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Post by Miranda on Apr 1, 2023 21:17:55 GMT
Anyone watching this? Tonight's is about the defense of Britain against Nazi invasion in 1940/41.
Like most of my generation, I know a fair amount about WWII. But I am learning a lot from this. Especially about the Home Guard. They are remembered as a joke due to Dad's Army, but when you think about what they were expecting to do and the old defunct weapons they would have to do it with, against a trained professional army that had crushed Europe ... their bravery is breathtaking.
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Post by linseed on Apr 1, 2023 21:38:17 GMT
Yes I watched some of it once I’d switched over from channel 5. I wish I’d switched over earlier, it was very good.
(Channel 5 running completely different programs to advertised due to a Paul O’Grady tribute)
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Post by geometryman on Apr 1, 2023 21:55:24 GMT
Yup, I'm watching. I was impressed as well with the Home Guard, or LDV as it started out. Not only outdated weapons, but often no training, so they would willingly buy their own instruction manuals and train themselves.
Perhaps even more so the SOE women who were sent to Europe as spies & saboteurs, and told they would have an expectancy of 6 weeks before they were caught, tortured and killed - but still volunteered.
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Post by Miranda on Apr 1, 2023 22:00:51 GMT
I have so much respect for all the SOE women. Such a huge thing to even volunteer after a life of being told you can't do anything cos you're the weaker sex.
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Post by beverley61 on Apr 3, 2023 18:59:53 GMT
And after the war they were just sacked. No army pensions or benefits. They were officially classed as working if the NAAFI because that was as close to the front line as women were supposed to go. There was no great effort to find out where they'd be imprisoned or murdered as most of their families weren't told exactly what they'd been doing anyway. No effort to track down and find the Nazis who'd killed them other than for other offences. No real effort to even mention the French death camps or the French men involved. The same happened in the Netherlands, police who'd worked for the Nazis hunting these women down, just changed uniform after the war. Mind you it did take a while for the Dutch resistance to get going.
Many of the women who worked in the UK secret offices for SOE were also just sacked and told not to say anything whilst most of the men went on to have big careers or became spies!!!
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Post by Miranda on Apr 3, 2023 21:48:23 GMT
Not at all surprised, given what happened to the women at Bletchley. Still shocking though.
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Anymore to come?
