Eighty years ago, retirement for Dad's Army, a swansong for the Royal Navy and the first shots in the Cold War

  

Britain's Home Guard was formally stood down after more than four years in existence. This was marked by a parade of 8,000 members through London. German invasion had ceased to be a threat long before and with the dwindling of the V-1 offensive, the Guard's anti-aircraft role was insignificant. In a neat contrast, Germany had just set up the Volksturm, broadly equivalent to the Home Guard as a defence force for men too old or too young for full military service.

Princess Elizabeth launched HMS Vanguard onto the Clyde. She was to be to be Britain's largest ever and, as it proved, last battleship. She also acquired the debatable reputation as the only Royal Navy battleship never to fire its guns in anger. True or not, she embodied the big gun big ship strategy to which the Royal Navy had remained wedded to for too long. She had no real future. Even had Japan fought on for longer, the aircraft carrier had become the dominant class of warship and the decisive weapon in  the Pacific sea war.

With the support of the home government general Ronald Scobie in command of British forces in Greece ordered the disbandment of all guerilla groups in the country. Communist guerillas were poised to take control of the country in defiance of a previous agreement. Stalin respected his bilateral agreement with Churchill, which put Greece in the British sphere, and he ordered the Greek Communist Party not to resist. The Party's rank-and-file went their own way and staged massive demonstrations in Athens which were suppressed by Greek and British forces with at least thirty or so dead. The Dekemvriana, as it came to be called, opened a full scale struggle for control of the country.