1939 there were five wardens. The parish council ran a competition in 1940 for those making the best use of their gardens for food production, and in 1941 a knitting group was formed to knit garments for the armed forces. As part of a national scheme, a salvage officer was appointed, and a derelict building at the bottom of Grove Lane was used to store paper, bottles, jam jars and metal; collections were made by the WVS aided by schoolchildren. In addition to finding material for the war effort, the salvage fund raised money for local charities and especially for the village hall building fund. With the fall of France, a parish invasion committee was set up in 1940, and a local unit of the Home Guard was formed under the charge of Ray Page the farmer then resident at Rookery Farm. The Home Guard post was in a building at The Bird in Hand (now the Countryman). William Moore reckons that the proximity of the public house was, on occasions, something of a temptation to the gallant patrol defending Tasburgh, as was the blazing fire in their guardroom. Tasburgh Hall became the headquarters of an army searchlight unit, with a searchlight on the lawn and another nearby at Hapton Hall. Later in the war, the army left, and the hall was used to house evacuees. Beer supplies were severely restricted, the public houses opened only at weekends, when they were swamped by soldiers stationed in the area and, later in the war, by American servicemen from nearby airfields at Hethel, Tibenham and Hardwick. It was not unknown for the week's supply of beer to be consumed in an evening. William Moore says that some of the precious beer at the Horseshoes was held back for the locals, who had to call at the back door and drink secretly in the cellar. At these times the village policeman would leave his cycle in a field and approach on foot to join the clandestine drinkers. William Moore also speaks of more direct contact with the war, of tracer bullet holes in his cycle shed and of his bed, which would jump off its blocks with the force of bomb explosions during the Norwich blitz. Late in the war, German flying bombs, nicknamed doodle-bugs, would pass over, but one day he was blown from his feet when a doodle-bug motor cut out