Churchill's Secret Army

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Sign up to join us in historic locations around the world and explore the past. Visit history.com/subscrib. Hi, everybody, welcome downstairs history hit. Now, if you're a long time listener to this podcast and why wouldn't you be, you may

“remember that back in the summer of 2023, I produced the banner and I went and searched”

of hidden World War II bunkers in the new forest near where I live. I think the bunkers are so excited they were set up in preparation for a German invasion.

So local British men would hide down those bunkers.

Once that invasion had taken place, they would lie in wait for the Germans. They would then emerge at night and carry out acts of, well, ambush and sabotage and assassination. It's trying disrupt that German invasion. They were called auxiliary lists and the men who served them were Britain's unassuming silent assassins and in the vast majority of cases, they took the secrets of that service

to their grave and that meant they also took the secret of the location of most of these bunkers their graves.

“So now, hundreds of those bunkers lie hidden along Britain's coastlines, particularly here”

in the south. It's difficult to say how many of them still exist, no maps are made marking the location as I said the exiliaries were sworn to total secrecy, so it's only now 80 years later as people, well, literally stumble across, sometimes fall into these bunkers as they cave in that we can build a better picture of Britain's deadly defensive network.

A year and a half ago we were scouring the new forest, we got that tantalizing tip off that local man, said you'd come across one of these bunkers as a charlie is playing with his friends in the forest, but we made a new, very minor discovery, so listen, I accept that well, single wire, may not have been the most exciting thing in the world, well, friends, there's been a development in the story, because that podcast came out, we have received

another tip off news of another bunker that's been discovered way down in the southwest, so that's where I've come now, I'm just walking along that coast here the way it's crashing, the pebbles beneath my feet, I can't tell exactly why I am sadly because I'm going to

“keep this location a secret, but the history here team has assembled and we're on the”

way there now, and what makes this mission so particularly special is that we're going to be joined by most probably the last surviving member of any auxiliary unit Ken Welch, and by extraordinary coincidence, Ken served in this bunker as a teenager with his dad,

he too was sworn to absolute secrecy, and he never told a soul about it until the last

couple years, he's now 98 years old, and he's going to be joining me as we go in search of his former bunker, which he has not been back to for 80 years since the war, of course our guide is a brilliant historian and a chatitan who's an expert on British wartime resistance. If you're new to this podcast or you need a refresher, then don't worry, we're going to cover the history of the auxiliary units again, and we're going to be giving you the low down

on Hitler's planned invasion of Britain, as you join us for another history hit bunker hunt. In the summer of 1940, the balance of the Second World War was firmly in Hitler's favor, in less than a year the European Order had been dismantled, Poland had been crushed in weeks, Denmark and Norway followed in the spring, then came the biggest blow of all, the fall of France in June 1940, what made it so stunning was just a victory, but how fast it had

warfare, combining tanks, aircraft, artillery, infantry, radios, and speed, the supposedly

“impregnable defense of the Maginoline were bypassed, and in just six weeks, mighty France had”

been humbled. Meanwhile, the British expeditionary force fighting alongside the French had barely escaped from Europe during the Dunkirk evacuation, it was a miracle of survival, but it couldn't disguise a strategic disaster. Britain's army had been humiliated, most of its heavy equipment and been lost, it seemed very possible that a German invasion of Britain was imminent. All right, and each summer of 1940, the headline is shocking mind blowing collapse of Allied

force in Western Europe, the brits, the French, totally defeated in the battle of France,

it didn't come as surprise. Yeah, a massive surprise, if you think it started the Second World War,

the French army is the largest and most mechanized army in the world, and they've just been beaten in six weeks. Destroyed, and we can look back in hindsight and say whatever we like about the German invasion or likelihood of German invasion of Britain, but at that point, it was an absolute shock, and the German army seemed unstoppable, and had the British government made any plans for defending the home islands before that disaster. Yes, it had started, in the years kind of running up to the

Second World War, there was a slight ponderance around, actually, it is attacked the best form of defence, so large amounts of Italians went out to France because that was the feeling that actually attack is the best form of defence, but there's not to say that regular is weren't still in Britain,

and after the fall of France, basically we've all had mobility based left on the beaches,

almost all tanks and vehicles and trucks, everything's just left in France. Exactly right. Suddenly, we have to think about how do we defend Britain without such mobility, so general hindsight, the CNC of home forces constructed in a matter of weeks, this whole, that we still see in our landscape today, pill boxes and stop lines and anti-tank teeth and anti-tank ditches, just huge amounts of concrete that come into our landscape. In fact, Andy, I mean, this is almost

like it was planned, but we are now about 30 meters at the June sound of a concrete pill box. Yeah, there it is. It's overgrown, it looks like it's someone's private garden, it's overgrown with ivy and it's got long grass going on the roof, but yeah, that is not an uncommon feature, people listening to this abroad, it's quite normal to see that long, particularly the British south and east coasts, like where we are now, Devon, this feature in pretty good

front of the boat. Yeah, what a big, perfect beach. And actually, when we see pill boxes like that one,

“I think it in many ways kind of reinforces our perception of Britain at that time, it's”

isolated concrete boxes. Let's look a bit rubbish, I'm being honest. Yeah, well exactly, but seeing it in a wartime setting, seeing it connected up with the other pill boxes in the air, seeing the slit trenches around it, seeing the fact that it's camouflaged. And seeing the fact there's part of a stop line that's pushing the germ invading German army in the direction we want them to go. It means that then we can use the limited mobility that we've got much more

effectively. The germ is always going there with the least part of the resistance. So by pushing

them around the pill boxes, by pushing them around the tiger's teeth, we can much better utilize the limited amount of tanks and vehicles we have to have more effectively counter attack. Right, so actually the government and the military really got a grip on this. They're playing for the germ's landing on these shores, what to do. Of course there's a plan which is fight them here on the beaches, but then if they do get in land to sort of funnel them channel them into places where

you can ambush them, kill them, use the high ground. Exactly right, exactly right. And at

“hindsight in the time, God, large amount of criticism and continues today, but actually I think”

he was utilising the resources he had at that point. Really well, really well. And it's almost like an I-NH heelful where the defensive channel the attackers in the direction where you want them to go and therefore you know where they're going up and therefore you can attack them in the place you're happy to. And a bit like the trench warfare generation of officers will have known so well. Well you can use the barbed wire, you leave some gaps here and there and then

there very well covered with artillery and mortars and the shing uncertainty. It could create killing zone. Exactly right, exactly right. So that, as you say, the whole of the south is covered in these concrete boxes, which I said look pretty rubbish, but actually would have been a really effective way of stopping them. And that's what's going on here and what's going on just

question because the thought of France has happened, Germany is uprously happy, it's gone far better

“than they could ever ever have expected. And then suddenly they have this challenge of the channel”

of the moats that we've got. And Hitler's plan isn't just one plan and this is the trouble. He asked the Navy the Air Force and the Army to come up with their own separate plans.

Each one is slightly contradictory to the other. Gourrings ultimately confident that he can

destroy the Royal Air Force to give them air superiority. He doesn't think that's going to be a problem. He's kind of seen the Battle of France and to an extent the RAF did struggle and the effectiveness of the stuker that the dive bomber plane, I mean Gourrings are confident going anyway, right? But now, after France, he is super confident. He didn't think the RAF stands a chance. So the Air Force are telling Hitler, we didn't even need to invade, we're going to knock the

RAF out, then we're going to bomb British news that have to make peace. Exactly right. But the Army and the Navy, what they ought to? Well the Navy was quite a narrow invasion here

“because they realize that the Royal Navy is the largest and strongest Navy in the world. And so they”

want a narrow window to operate in. The Army wants a wide window to operate in because they don't

want to be stuck in a narrow zone where the British Army can concentrate the counter-tax. So immediately there's a real issue with the invasion plans because everyone has different objectives, have different plans and it goes for Hitler's whole approach throughout the war is to not give one general or one armed force the superiority and that's exactly demonstrated in his plans for the Navy. So the Navy, wait for a day like this, we're on this beach,

it's a beautiful day that sounds out the sea as flat, so the Navy want to kind of dash across on a narrow front and just try and land as many troops they can before the Royal Navy comes up. That's exactly right. It feels like, but the Army, I guess, they want to keep the British guests in, they want to land from anywhere from the Island White to Dover. Exactly. Wow, okay. Exactly because they're more dispersed and they know where they're coming and we don't.

The British don't know where they're coming so we're going to have to disperse our limited reserves and we got 300,000 troops back from Dunkirk but they're still recovering frankly and the whole of the German military forces and credibly confident this could happen perhaps apart from the Navy who see the reality of what the Royal Navy is capable of. So Hitler's invasion plans fraught with difficulties and contradictions right from the beginning. Yeah and they were getting in

thousands of river barges that were going to transport the troops across either to be tugged across or with their own engine and you know, if you're in a flat-bossum river barge going across the channoy. Yeah, I think people could think about it sort of canal by almost. Yes, exactly right. It's absolutely bunkers. No, I don't think. You've been right in the day like this. It'll be

“a lot of many of these days on the channel. No, they're not. They're not. So that's why”

the back of the Britain matters because if you're going to take off these canal boats, these barges across the channel in the teeth of opposition by the Royal Navy, you need to have total control the air so your planes can help your fragile naval forces to beat off the British. Exactly right. You're already at a disadvantage. You don't need your enemy to have superiority in the air as well. And so winning superiority there is a necessary precondition for any of its invasion stuff.

It absolutely is because we saw in Dunkirk actually hitting boats from the air is quite difficult, but if you're trunding along in a barge and you see British playing over here, do you know you're pretty much done for? So yeah, absolutely air superiority is a must-but going to supremely confident that's going to happen. And that's the point about the barge in the Britain. Britain defeats that German attempt to win control of skies. So that's why the invasion could

never take place because they haven't got that precondition. That's exactly right. And frankly,

the German Navy was never really very confident that it was achievable anyway. So it's very easy for us to look back in hindsight and say Operation CLM was a complete washout. It was never going to work. At the time, the German army had just sped through Europe. They seemed capable of anything. So all the defenses we put in place, all the thinking that we had to do, the bravery of the airmen, the bravery of the guys in the

pill boxes around us, it shouldn't be misunderstood. The German army had just sped through Western Europe and they looked unstoppable. So we had to prepare for the worst outcome. The such a powerful perception that Britain in those early days of World War II was ill-prepared for an invasion. We imagine that protecting Britain's coastlines was a bumbling army of part-timers, a dad's army, manning a handful of little concrete boxes. But that's simply not the reality.

By mid-1940, a formidable nationwide resistance network was already in place. Within that network was an important organisation called the auxiliary units.

ready to emerge and sabotage the enemy advance. This was Churchill's secret army.

“What are these bunkers looking for? They are being used by the script called the Exitary”

Units. Whose role is to disappear to these bunkers as soon as the Germans come into their area, leave their families who have no idea what they're up to, and disappear to these bunkers, and then come out at night and disrupt the supply chain. This isn't about taking on the German army face to face. This is about causing as much chaos at night to slow down that German advance. Cybertarge, assassination, ambush. Exactly. All of those things. Anything that's going to take

the Germans to take a step back was to pause to allow our regular troops to have more time to to recover and counter attack. Is this a pre-war thing or is it suddenly getting stood up in a

bit of a panic as bread and face invasion in the summer of 1940? It has its roots in pre-war. It has

its roots in two pre-war organisations. One set up by M.I.6, one set up by the British military, by just around Dunkirk. It's kind of up and running and being recruited very, very quickly across the countries and these kind of key vulnerable counties. That German invasion doesn't come, but this organisation remains. They continue what they're training? They're training locally, obviously training to gain access to the targets that they would try and hit as the Germans came through.

They used the British army as practice, which the regular troops did not enjoy because they were so often shown up as not being very good at guarding airfields or country houses. And also train at the auxiliary units headquarters in a place called Coltill House, up near Highworth near Swindon,

and there they were going train for a weekend. Again, not being able to tell their wives and family

whether they're going, but nonetheless got there, train and learn everything they need to know. So, going across fields at night, where to place explosives on German tanks and planes,

“how to take out a century silently with a knife, all the stuff that you need to know to be effective.”

And these are men who still do their day jobs. Yeah, absolutely. And quite tough day jobs. I mean, they're lots of them are farmers and quarry men and minors. They're during the day, just carrying on as normal, and then at night and weekends, training to a really high standard, in terms of their kind of guerrilla saboteur roles. And they would live their normal lives right up until they point the Germans into their town. So, if we're in Devon, for example,

in the German invasion is taking place in the southeast, the guys in Devon would not come operational until the Germans are almost on the boundary of their town or village. Nobody could know. Nobody could know. Not their closest family of friends. And anyone who did happen to come across their operational base or asked too many questions would have to be added to a list of people that have to be in the assassinated as soon as the Germans came in. Because their window of

operation is so short, it's perceived to be around two weeks. They had enough rations for two weeks. There are anything that had the potential to shorten that time. They had to deal with immediately. So, it sounds overly brutal, but actually, you know, looking at that bigger picture, if Britain had fallen, that's essentially it. A lot of the auxiliary unit members we spoken to over the years kind of understood that bigger picture, that the sacrifice that they would

have to make, their communities unknowingly would have to make, would have been worth it for the bigger picture. It's estimated that there were up to 500 auxiliary units along Britain's Coastal counties hiding in plain sight in tight-knit communities. As I mentioned earlier, the only known living survivor of an auxiliary unit is a man named Ken Welch. He's down in Cornwall and, as part of our mission to find a bunker that still resembles a bunker, we're taking Ken.

We're going to try and find the one. He was stationed at with his father 80 years ago. One he hasn't been back too since. Hello! Hello! No, you can't be Ken. You don't look all that up. What are you talking about? I'm worried for any thought.

“No, you look 25. Nice to meet you. I'm dying. Don't you take my shoes off?”

No, you're going to have to do that. Well, wait a minute. Are you sure I can't take you away from us? Please didn't even offer me. Ken, you're a young boy. Do you remember the wall starting? Yes, I do. I'm sitting on a chair in my grandmother's kitchen. I think it was a Sunday morning and at 11 o'clock and I heard the chambered and declare a war with Germany. And talk to me about your dad because he did a job that you probably know about initially. Oh yes,

he worked in a quarry taking a big lumps of granite for making monuments and stuff like that. Then the world came along and somewhere we got into this opportunity unit business. You didn't know about that? No, I didn't know what was happening. So he would go to work all day and then he'd be off at your night doing this. No, you didn't know what he was doing. No, I didn't know where he was going. All I knew was he would come home with a Tommy gun and bits and pieces

can I have to go with that guy? So what they arranged for me to do? I put me age one for a year. So your dad's, let you join the unit? Yes, he let me join, yes, yes. I suppose you thought you're going to take a room in your channel?

“But you must have been an exceptional teenager because they didn't want any old kid hanging around”

with them. Well, I was full of life and very interested in stuff like that. And did you know what you would join? Do you think, well, I'm just joining the home guard. I'll just go and sign up. I knew it was the home guard proper. But I just thought I was joining a kind of home guard,

a secret sort of thing, which I was very excited about. But I never considered the consequences

if we were invaded. What happened was if we were invaded, we would go to the operation base. We had a fortnight, surprised there, stuff like that. And we would go into the night. We wouldn't go during the day. We'd go to night and do as much damage as possible. We would have had made pendant via docked and usable. In case we were invaded. You know, that's sort of stuff we had to do as much damage to delay in the enemy as possible. So you're a member of this crew and you did

“the training, you have to explore demolition and explosives. Yeah, that's right. Assassination,”

what were the small ones? Yes, they, we used to go to Swinden for training for a weekend,

once in a while. I went up the Swinden. I remember going up, I was in Bill Wembertoy. And there's

very cold. And we were in these big half-wremed huts. There was two tortoise fires in them. When we would be caught, there were one each end. Both red all. They were, I remember. And we had our meals really officers. They'd be treated like a soldier. And we went out training at night, crawling around the field. And we had a bit of fun up there. And was it fun, big alongside your dad? Yes, we got on very well, father and all. And what about the secrecy? Did you have to discuss killing

people if they found out where the base was and things like that? We had to shine a secret, document, you know, to swear to secrecy. There was a cottage, a couple of people lived in the cottage, that could see and not the entrance, but the gateway to where our old be was. And of course, they would see us going in and out every Saturday or Sunday. And of course, if we were invaded, then the Germans would get older then and torture them to find out what they knew. So, if we were

invaded, somebody would have out of gone and said goodbye to those. They would have to have been shot on a freight, terrible situation. I don't know who would have done it. They might have drawn straws to to find the world that would go and do it. So those are the kind of conversations you were having planning for the invasion, right down some killing this old couple? Yes, well, yes, that's right. And if anything up, if we were invaded and anything happened to me, if I were injured

in any way, then I would have had to have been shot because they would have tortured me, question me,

if I was captured, you see. Wow, that was the situation. It was a scary situation. I never

realized it was scary at all. But it was more scary for your dad. Yes, yes. Imagine being on the unit where they have to shoot his own son. Yes, that went to be in the situation. What do you remember of the bunker? I guess you remember going up during spending a week and stuff like that. Just to see how we got all over a couple of nights, there was an end in front entrance, of course. And then there was a way out the back. We had a little ladder to climb up,

to break the back. And after we got out the back, he just had to open, there was nobody out there to see his coming out, but we had to take our chance on the other side of the bush. It's okay,

“it's very exciting. We're going to try and find the old bunker today. I think so. We're going to see”

what it is. Surely you'll be like a salmon returning to it was spawn. You have a homing beacon telling you right there. Yes, yes, it's rather a long time since I return home and the protocol of sinusoid is concerned, I think. Yeah, so what 80 years or something? Well yes, it is, but not 24 to now. Yeah, it's right. It's a dance-nose history here, more of this. Nah, no plans for such an end. Besuch the road kept in the Leapness world in Freiburg,

with Euron Mehlitz, Dörona, and at the end of our channel, at the top of the neben, at the end of our interactive exhibition at the Leapness tour with Audioguyte and a classic and the next parvillion, the whole world from road kept in the road kept in the Leapness world,

Andrew Chatterson, what are these bunkers like? They are the most remarkable structures. They are

underground, essentially, they're a bit like a big Anderson shelter, but a lot more complicated and a lot more cool. So as you're walking along, you will find, as an auxilia, a hatch, a hatch of some form that's flush to the ground, heavily disguised, and the way into the hatch can be done in various forms. So it might be that you stamp on it and it comes up in a counterweight system and swivels around and lets you in. It might be that you pull what looks like a tree route

and that will even activate the counterweight system or it will ring a bell in the bunker and the other guys can let you in. Or you have like different colored, each member of the patrol has a different colored marble and then you roll it down what looks like a mouse hole. Goes on the ground, rattles about an attain and then they let you in. Yeah, yeah. So once you're in, you'll find a

ladder going down maybe 12, 15 feet into a shaft and once like a chimney. Go down to the bottom,

quite often you're confronted at the bottom with a blast wall, so that's there to, if the Germans happen to get into the hatch and drop to grenade down, it protects the main chamber from the blast. You weave your way around the blast wall and then you're into the main chamber. So the main chamber is where the guys would have been during the day, bunk there to sleep, tables, food,

“equipment. Occasionally there's a kitchen which isn't ideal for kind of keeping secret so they”

would funnel the chimney up a hollow tree and the smoke would disperse at the top of the tree line so it wouldn't kind of go through the forest to get the Germans to clue. There's quite often a pretty horrific Elson chemical toilet which after two weeks of nervous men constantly using it would be pretty grim. They used to store their explosives mainly away from the place that you're staying in which that's just good thinking so they've been exposed to store just down the road a little bit

and then into an escape tunnel which can lead kind of 60 to 100 foot away that often goes into a water source to kind of aid in your escape but essentially most of the patrols knew that if the Germans were at your entry hatch, you're pretty much done for, so something even bother with an escape tunnel at all. So how do you even go about looking for these needles in a haste? Are they all over the UK? They are almost exclusively in coastal counties. So if you think from the

yorkanese at the top of Britain kind of down the north east coast, east coast, southeast corner, south coast, southwest and south Wales. There's not much on the west side of the UK because they didn't see there's a perceived threat from the Irish side. They're 10 to be setting kind of five to six miles inland because they don't want to be caught up in any initial wave of invasion

“and then they're in areas where there's a key target as well. So it might be near a key road or a”

key bridge or near an airfield that looks off of my takeover, a key manor house that the Germans might take as a local HQ. In some cases near the house of a prominent member of the British Union of Fascists who would have been to see this is a collaborator who would have been assassinated immediately as well. So 10 to be five six miles inland near key targets incredibly well disguised. So have you developed a bit of a nose for it? Do you just walk across a landscape? I reckon the

ship would be on around you. You do get a weird feel for it because you kind of kind of see, well actually that's a good escape route down there. There's a river down there. There's a good target there. You do get a feel for it. And what we do have is that in about 1943, a list of all of those who are currently serving the York City units of 43 were put together with their addresses. So as researchers all we have to play with is well actually these guys all seem to live near each other.

That's probably one patrol. Then you look at well actually there's a good target there and there's a forest there. That's likely where the OB is. You know if it's intact you could be walking around that forest for weeks about finding it. But yeah it's there. It'd be too easy. If you know I've got previous there but I'm tearing around and you forest. We arrive on top of a tree covered bank overlooking old quarry. Among the scrub is a square manhole

like one that you find in the street. But going down through the rock. Once you look inside you see a vertical tunnel with a rudimentary ladder fixed into the wall. Just as Ken said. Ken, how are you feeling? Well not too bad, not too bad at all. Whoever discovered this place again, much of a sort of hell of a job. Brilliant, go into it. It goes down into an open chamber cut into the granite. It's not exactly

an easy way in for older gentlemen but like in a better route has been found by the local historians Chris Hale and Gareth Winn who recently rediscovered this bunker and have joined us

“on this expedition. Ken, do you want an arm up this slope? Do you want an arm?”

I thought I could hang on to this. Okay, okay let's do it. All right, let's come on up. We go round the bank and I've faced with a muddy incline that goes up to a small hole in the side of the rock face. What do you think Andy's feel good? Feels good. Well I can see wiggly tunnel ready which is, which is a good sign.

Always a good sign. You truly have no idea anything of note was here.

cautiously with Ken climbing over fallen trees and jutting out. We have a rest there Ken and see. I have a pause there. Yes, thank you. What do you make of this, too? Yes, I see do you remember like that doorway lock bigger than it is? Yeah, so we think this was probably this scape tunnel. So we think it's darker but darker legs out that way.

I always hope the other end. Do you think? Do you think it's interesting like what's it like

being back here after 80 years Ken? Surprise. Yes, it's your plan surprise.

“Didn't think I'd ever see this again. When was the last time you came?”

George you think October, November, 44? Some of that? Yeah. The second world war was still raging when you were last year. Yeah. Tricky. What do you think we're trying to try and get inside Ken? Yeah, I have a goal. Eventually we make it inside. Is that what you had? Wow. We're in. What do you think of this place then?

Does it look familiar? It's a good gosh. So what was in this section here? Was this where the beds were? Yeah, I remember it. I thought it was a wider than this but it is. I think they did. They teased up back there on the stairs.

Was that right? Was that the team making facilities? Critical.

So you don't go down there, cup of tea. I was able to stand up, is you're right Ken now. So from here you would be in a base here for a fortnight and you would be going out every night. Like I can't believe that it would be 7 to 8 men cramped in here. 7 men cramped in here is not a lot of spaces. So Ken, so you would come in and in here in 4344 what we would have been seen in this structure. We would be seeing bunks either side. Yeah, of course we would have seen some bunks on each side.

“I think there were three, three bunks. I think all the way down, down to the bottom.”

Never had much room in the middle as far as I could remember. Like I said, we used to have a cup of tea but used to make them on the steps I think. Right, a private stove, you know, in those days. Never had to bother and want to like today. No. And what was the lighting? What did you use for lighting? Candles. Candles, just candles. Yeah. And would you leave weapons in here? I would take our weapons home. Are you talking about that? Yeah, the explosives and stuff were stored here.

You kept all the explosives here. Yeah, I think I'm just down there at the entrance, just as you're coming in there and that's your page. Oh there, yeah, I think. I've been very relaxing, sleeping, sleeping with your head, next to all those explosives. Yeah. With candles about? Yeah. Yeah, it's smoking. It sounds as different to other ones you've been to. Well, this is slightly different because they've

made use of the quarry surroundings. Obviously quite a few of them worked in the quarry, so we're quite used to handling explosives and digging out. And this is what this one really is. Usually they're in a forest or a cops and something like that. So this is a little bit different. But it does give you that impression of just how grim it would have been. Seven men in here, for a fortnight under real pressure, in here during the day. No real light, just really, really grim stuff.

Yeah, I mean, yesterday at Paul with Rome, as was all in here, it's pretty damp today. Yeah, would have been, would have been grim potentially. Really, really grim. Yeah, absolutely. And yeah, imagine trying to get some sleep. And it's so important for them to get sleep during the day, because you're coming out every night to go on a mission to go and blow up a convoy to go and assassinate someone. So you needed that rest, but

getting rest in here must have been really difficult. Imagine if the enemy had invaded.

“Oh my God. This would have been your home for two weeks. But two weeks?”

Yeah, or longer if you live long enough, their life expectancy was two weeks. Because your window of operation was so small, we expected to be so small, just a thought like, you had to go out every night to go and destroy something, to go and cause havoc. If the Germans came to me, you and your dad would have disappeared. You would have come here. Who would have come here? And your mum wouldn't have any clue where you've gone or what you're up to.

No, you never told you. You never knew. No, I don't think she knew the day she died.

Wow. Or even when she died, I don't think she knew. And you're a teenager. Yes, I was a teenager. Seventeen. Seventeen usual. It must have been fun being with your dad. Oh, I'd like to be with my son as well. Yes, I was much. It was great. He took care of me no doubt about that.

Wherever you went, you took me with him like, you know, if you went out on exercise, call him underfields, I'd be with him. And he must have been proud to be with your dad. Oh, it was quite happy, yes. I enjoyed it. Really enjoyed it. I enjoyed it. Thank goodness me. Thank you for bringing me 94 or 84, 80 years.

There's something extraordinary about bringing someone back to a place like this. You can see it in their face. The moment the memory's come back. 80 years is a lifetime. And yet the bunker is still here. Almost untouched, really. For us, it's amazing to step inside a proper Xerry bunker. The time we'd have been so desperate to find in our last venture into this story.

waiting for the sounds of the enemy overhead.

But the auxiliary units were only one piece of a much bigger web of resistance all ready to spring into action in the face of an invasion.

“Through his groundbreaking research Andy has recently discovered that there was yet another secret”

resistance faction. One ready to go even further had Britain been conquered by the Germans. So we researched the auxiliary units, which we know are very much on the coastal counties, on the vulnerable counties to invasion. But for years and years, we were getting information from all parts of the country saying, oh my granddad or my grandmother was definitely in New York two units. They were trained in unarmed combat. They were trained in explosives. They had hideouts

where they were to come out and blow up German infrastructure. But this was coming from Glästershire and Nottingham and Liverpool and all over the country where we know absolutely there were no oxudits, which was confusing to say the least. And then in 2010 the official history of MI6 came out by a chuckle Keith Jeffrey and in that book there are about three paragraphs unreferenced about section seven. Now section seven is a MI6A SIS group that was their

purely as a post-occupation resistance. So after Britain had been defeated militarily,

“this group would have become active. And it's MI6A, the foreign secret service rather than MI5,”

because of what they were doing in mainland Europe. They were taking what they'd learnt in mainland Europe and implementing it in the UK. And it was so secret this group that MI6 didn't tell MI5. They weren't very keen on the military knowing. And so it all remembers that they recruited all sign official secrets accent as we'll go into. We know less than 20. But has the potential because this isn't just the coastal counties. It is the coastal counties, plus all of England,

certainly Wales. That's a huge amount of people potentially involved, possibly tens of thousands of people who sign official secrets accent, almost all of them went to the grave out telling anyone anything. Who are the ones that you have managed to talk to and have they been willing to

finally break their silence? Yeah, so it's really interesting. So from the Keith Jeffrey official

history thing, we know that there were three guys in SIS and MI6 who were leading this. It was a chuckle Valentine Vivian who was head of section five, which was counter-espionage. There was a chuckle Richard Gambley Perry, who was part of section eight, which was the communications, sort of wireless part of SIS. And also a really mysterious guy called David Boyle, who was head of or part of section N, which was something to do diplomatic mail. But these guys were in charge of

the recruitment and training and establishment of this resistance group. And they went around the country. So they started in six counties in July 1940, in Norfolk, Suffolk, Sussex, Somerset, Cornwall and Devon, where they did a trial of these wireless sets and they proved to be really successful. And then they recruited everywhere in the country. It's hard to imagine just how wireless network was. For example, we've got a chap who came forward in the early 2000s,

called Peter Atwater. Peter is a really good example of the type of people or children that SIS recruiting for section seven. Peter was 14 when he was recruited for section seven. He was an ARP messenger and he was part of the air training corps as well. And he lived in Matlock in Derbyshire. His role had the Germans occupied Matlock, was initially as an observer. He was to walk around Matlock and gather information on the occupying forces. He would then take

this back to his cell leader, a chap called Mr. Topliss, who was a draper. At the back of Mr. Topliss's draper shop was a fake cupboard. You go through the fake cupboard and the back is a room with a wireless

“setting. There are two female wireless operators, cool day. Mrs. Key and a Miss Swan. He would then”

pass this information on to them. They would then radio this information about the occupying forces to either an unoccupied zone. So they thought that Britain would be like France, it'd be an occupied zone and an unoccupied zone. With Scotland, most likely to be the unoccupied zone, with some kind of petan Vichy like government in charge there. Or the information because

Richard Gambier and Perry was involved, the information from these wireless sets might be powerful enough

to eventually end up in Canada with some kind of government in exile. So his role was to do this incidentally in the under the table where the wireless set was was a grenade with the pin stapled to the table. So if the Germans had somehow found out that this was a resistance cell, broken through and found Mrs. Swan and Miss Key's in the back room, they could have called the grenade very easily, thrown it over the shoulders, grabbed their wireless set and escaped to

carry on because this is about long-term resistance. So the auxiliary units and special duties

French resistance where you can move, you have kind of portable wireless sets and move quickly

and keep going for as long as possible. Peter also was responsible for finding a room or a building in which people on the run from the occupying forces could be passed on. So rather like the scape lines in France, in occupied Europe, where an allied airman was shot down. If the resistance got hold of him, they would pass him on from house to house, from safe house to safe house, to try and get him back to neutral territory from where he can then

make his way back to Britain. It looks like section 7 we're setting up an escape line for enemies of the occupying forces to try and get them out to an unoccupied zone which seemed really Scotland or maybe Ireland. So that was being prepared. He had to meet other boys of his same age

“in Birmingham. I think they met each of these chaps were passed at the escape line so they”

knew who to pass them onto. So it looks like it's carrying up through the midlands and up through north. And when they met, they had to talk or include a word in their conversation to ensure that they weren't being followed or that they weren't under duress. So what better subjects talk about than the weather. So Peter had to include the word ice in any conversation he had if he was meeting with one of these guys under occupation. And another thing Peter was said that

a bit later on he was taught was how to be a sniper. So 15 year old was being taught and he used some very specific terminology here. He was he was being taught. He said by terrifying,

"X first world war NCOs how to be a sniper." Peter was 15 but as a father that is a terrifying

prospect and his parents had no idea what he was up to. You listen to Dan Snow's history and think about how close you are. It's more coming. Nah, no plans for such an end. Besuch the road keeps your life as well with your own milk. And in the end, all of the types of people live in their own language. And dictates our interactive performance of the people's tour with audio guide and a classic

and the next part of the world war. The road keeps on leaving the world only one second world war. And it wasn't just young boys, girls as well. Correct, absolutely. And a lot of what Peter said there, you can take with a pinch of salt because it's one guy telling you. But then as I wrote the book, families from Southampton and Lestershire were telling me exactly the same

stories about their grandfathers in this case, being taught by terrifying NCOs, using this very similar terminology. And then just before I published a family got in touch whose grandfather William

Hughes was a sharp shooter during the First World War. And he said in Liverpool he was teaching

resistors and he used the word teenagers in unarmed combat and how to be snipers in the tunnels underneath the mercy. So suddenly one man's story is then confirmed by multiple other independent stories across the country. But you're right, it wasn't just men and boys being recruited.

“And this is a key difference with Section 7 and SIS that they were actively recruiting”

women in combat roles and teaching them how to use explosives, how to create Molotov cocktails, how to derail trains. And most importantly, how to become honey traps, how to use the grotes. And I know that you've had podcasts here talking about some Dutch women who were famous or infamous for their roles in dispatching German officers and German soldiers. Exactly the same as being done here in preparation for an occupation. So fantastic example, a lady called Jennifer

Lockley got in touch with us saying that her mother was in the auxiliary units. We know and that she was from their lead. So there's two things there. There's no women in the auxiliary units. And there was no auxiliary units in lead. So we knew something was going on. So we talked about Section 7. And then it seems that on her deathbed her mother Irene called her in and said, "I've got something to tell you, Jennifer Fortress is going to be told that she was adopted or something,

“but actually her mother said that she was part of a secret resistance cell in a village near”

lead. She was in a cell with her father, her uncle and her two cousins, and her base in the cave. And she was taught how to use, as I said, Molotov cocktails had to use the grotes, how to derail trains, how to make the occupying forces lie at an absolute nightmare. Now her daughter, Jennifer, thought she might be losing it a bit in her final days. But then when we tried talking to her about Section 7, some stories from her childhood started to make sense. So for example,

if you remember in the 50s standing in a hallway as a Potson Pan salesman had come to the door, and her mother had opened the door and the salesman was quite aggressive in his sales pattern. And put his foot in the door to stop Irene shutting it. The next thing that Jennifer remembers is

can see the her mother had performed like an on-arm combat room on this guy. And that's amazing.

“I know, I know, Jennifer says so as a character for her mother. This memory is just stuck with her,”

because her mother was a witness say, but suddenly this chap was flying through the air. The whole point of SIS recruiting women is basically the mistake that the Potson Pan salesman had made, that he does not suspect a shy, retiring housewife to be able to do that. And that's exactly why they recruited people like Jennifer. They also recruited a lady called Priscilla Ross from horn church. Now Priscilla said that very similar things to Jennifer, and obviously in a very separate part of

the country, horn church in Essex. She was taught how to make Molotov cocktails, how to garot, how to do hero trains, how to assassinate German officers. Her base was under a church in horn church with a tombstone that if you move the top, kind of swivel over and revealed an entrance underneath the church. So I've been in touch with the church in horn church and had a, from their perspective, a weird conversation about whether they had any moving tombstones in their grave,

obviously, did not, but they did say that they just found a space under the church, which they had not known about, and they couldn't find an entrance. So something else for us maybe is going to look at. Buddy, you're going, we're going on, but no question about that. So what you're saying is here, there was, there is a network, people still living among us say because they were young,

they were boys and girls, who are trained killers, sabbators, and resistors, and because they never

got the balloon never went up, they never got the call, they just went and lived the rest of their lives and never told a soul. Correct, absolutely. So for example, Peter Apple to a matlock, new of two of ourselves, near him in Matlock. So potentially this could be absolutely huge, and they didn't really even know who they were working for. So at the end of the war, Peter was part of the local history society and he told his story and had started to read about the auxiliary units and

presumed that what he was in. And in fact, to the extent that there's the blue plaque above what was the drape of shop saying this was a auxiliary unit's radio. So, but it wasn't. So Peter didn't

“know what he was in at all. That's how secret is, the people who were in it didn't even know”

what they were in. And most of them, because they weren't called upon, said absolutely nothing. There's another example from Yorkshire, of a mother who passed away fairly recently, who is high up in the W.I. in Yorkshire, she told her family that she was responsible for driving, using the W.I. as a cover, for driving around Yorkshire, and she used very specific terminology delivering explosives and weapons to cage all around Yorkshire. So there is, there's so much

tantalizing information out there. We know very little, essentially, as to the size of this group. And also what their objectives were, what does success look like for section 7? Because the resistance in mainland Europe had Britain as a island of hope of a platform from which liberation could come from. If Britain had fallen and we were occupied, is the U.S. going to get involved in the war. So the Atlantic Ocean is a big old gap between us and liberation. What does success look

like for a ongoing resistance? I'd say it's, and again, very much suicidal, but just talks about the bravery of these people. So obviously, one of the first and all of us say to listeners,

“is if any of this rings true, you need to get in touch with Andy, because it must be very frustrating”

for you. We're in the last months and years of being able to talk to these people, if they were 14 or so in 1940, they're going to be mid to late 90s. So just check, just check that your name is not like Irene and can actually throw a pots and pans salesman down the footpath. And what about the archives? There is humanly this stuff has been, the government has declassified this stuff now. Is there a paper trail here that you can exploit? Nope. I don't know whether they've

gone for a long period of the official six act, just because the people they're increasing were so young, but there is, as far as we can see, there's nothing in the archives. There's the piece by Keith Jeffrey, who obviously had access to official MI6 content that's in the official history. And actually, interesting sections seven, officially of MI6, is the accountancy on. So they've hidden this resistance group under an accountancy arm. So even if you're looking

up section seven and MI6, you're just going to get accounts rather than ruthless resistors. So we are very much looking for that paper trail because it has to be paid for. There has to be some kind of paper trail somewhere, but we have yet to find it yet. Are we confident that you

think you will one day? I hope so, but that'd be amazing. I'm not sure when it will be released

if it is, but we'll certainly keep searching because I just love to get an idea of just the number of people involved in this because as I said, it's got the potential to be thousands of thousands. I mean, the auxiliary units was we think about six and a half thousand and the special

So yeah, much more than that. So this is huge potential between amazing story. And wouldn't be

great to get the last survivors, some recognition because there's been zero acknowledgement, zero recognition, nothing at all so far. Absolutely nothing. Yeah, no, no, exactly right.

“The only thing is I said is there's three paragraphs in the official history of MI6,”

kind of hidden, absolutely nothing for anyone. And actually, you know, it took years and years for the auxiliary units to get recognised. It was only in the mid 2000s that we managed to get them permission to walk past the Senate off or remember in Sunday, for example. So, and that's the auxiliary units, which has essentially been in the public eye since David Lambray that first book about it in 1968. And certainly no medal for any of these groups, none of these groups

were officially given the defense medal, unlike the home guard. So yeah, absolutely no recognition at all, which is really awful, considering the sacrifices these guys were prepared to make in this country's hour of need. It's just such a fascinating story and exactly the kind of history I love. Every time we come back to it, we uncover something new, new artifacts, new stories, missing places, new details that get more questions and, well, we realise there's need for more

answers. So, as I say, if you've heard stories from family members like the ones Andy mentioned, or stumble across something unusual where you're at walking the dog or exploring your local wood, we would love to hear from you. Please get in touch at [email protected].

Andy and I are always looking for new leads. You can dive deeper into Britain's war time resistance

“in Andy's book, Britain's secret defenses, civilian saboteurs, spies, and assassins. Strong”

recommend for that. I'd also, of course, I've got to recommend. You've got to go and watch our latest documentary on our history hit TV channel. You'll get to see inside the auxiliary bunker we visited with Ken and plenty more from our recent bunker hunting adventures. The documentary is called Church Hills Secret Army. All you've got to do is subscribe to history it. You will find a link to sign up and watch in the show notes this podcast. Thank you for doing that. But above all,

folks, obviously. A huge thank you to Ken Welch. What an amazing man. And to everyone at the Coles Hill auxiliary research team for their meticulous work. See you next time!

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