HOME GUARD MEMORIES AND INFORMATION - WARWICKSHIRE, BIRMINGHAM

24th WARWICKSHIRE (B'HAM) BATTN.

and

Pte. GEORGE BELCHER

This is a page within the www.staffshomeguard.co.uk website. To see full contents, go to SITE MAP.

 

THE BATTALION



The 24th Warwickshire (Birmingham) Battalion was commanded in the earlier part of the war by Lt.-Col. E.H. Robinson D.S.O., M.C(1890-1968, left). Col. Robinson was Headmaster of Moseley Grammar School during this period. He had had a remarkable Great War career in the King's Shropshire Light Infantry, being wounded twice and much decorated. There is further information about him elsewhere in this website. (That page also contains images of 24th Battalion officers).  Later in the war the Battalion C.O. was Lt.-Col. H. H. Little, M.C.  

The 24th Battalion had evolved rapidly in the autumn of 1940 from one of the ten original Birmingham Home Guard battalions, the
4th Birmingham Battalion which had been commanded by Col. Robinson. This was split up into more manageable units as volunteers continued to increase in numbers: the 24th was one of them and there was at least one other.

The precise territory for which this Battalion was responsible has yet to be established but it seems to have covered parts of Moseley, Sparkhill and Sparkbrook.



Pte. GEORGE BELCHER


A member of the Battalion was a young man named George Samuel Belcher
(b. 1924, right) who lived with his parents at 76 Hillfield Road, Sparkhill.  George, pictured right in 1943/4, probably joined the Home Guard when he was 17 or 18, in 1941 or 1942, either as a volunteer or a conscript. He was not liable for call-up, whatever his personal feelings on the matter may have been, as he was a toolmaker and therefore in a reserved occupation.  He would still have been serving his apprenticeship during his Home Guard  service. This must have been at one of the local engineering factories, possibly BSA, not far from his home in Sparkhill.

Little documentation or memories involving George's Home Guard service survive. What is still available to us, however, is a couple of group photographs, in both of which George appears.

The first of these is a panoramic image of George's unit, "B" Company of the 24th Warwickshire (Birmingham) Battalion. Of unknown date - but probably from the later part of the war and possibly even a image from the weeks leading up to stand-down in December 1944; and at an unknown location within the Battalion's area of responsibility.  George is standing in the back row, second from the right. No other names have so far been identified.


Click on the image for a magnified version

The original of this photograph is of very high quality and a much magnified version of the above is available on an associated page of this website.  Click on the image to view it.

The second image shows a similar group, again with George in virtually the same position within it.


Click on the image for a magnified version

Again, the magnified version is worthy of closer inspection. The men are all lined up ready for one of the traditional panoramic photographs but, rather than looking at the official cameraman (wherever he is), they are gazing up at a camera pointing at them from an adjacent raised bit of land.

The large gun in the background, perhaps of 3.7" or 4.5" calibre, gives us a clue about the site. Also in the background is not evidence of hop growing within the Birmingham boundary; but rather the structure of a gun laying radar installation (for the tracking of Luftwaffe bombers - please see the note below).  Clearly we are on the edge of an anti-aircraft battery. Somewhere, perhaps to the right, is more significant artillery than the single gun -  or perhaps a Z-rocket battery. The precise location is yet to be identified but it is somewhere in the southern part of the city, or even a little beyond the city boundary, defending the southern approaches.

A NOTE ON THE Mk II GROUND LAYING RADAR

It had been established that the best way to get accurate readings of aircraft direction and altitude was to ensure that the area surrounding the detection equipment was flat. To achieve that, huge (130 yard diameter) octagonal ground mats were created covering an area of about 15,000 square yards; these were of 2" mesh (chicken wire), they consumed 230 rolls of material (each 4' x 50 yards) and 650 miles of wire and they were elevated some feet from the ground by means of poles. They took a team of 50 men about four weeks to construct. There was transmitting equipment on the edge of the mat and a receiver stuck right in the middle of it. You can just see one of the latter in the middle of the photograph background.

There were hundreds of these at anti-aircraft batteries around the country. The technology was superseded before the end of the war but existing set-ups were kept in operation. Whilst the move of some Home Guards in 1942/43 from normal infantry duties to the manning of A-A batteries was usually to the newer "Z" rocket batteries, many men also manned more conventional batteries, including both heavy and light guns. This site is likely to have been one of them.


Other documentation concerning George Belcher's Home Guard service seems not to have survived. The one memory of the latter within his family is that he manned a searchlight
(perhaps like this one, complete with its radar detection equipment, shown in an official War Office photograph, left).  Whether this was a one-off experience, or part of his regular duties, is not known.

Home Guards were certainly involved in this type of activity. The vast majority of men who were transferred from General Service duties in 1942/3 moved to anti-aircraft batteries, either Heavy Anti-Aircraft with traditional artillery, or, more likely, to the new Z-rocket batteries. Perhaps searchlight duties were part of a unit's a-a involvement, perhaps they were entirely separate. Either way, the searchlight battery would have been located a distance away from the a-a battery or batteries to which it was operationally linked.

As for every Home Guard, George would have seen a winding-down of the service during the autumn of 1944 and then, on Sunday December 3rd, a parade to mark the final stand-down. 
Peace was on the horizon and, for young men like George, life beckoned.

GEORGE BELCHER'S LATER LIFE AND CAREER


At some stage George completed his apprenticeship and became a fully skilled toolmaker, presumably with the same employer. On 15th July 1946 we see him joining the RAF. Perhaps he volunteered as a Regular or, more likely, it was the time of his call-up for National Service after a period of deferral.

He was posted to Egypt in the late 1940s and is seen here (left) at that time.  Whilst there he contracted typhoid fever and was cared for and brought back to health by a nurse, Annie Adams, whom, following their return to the U.K., he married in 1951 and with whom he had three children.

George had a very successful career in the RAF.   His rank for the first two or three years was the normal one for a National Serviceman - AC2 and LAC - and his trade was Airframe Fitter.  He is seen here, in those early days in Egypt, working on an aircraft, probably a later marque of Spitfire. Things changed in December 1949 after three-and-a-half years of service - he had clearly decided by then that a career in the RAF was for him - and a significant promotion to Chief Technician occurred in that month. The years of loyal service which followed included further promotion to Warrant Officer and we see him here receiving his warrant at a ceremony at RAF Binbrook in the 1970s.



Warrant Officer George Belcher (formerly Pte. G. S. Belcher, Home Guard) eventually retired from the RAF in August 1979 having completed 33 years of service.




Acknowledgements

We make grateful acknowledgement to Andrew Belcher for providing information and images and for generously permitting their publication in this website; and to other sources including members of the Birmingham History Forum
 Images © Andrew Belcher 2021

**********

IN MEMORY OF
The Life and Service
of

GEORGE BELCHER

and of

All his comrades in the
24th Warwickshire (Birmingham) Battalion Home Guard

x177A - August 2021
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