When the Geneva Conventions meant something

Telegraph:

Not just Dad's Army, but Mum's Marauders too.

The Home Guard was a very different organisation from the bumbling and badly-led eccentrics of the Walmington-on-Sea unit, one in which women played a surprisingly large part, according to a new study.

Women were so prominent in protecting Britain's shores against imminent invasion that they were required to sign papers showing they understood that they could be shot as guerrillas if the Germans captured them.

After 1940, no woman was allowed to wear uniform but, especially on the south coast, where the Germans were expected to arrive, they demanded to be allowed to bear arms against the invader.

Prof Penny Summerfield, joint author of a new book, has discovered that some were required to sign indemnity forms.

"They had to make it clear that they understood that the Germans, if they captured armed defenders not in uniform, were entitled to shoot them.

"They either had to sign the paper or resign from the Home Guard," Prof Summerfield of Manchester University, said. "I don't think a single one resigned."

The female contribution has been seriously underplayed by the few previous histories of the Home Guard, but the new book shows how women played a vital support role after being denied their own armed organisation.

...

"They armed themselves, either by asking for weapons from existing Home Guard units or, where there weren't enough, from the police," Prof Summerfield said.

"And Home Guard commanding officers did allow women in despite War Office instructions telling them not to."

...

So why were they were required to sign papers showing they understood that they could be shot as guerrillas if the Germans captured them? Because they were not wearing an identifying uniform. I guess they did not have the al Qaeda terrorist exemption back then. Would you believe that they could have been deemed "unlawful combatants" for not wearing a uniform? The article does not mention the current practice of prosecuting uniformed troops for accidentally shooting civilians, because the enemy camouflages himself as a civilian. At least the "mums withs guns" knew what they faced in case of an invasion.