Churchill's Secret Army - Auxiliary Units in WW2

As I begin listening to this show and Paul's opening remarks, I am smiling as I reflect on Paul's tremendous efforts and hard work that he puts into his WW2TV, and all the great shows before and since this episode aired. Bravo Paul Woodadge! Congratulations! And THANK YOU!!

There’s a great little booklet produced by a group from Northumberland. It mentions that the Auxiliary units would be given tasks such as placing dummy explosives on planes and equipment on local military air bases and camps as training.

Thank you very much, gentlemen! Like you, my I introduction to all this was David Lampe's 'The Last Ditch' which I first read in 1974 or 1975. When I was a Museum Worker, Auxiliary Unit related stuff tended to be delegated down to me! Of particular interest was a scrapbook, amongst other ephemera, compiled by a local Farmer/ Patrol Leader. Also a small notebook with the daily patrol QM ammunition returns! Also, a large ring binder full of correspondence relating to the topic below. After the war, the Home Guard was briefly reformed but was eventually binned again, ostensibly for financial reasons. The then Labour government Defence Minister at the time was one Woodrow Wyatt, ironically enough! There was a public meeting held, with Woodrow Wyatt as target of honour!, on this very subject in Dover Town Hall which was packed with exHG, many of whom were former Auxiliary Unit members. This could be inferred from the content of much of the correspondence contained in the ring binder referred to above. Most of the letters were very polite and anodyne, acknowledging the invitation to come to Dover but occasionally there was more worrying content, referring to the assassination of Trade Union leaders and similar! Apparently the British AuxUnit model was later used for NATO Stay-Behinds/Gladio units.

Humorous anecdote. A friend of mine, who 'left the building in 1988 told me that when he was 15 years old he came home from school and his Mum gave him a good hiding. Why ? I hear you ask.. She had found a Thompson sub machine gun under his bed ! She thought he had joined the Mafia. He assured her that he was a member of the local defence force. She wasn't happy....

Well done Chats - you sure do know your stuff :)

Excellent show, thank you.

Fascinating history, excellent story telling, and great information from Andrew Chatterton.

Wonderful chat!

My grandad was in group No5 Ipswich 2 patrol. There is a great museum at Parham airfield in Suffolk that’s definitely worth a look 👍

The 7th day as they were called the home guard were a diversion for them to operate as much as possible. Only recognised recently they took their Berserker role to the grave. Never called into action however they would have fought to the death to cause havoc to the invaders. Balls of Brass.

I'm somewhat surprised that you've only just discovered this... All of us post war kids knew all about the auxiliaries. I was born in 1950 and by the time I was 7 years old I knew about stickeybombs, Molotov cocktails, underground caches of arms and specials going underground prior to Jerry overrunning us. Churchill motto was 'Take one with you' When these auxiliaries became activated they were given an envelope to open. It contained a list of local.people to Eliminate. One particular list had the Chief Constable at the top.

Please may I recommend a film entitled...It happened here.

At 38 minutes the photo has my family's grandad, 2nd right crouched down. Peter mcdougall aka The Duke due to his resemblance to john wayne. From leven fife

Apparently there weren't any detachments of this "secret army" in the Channel Islands. I wonder why not. The latter would seem to be the most logical location to position such troops given the much higher probability of a German invasion there.

What an enlightening documentary. I hope you could find some time in the future to do a Sealion week. This just reinforces the notion that Britain would never have just rolled over to any German invasion. Cracker boys!