At this time two other important individuals were tapped to help train the Home Guard. They were veteran police officers William E. Fairbairn and Eric A. Sykes. They had spent their careers patrolling the dangerous streets of Shanghai China and learned a lot about close combat and battlefield martial arts. Fairbairn had made an extensive study of Asian martial arts and created a system that only used simple and effective moves. Also he and Sykes created law enforcement’s first Swat team. They taught the volunteers practical self defense methods, and they also taught the volunteers how to disarm attackers, take out sentries, and take prisoners.

Though they’re best known for training police officers, soldiers, and secret agents Fairbairn and Sykes proved you could even teach civilians effective hand to hand combat in a short amount of time with no modification to the curriculum. The volunteer forces learned the same methods that Special Forces troops would learn later in the war. Fairbairn and Sykes knew that in a fight it is about doing what you need to do to survive, even if it means using deadly force. The same holds true for the civilian, agent, police officer and military operator: a fight is a fight is a fight.

While Britain was never invaded, the Home Guard did help free up troops for more important duties during the war and made things more difficult for enemy spies. It also proved the need for everyone to learn effective methods of fighting and proved that anyone can learn these methods and apply them successfully regardless of age, size, man or woman.

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