The popular comic image of the Home Guard can obscure how many members were veterans of the First World War. They had strong reasons to protect their families and communities from violence like that already seen in Belgium and northern France. They also knew their local ground and had strong incentives to improvise resistance. Any German force that crossed the Channel would face this opposition while its fuel, ammunition, and reinforcements remained vulnerable at sea. Even the wakes of fast British destroyers could threaten overloaded flat-bottomed barges, showing why getting troops ashore was not the same as sustaining an invasion.
Notable Point · 1:02:41-1:05:47
The Home Guard and the cost of sustaining an invasion
First World War veterans defending their own communities would compound the naval and supply problems facing any German force that reached Britain.