On the outbreak of war, the countryside was invaded by service personnel and evacuee children by the thousand; land was taken arbitrarily for airfields, training grounds and firing ranges, and whole communities were evicted. Prisoner-of-war camps brought captured enemy soldiers to close quarters, and farmers were burdened with new restrictions on what they could and could not grow. Combining both hardship and farce, this book examines the profound changes that the war brought to Britain's countryside.