alternatehistory.com

The manpower crisis of the British Army in 1943-45 is well-known; because of the demands of a global war on military age manpower in the United Kingdom in 1943-45, the balance between the industrial and agricultural work forces at home, the need for British manpower in the overseas territories for governance and economic management, the Merchant Navy, and the RN and RAF, combat formations that had been laboriously built up and made effective in 1939-43 were sacrificed to provide replacements.

As examples, the British broke up three combat divisions (1st Armoured, 50th and 59th infantry) and broke up or redesignated a half dozen or more separate brigades in Europe to keep the remaining divisions up to strength. In addition, 25,000 RAF Regiment personnel were re-assigned to the Army in 1944 for training and assignment as infantry replacements in Europe. These decisions prevented additional divisions from being broken up, but the British army order of battle in Europe dropped by four divisions (1st Armoured, 1st Airborne, 50th and 59th infantry divisions) out of the 22 (Guards, 1st, 6th, 7th, and 11th Armoured; 1st and 6th Airborne; 1st, 3rd, 4th, 5th, 15th, 43rd, 46th, 49th, 50th, 51st, 52nd, 53rd, 56th, 59th, and 78th infantry divisions) they put into action in Italy and NW Europe in 1943-45. The British also lost, broke up, re-assigned, or downgraded at least three armoured brigades (23rd, 25th, 27th) and three infantry brigades (56th, 231st, and 234th infantry brigades) in the same period, making a total of 17 brigades - the equivalent of more than five divisions.

It's worth noting that in Great Britain (not the UK as a whole, since there was not conscription in Northern Ireland), the population faced total mobilization, either for the military or labor service, and labor conscription lasted well into the postwar era. As an example, among those conscripted, between 1943 and 1948, 48,000 conscripts (10 percent of the annual conscription classes) were diverted from military service to the Labor Ministry for duty as coal miners. Averaged over five years, that is equivalent to 9,600 annually. These men were not C.O.s, or physically limited. They were nicknamed "Bevin's Boys" after Ernest Bevin, the Minister of Labor.

It's worth noting that the infantry contingent of a British infantry division (10 battalions, including the MG battalion) penciled out (very roughly) as the equivalent of 10,000 officers and men.

So, that's the history - here's a POD:

In 1943 (historically) Bevin makes the request, but Churchill and the Army manage to fend it off for the obvious reason the invasion of Europe is in the offing. The Ministry of Defense makes the point that some 10,000 “replacement/volunteer” miners would replace as many conscript miners of the 1943-44 class, and as many the same for the 1944-45, etc. – which, historically, would be the exact period when the British manpower crisis hit home.

So, the question is, how can the British come up with an extra 20,000 men in 1943-45, physically fit enough to work in the coal mining industry, but not otherwise subject to conscription for military service?

Some options:

1) Ireland - remember, residents of Northern Ireland are British subjects, but were not subject to conscription in WW I or WW II. Obviously, citizens of the Republic were neutrals, but a large segment of the civilian work force in Great Britain during the war were Irish nationals, and Irish citizens left Ireland throughout the war to work in Great Britain or volunteer for the British armed forces (to the tens of thousands, at least).

In Northern Ireland, conscription was never imposed. Approximately 38,000 people volunteered for service in the British armed forces between 1939 and 1945 - including 7,000 women. There were in fact more volunteers from neutral Éire, with approximately 43,000 men and women enlisting in the British armed forces during the war, not including Irish citizens already resident in Britain in 1939 who were subject to conscription. In contrast, some 140,000 Irishmen, north and south, had volunteered in 1914-18 (there was no conscription in Ireland during WW I).

It is a fair question whether conscription in Northern Ireland for labor service in the UK was a possible additional source of manpower for Britain’s coal mines in 1943-45, or whether an appeal for non-combatant labor service volunteers in the Republic would have been useful. Thoughts?

2) Canada and Newfoundland - Canada didn’t require conscripts to serve overseas until November, 1944, and Newfoundland never imposed conscription during WW II. However, skilled forest labor corps were recruited in the dominions earlier in the war; this included the Canadian Forestry Corps, part of the Army, which totaled some 7,000 officers and men, and the Newfoundland Overseas Forestry Unit, a paramilitary unit some 3,600 strong, as well as smaller battalion-sized Australian and New Zealander forestry units, that all served in the UK in 1940-45.

Whether similar “Mining Corps” or “Overseas Mining Units” could have been recruited in Canada and Newfoundland is a reasonable question. Canada had wartime labor shortages in its mining industry to the extent that men with mining experience were discharged from the Canadian Army in order to go back to mining, for example. Still, both Newfoundland and Canada could have presumably provided some manpower to the British mining labor pool, freeing up British conscripts for military service in northwest Europe.

It is also worth noting that in February, 1945, some 16,000 trained Canadian Army conscripts (of 42,000 deemed fit for infantry service) were ordered to be sent to Europe, of these, fewer than 9,700 were sent, and of these, less than 2,500 were assigned to combat units; if any of these troops had been sent as labor troops to the British coal mines in 1943-45, they would freed up their equivalent in British conscripts. In addition, three companies (roughly 800 in total) of the Veteran’s Guard of Canada, which reached a strength of some 10,200 officers and men during the war, volunteered for overseas service, which suggests another potential labor pool. While roughly 2,400 officers and men joined the Newfoundland Regiment for active service in WW II, largely with two field artillery battalions that were administratively units of the British Army, some 1,700 joined the Regiment for home service, which suggests another potential source.

3) One additional obvious source of “British Empire” manpower, at least for labor service, can also be considered: in 1914-18, no less than 13 infantry battalions – more than 21,000 men – were recruited in the British West Indies. These included two battalions of the regular West India Regiment, and 11 in the wartime-only British West Indies Regiment. Some of these battalions saw combat service in Africa against the German Empire and in Palestine against the Turks; others served as labor troops in France and Italy, supporting the British Army in a non-combat role.

In contrast, in 1939-45, only a single 1,200-strong battalion, the Caribbean Regiment, raised in the British West Indies, was deployed in the European Theater, although on secondary garrison duties in the Med and Italy. These suggests that at least additional labor troops could have been recruited in the West Indies, perhaps – based on the numbers recruited two decades earlier - as many as 19,000 strong. This, obviously, would have more than replaced the 10,000 British mining conscripts.

4) Other possible sources for labor troops could have included the European allies with colonies in the Americas (France and the Netherlands), or European neutrals with potentially available manpower – Portugal, for example. Portugal, for example, sent some 57,000 troops to the Western Front during WW I; even as a neutral in WW II, the recruitment of volunteer labor in Portugal would appear to be yet another unexplored resource.

So, your thoughts? Given the POD, which of the four options above is the most likely to yield 20,000 labor troops or volunteers in 1943-45? Any other sources come to mind?
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