A limited example I know, but I've been looking through my Army paybooks with enlistments 1939-45 and grouped by month, the below shows the drop off in numbers enlisting (or being called up) - there seems to be a strengthening of the Army in the run up to War - a massive spike just after Dunkirk but by late 1940 it drops and in 1945 I skip a few months totally (although its possible when buying books I'm not as interested in 1945 enlistments which may skew it a bit). This is based on 767 men but I think it shows quite clearly how the UK was struggling to get more men and why we were breaking up units and moving people around - some of the below late War enlistments were men moved over from the Air Force or Navy. Are there any more official figures that show trends in Enlistment? Alistair
The nitty gritty of this is covered in the historiography: French's Raising Churchill's Army certainly has this as a crux point, I believe Allport's Browned Off explores it in detail. I'd wager Hart's Colossal Cracks and Monty's Men by Buckley as well. Not new per-se, but great to see it accurately mimicked by such a large collection!
