Anklets, Leather (Black or brown) and Helmets, Steel (however coloured)” then he would not receive a separate Home Guard issue. Whether anyone wearing a senior Warden’s white helmet would have looked quite the part in khaki battledress does not seem to be an issue that anyone questioned.
Where CD staff were undertaking HG training whilst still part of the CD services, it was laid down that they should be identified as such. In late 1941 wardens in Maidstone, Kent were photographed on a firing range wearing full CD battledress, but with the Home Guard armlet worn on the right arm. Conversely it was announced in February 1942 that CD personnel who were also members of the Home Guard could wear HG uniforms when carrying out CD duties, but should identify themselves by wearing on both battledress and the greatcoat when worn, the blue CD armband. These were to be removed when carrying out HG duties.
In August 1942 the Directorate agreed that to simplify the enrolment of wardens they could enlist en bloc into GS or AA units under their own senior wardens, recruitment to be arranged locally. Probably as a result of this, the 16th Sussex (Lewes) Bn eventually possessed an entire platoon drawn from CD volunteers. By 1944 they were wearing HG uniforms with shoulder titles, battalion numerals, the formation sign of Sussex and Surrey District and at the bottom of the right arm, just above their service chevrons, the CD cloth cap badge, a small blue circle with the letters CD below a King’s Crown, all inside a yellow border. Other examples of CD insignia worn with HG BD are known, including those worn by personnel serving with Anti-Aircraft Command which are covered in Chapter Twenty-Five.
|
16-06-20, 04:34 PM
Linear Mode
