Ironside
The Local Defence Volunteers (LDV) had been raised on 14 May 1940 and comprised men too old or too infirm to join the regular army or in protected trades and thus exempt from conscription. On 23 July, the force became known as the Home Guard, after Churchill coined the phrase during a BBC broadcast.
By the end of July one and a half million men had volunteered, a huge figure which reveals the seriousness with which ordinary people took the threat of invasion in the summer of 1940.
'Ironside's only option was to set up a static system of defence which, he hoped, could delay German invasion forces after landing...'
On 27 May Churchill had put General Sir Edmund Ironside, Commander-in-Chief Home Forces, in charge of organising Britain's defence. Ironside acted quickly. He had a large force at his disposal, but one that was poorly armed and equipped and generally poorly trained.
In the circumstances, Ironside's only option was to set up a static system of defence which, he hoped, could delay German invasion forces after landing and so give Britain time to bring its small mobile reserves into play.
If the Germans could be delayed on the beaches and then delayed as they pushed inland their timetable could be thrown off balance, they could lose impetus, direction and initiative and the British army might be able to counter attack effectively.
The key to Ironside's pragmatic plan was defence in depth. Southeast England was to offer a series of barriers or stop-lines formed by concrete pillboxes, gun emplacements, anti-tank obstacles, trench systems, minefields and barbed wire entanglements and utilising natural and man-made features such as rivers, canals and railway embankments. They were to ensnare and delay the German forces.
The Germans, of course, had their own script for the battle and their detailed air reconnaissance of Britain in early 1940 meant that the stop-lines would have held few surprises for the attackers.
But, whatever happened, Ironside was determined that this would be a battle of attrition. At the very least the Germans would be made to bleed before they achieved their objectives.
By 25 June, Ironside's anti-invasion plan was complete and presented to the War Cabinet as Home Forces Operations Instruction Number 3. This Instruction gave detail to Ironside's defence theory.
There was to be a coastal 'crust' that was to consist of a thin screen of infantry deployed along the beaches. This crust was to disrupt enemy landings long enough to allow the arrival of local reinforcements.
Behind the coastal crust a network of stop-lines of various strengths and significance were constructed to slow down and contain or channel any German advance. The final and main position of resistance was the General Headquarters Anti-tank Line (the GHQ stop-line). This was the backbone of Ironside's coordinated defence plan.
The line was planned to stretch from around Bristol in the west then east to Maidstone and running south around London passing just south of Guildford and Aldershot, then northeast to the Thames Estuary.
Then beyond that, through Cambridge and the fens and up the length of England, running inland parallel with the east coast but able to defend the major industrial centres of the midlands and the north, and up to central Scotland. An auxiliary GHQ line was also to be established around Plymouth.
Published: 2001-08-01
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