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Very shortly after Anthony Eden's announcement on May 14th 1940, advising the nation of the creation of the L.D.V., Alan volunteered. He was 47 at the time. Here is a very early, published image of a group of Birmingham men parading, perhaps for the very first time since handing in their kit in 1919, just 21 years earlier. The men have no uniform, just their Sunday-best suits and an L.D.V. armband to give them protection under the terms of The Geneva Convention in the event of capture - a theoretical protection and by no means guaranteed (read the Nazi attitude at that time) - but are surprisingly well equipped with rifles. It may well have represented the Battalion's entire stock of weaponry at the time and the latter at that stage may or may not have been official issue. All sorts of weapon appeared in those desperate early days from unofficial sources: this unit's C.O. was Lt.-Col. E.H. Robinson, D.S.O., M.C., the Headmaster of Moseley Grammar School, and no doubt that school had an Army Training Corps with its own rifles..... The unit shown is almost certainly part of one of the ten original Birmingham L.D.V./Home Guard battalions - the 4th Birmingham Battalion, commanded by Lt.-Col. Robinson. Alan Lawson is in this photograph. He is the man, centre front, in the dark suit. The image almost certainly dates from late May or early June 1940.  A further image survives relating to Alan Lawson's Home Guard service. The Birmingham Home Guard was rapidly expanded and reorganised. Very quickly new formations were created from the original Battalions and before the end of 1940 the structure was essentially as it would remain for the rest of the war. The 4th Birmingham evolved into, mainly, the 42nd Warwickshire (Birmingham) Battalion responsible for Hall Green and also into the 24th Warwickshire (Birmingham) Battalion which defended Moseley. The likelihood is that Alan found himself in the 42nd. The image is of an unknown date and at an unknown location somewhere in the Hall Green area. It comprises many oficers and a number of other men, very probably of the 42nd. They are seated outside their HQ and they have rigged up a somewhat precarious observation post immediately behind it. Alan is second from the left in the front row.  Alan Lawson's experience of the Birmingham bombing led him to forsake the Home Guard and those home creature comforts which, despite the demands of HG service, he could still enjoy from time to time; and to volunteer for the RAF even though he was by then in his late forties. He served in the RAF for the rest of the war in an administrative capacity.
Grateful acknowledgement to Jayne Lawson for the information about her grandfather and to the unknown published source of the the first image Images © Jayne Lawson and family 2019 Other information in this website relating to Hall Green, Moseley and Lt.-Col. Robinson
x163 - January/Dec 2019 |
