The Battle of Britain Five Months That Changed History, May—October 1940 by James Holland (z-lib.org).epub

which raised around 20,000 firearms. Those who had volunteered and who
had rifles or shotguns tended to keep hold of them, but volunteers turned
out with picks, axes, crowbars and anything else they could think of that
might be used against a parachutist. Local – and zone and group –
commanders were appointed by the military. Landowners and retired
officers were obvious choices, and where they did not exist, local
dignitaries and businessmen took command. In the first days, improvisation
was the by-word.
As elsewhere, the response was enthusiastic in the village of Tadworth
in Surrey. Daidie Penna met an early recruit the following morning. ‘I hope
they give me a gun,’ he told her. ‘I’m just dying to have a pot at one of
them fellers comin’ down!’ The man’s wife was rather indignant at not
being given the chance to join too.
‘Your job is to keep up the morale on the home front,’ her husband told
her.
‘I’m doin’ that all right,’ she replied, ‘on my knees.’ Daidie assumed
she meant scrubbing not praying. Later, her oldest son, Dick, came back
from school and gave her a detailed account of the techniques and
equipment of parachute troops. ‘So Hitler had better look out,’ noted
Daidie. ‘Reigate Grammar School is discussing him!’
While most LDVs had to make do without uniforms or rifles, there were
some who were considerably better equipped than others, albeit hardly in
the latest 1937 pattern battledress. There were a large number of cadet
forces throughout the country, although they were a particular feature of the
country’s public schools. At Marlborough College in Wiltshire, the school
OTC (Officers’ Training Corps) almost immediately offered its services.
Dressed in old-style Service Dress, peaked caps and puttees up to their
knees, and armed with Short Magazine Lee Enfield No. 1 rifles, they were
the envy of the local townsmen who had to make do with trilbys, cloth caps
and the odd shotgun.
Boys were expected to join the OTC at the beginning of their second
year, although the Master announced that only those who were seventeen or
older could join the LDV and only once they had received the written
approval of their parents. Two of those who wasted no time in doing so
were Douglas Mann and John Wilson, both seventeen.
Although attending a boarding school in Wiltshire, both lived in Kent.
Douglas’s father was a successful London brewer, but also owned around