3-022-985 - British Pathe Ltd/Heritage Images

British Local Defence Volunteers Practising Rifle Shooting, 1940. Second World War. 'They began as local defence volunteers. Their combined ages probably totalled more than the whole history of the island they were out to defend. Soon they were to be called the Home Guard, and reach a strength of a million and a half men. But in that summer of 1940, they had neither the strength, nor the proper weapons. Only a resolve: to die, if need be, and in their dying, to take at least one with them. And many the games they had playing at war under the threat of the real thing...Little question that would-be invaders [ie the Germans] would have had to endure bitter resistance'. From "Time To Remember - Standing Alone", 1940 (Reel 2); documentary film about events of later months of 1940.