I’d long been intrigued by what looked like a certificate which had been issued by the Home Guard amongst the papers belonging to my Grandpa Hibbitt (Charles George Hibbitt). However I’d never had any success in finding anything out about any potential service in this local defence force during WWII. That was until recently.
The Home Guard Certificate which belonged to Charles George Hibbitt
A huge project of ten million service personnel records are gradually being transferred from the Ministry Of Defence to The National Archives. It used to cost £30 to apply to the MOD for a deceased person’s record but now you can perform a request at https://www.gov.uk/get-copy-military-records-of-service/apply-for-the-records-of-a-deceased-serviceperson. If you apply online for a British Army or Home Guard record, the MOD will check if they hold it and, if they do, they’ll send it to you free of charge. If they don’t have it, you’ll be told to check The National Archives.
At the end of July, I sent for my Grandpa Hibbitt’s Home Guard record as well as my Grandpa Geake’s Army record. I was fortunate in that both were still with the MOD and even more fortunate that they both turned up within a couple of months. Initially I was told that nothing could be found for the Home Guard record so I sent back a copy of the certificate that we have in our possession and a couple of weeks later the record came in the post.
My Grandpa Geake’s Army record is quite comprehensive with a lot of abbreviations and will take me some time to fully explore.
By contrast, my Grandpa Hibbitt’s Home Guard record consisted of two sides of one piece of paper with scant information on it. This isn’t unusual but at least now I had official confirmation that Gramps had served in the force. I also discovered that he was with the 21st Devon (Post Office) Battalion, H.G. This made perfect sense as he was a General Post Office Telephone Engineer. His occupation on the form was noted as SWI POE Dept which stood for Skilled Workman Class I, Post Office Engineers Department.
The top of my Grandpa Hibbitt’s Home Guard Service Record (click to enlarge)
A search on the internet proved almost fruitless. The only information I could find was that the 21st (33rd GPO) Battalion, Devon Home Guard had their headquarters in Plymouth and was made up of employees of the General Post Office. They wore khaki uniform and were tasked with protecting the communications equipment of the GPO.
My Grandpa lived in Tavistock, about 15 miles north of Plymouth, and was working there at the time too. Nevertheless my dad remembers Grandpa would drive down to Plymouth three or four times a week to carry out emergency work. Apparently the office was full of maps. The bombs would drop in the streets and the circuits would need to be rerouted by the jointers. A few plugs would be put into the telephone exchange and they could then change over to another route. It wasn’t unheard of for the rerouted circuit to be knocked out at a later date and the same process would have to begin again. Grandpa later said his near-sight suffered as a result of reading all those plans during the blackout.
I imagine this work could have contributed towards Grandpa’s Home Guard service although it’s quite possible he was actively engaged in these activities before he was officially part of the force.
Originally, all members of the Home Guard were volunteers but in 1942 the National Service Act made it possible for compulsory enrolment to be applied in areas where units were below strength. From the service record above it looks as though Grandpa was one of these. There was a wealth of experience within the Home Guard. For example, in 1940 and 1941, approximately 40 percent of volunteers were World War I veterans and my Grandpa was no exception, having enlisted in the Royal Engineers on 6th November 1916, a month before his 18th birthday, and mobilized on 1st March 1917.
The Home Guard was eventually stood down on the 3rd December 1944 and from this date they became an inactive reserve unit. The archive online catalogue at the Box in Plymouth contains photographs of the Home Guard Stand Down on Plymouth Hoe dated 27th November 1944. Perhaps Grandpa was in attendance at this event. The Home Guard was finally disbanded on 31st December 1945 and ceased to exist from this date.
