THIS IS FINDON VILLAGE — www.findonvillage.com  created by Valerie Martin, contains scenes from her home village of Findon, West Sussex, U.K.

DAD'S ARMY IN FINDON

"If paratroopers landed in the vicinity, what would you do?" boomed the Home Guard instructor. 

"Hold the farm buildings and defend them to the last". 

"Yes, but if their ammunition gave out?"  

A voice at the back was heard to mutter  ..."Loose the old bull".

Copyright Valerie Martin 2000

During the Second World War the Chanctonbury Rural District Council was inundated with mail which pointed out that it had not taken away the telltale signposts pointing to Chanctonbury Ring.   (It was the practice during the hostilities to remove signposts so as not to assist the enemy if they landed}.   

The Clerk to the Chanctonbury Council in 1940 replied in no uncertain terms  that "Every German knows Chanctonbury Ring and you cannot move the Ring itself".

On the 16TH MAY 1940, the inhabitants of Findon heard an announcement on the wireless made by the Secretary of War, Anthony Eden. There was to be the formation of body of men known as Local Defence Volunteers who would become part of the Armed Forces. There would be no payment for the part time volunteers but each man would receive a uniform and be armed. The call went out for men between the ages of seventeen and sixty-five who were too young, too old or insufficiently fit for the army, navy or air force.  Above all they must be British.

As soon as Eden had finished his announcement, police station telephones all over Sussex were jammed by willing volunteers putting their names down. The LDV members turned out to be an assorted bunch but as long as they could say they were physically active, they were accepted. This was providing they were British, of course, not a member of the clergy — and most definitely no women were allowed.

Holland and Belgium were overrun and France was on the brink of collapse and everyone in Findon was convinced that Hitler and his army would soon follow-up their earlier victories with an invasion up the Findon Valley. The day after the broadcast, the first LDV patrols were quick off the mark and scouring the downland in anticipation of German invaders, parachutists, spies and anything vaguely suspicious.  They took over from the regular army many of the tasks of watching the coast and guarding the road junctions and communications.

Throughout the early years of the war, when the weather and tide was ripe for an invasion, there was increasing military activity all along the coastline.  Army units moved in and out overnight and added to the defences.  There was also a great fear of air-borne landings on the Findon downland.  

I have been told that Brian Thynne's old aircraft hangar near the sawmill on the windswept downland above Muntham Court played host to the Findon LDV headquarters. They were eventually supplied with uniforms and weapons and for the remainder of the conflict kept a vigilant watch in the village and countryside.

The village men took a short cut up School Hill and over The Wicks to get to the LDV's meeting place. One or two of the lucky ones had motorbikes for the journey. There was one unfortunate incident when a motorcyclist rode down the Muntham drive after a session. He became enmeshed in thin piano-like wire, and was cut about the face. This booby trap of wire had been launched by rocket at a German aircraft in the hope that the wire would get entangled in the propellers. The motor cyclist was unlucky to discover the remains of the wire that had fallen to the ground after such a skirmish.

The men who volunteered for the LDV soon discovered much to their cost that they were expected to repel an invasion of German troops with little more than a handful of old shot-guns, and that is if they were lucky enough to have those.

Three months after its formation, the name was changed from LDV to the Home Guard. They had their own dedicated Home Guard Pocket Manual and a Home Guard Encyclopaedia — cover price two shillings. The biggest problem for the newly named body of Findon men was still the shortage of effective weapons, not helped because so many were abandoned on the French beaches when troops were evacuated from Dunkirk.

The best known of the homemade weaponry issued to the Home Guard in its infancy was the Molotov Cocktail. This was made from a wine bottle, (preferable because of its longer neck, which made an effective handle for holding when throwing at the enemy). The vessel was filled with a lethal cocktail of petrol, oil and creosote and promptly sealed to prevent evaporation. With a strip of rag to act as a makeshift fuse, the concoction would hopefully ignite on being hurled against the side of an invading German tank — well, that was the idea.

In January 2008, John Stepney of Findon sent me this photograph of the Findon Village and Valley Home Guard...

The Findon Home Guard trained diligently to fight in the streets and on the Downs.  It was accepted that the enemy probably could not be prevented from invading but they would be attacked after they had landed and attempted to move inland.

The 4TH SEPTEMBER 1940 brought the beginning of the decisive air struggle between our Royal Air Force and the German Luftwaffe, which was known as the Battle of Britain. On that historic Wednesday, 4th September no fewer than eight raiders were shot down, including five Messerschmitt 110s aircraft, within a few miles of Findon.

Three days later, on 7TH SEPTEMBER 1940 the dreaded code word "Cromwell" was issued and all the Findon Home Guards turned out. "Cromwell" was the coded warning everyone had been awaiting with trepidation. It meant that conditions were "most suitable" for the threatened invasion of the coastline only four miles south of Findon.

Thanks to the Battle of Britain being fought in the skies at the time, the invasion came to nothing. Hitler changed his mind at the eleventh hour and turned his troops to Russia.

Continue you would like to now read Dad's Army from 1941.

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THIS IS FINDON VILLAGE — was launched by Valerie Martin in January 1999 and will grow to be a historical record of life in Findon, West Sussex, U.K.