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| Auxiliary
Unit (The Resisitance Unit) |
| The Auxiliary units were a very secret unit of guerrillas operating from within the Home Guard. It was to be the task of these Auxiliary units to take on the enemy after an invasion in areas of occupation. |
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to be used as the Germans usual means of retribution after an assassination of a high ranking soldier was to take a hundred or so civilians from a local town and execute them. Old men and young boys, women and children, no one would be spared.
Colonel Colin Gubbins was tasked with setting up the nationwide resistance organisation and it was Captain Andrew Croft, who later became a key figure with the S.O.E, who helped set up the units in East Anglia.
The Auxiliary units in North and Eastern England were assigned to the 202 Battalion, with the 201 and 203 Battalions covering Scotland and the South/West respectively, though they were officially listed as Home Guard and served with their local Home Guard units. Their only distinguishing difference would have been the 202 (or 201/203) Battalion flash on the shoulders.
The men would be discreetly invited to join a local unit because they possessed a valued skill, such as marksmanship or a knowledge of the lay of the local land. They would then have to sign the Official Secrets Act and have their own, and their families', backgrounds checked for security.
OBs
Each unit would have been responsible for their own 'patch'
and would have operated from an Operation Base (OB).
These bases very often operated from underground bunkers and
these bunkers had walls of 2 feet thick and set 12 feet into
the ground and were hidden. Over 500 bunkers were dug in
1941 across the nation and at that time over 3,500 civilians
volunteered for service in the Auxiliary Units.
Each unit would be well supplied with munitions, such as:
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booby traps; grenades; time fuses; mines; explosives and detonators;
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Sten guns; pistols; sniper rifles;
After
the war
Because of the secrecy surrounding these units the British
Government did not acknowledge their existence until recently
and therefore no medals were awarded to any Auxiliary Unit
servicemen. This changed in 1996 when the Ministry of
Defence authorised the award of the Defence Medal for those
men who served at least three years.
Brandon's Auxiliary Unit
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following is sourced from research by Steve Woods, of Brandon Country
Park.
Brandon was chosen to site an OB because it was thought that the invading German Army would rest up and regroup in the cover of the Thetford Forest. There was also a need to control the strategic road junctions between East Anglia and the Midlands along with Brandon's excellent rail links and the large flat expanses of Breckland heathland around Brandon would have undoubtedly made an ideal landing area for parachutists. Brandon's OB would have been expected to wage a guerilla war against the resting enemy. |
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| In
July/August 1940 Brandon's first hideout, was built in the Forestry
Plantation and was sufficient for fifteen operatives.
This base was prone to flooding and so a second base had to be constructed and this one contained sleeping accommodation for eight in bunks. The hideout was 12-foot underground and trees were cut and used for the rafters, corrugated iron laid for the roof and earth covered over with a final layer of leaves and pine cones to disguise the underground base. There was an air vent that ran up alongside a tree. Cooking was carried out on a Primus Stove. An Observation Post was also built on the edge of Lingheath along the Bury Road. Training was carried out every Sunday and on 15th September 1940 Brandon's first training day, which was a joint effort with Lakenheath OB, was carried out. 12 people reported to the chalk pit on the Elveden to Bury St Edmunds road. Over the coming months they were taught by the regular army to prime and throw Mills bombs, about dismantling fuses and especially the seven second fuse, |
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was commonly known as "count to five and duck"! They
were also taught how to wrap plastic explosive around rail tracks to cut
3-foot lengths of rail.
A second joint training day was carried out in November 1940 and participants were taught about tank sabotage, how to keep low, revolver use using the New York Police Department preferred .38 revolver and how to track their target. The unit also used the rifle range at Cawston in Norfolk with .303 packed in grease that had been stored since the previous World War. Brandon's OB was given a dozen Mills bombs, High Explosive plastic (like a yellow putty), twenty minute pencil fuses, detonators, five and ten minute fuse wire (for railway sabotage). Items were found buried in the walled garden of Brandon Country Park which led to Steve Woods' appearance on the Ken Bruce Radio 2 show on 23rd July 1990. These items included a bayonet, earphones, ammunition, candles, matches, pickled plums, syringe, generator handle, unopened medicines, margarine, miscellaneous food and tubs of grease. |
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Brandon had an OB situated in Lingheath, an area south-east of Brandon, between the B1106 and B1107, set in scrubland and edging on the Thetford Forest. An eyewitness reports being shown the underground bunker by his father, who had served with the Aux Unit, shortly after the war, but he thinks it has since been demolished as all that is there are craters in the ground. The OB was reached by clearing brush from the ground and opening a trapdoor to the bunker.
Little else is known about this unit due to its secrecy.
They belonged to the Norfolk Area - 10th Group. This group contained 40 civilians split into an H.Q. and 5 squads. Each squad would have operated from an Operational Base near a town or village without knowledge of who was in the next OB, or indeed if there was another OB nearby, only the H.Q. would have had this information. All would have been recruited from the Home Guard.
The H.Q. Consisted of ...
Capt.
Walter G. Gentle, M.C. (Group Commander);
Lt. Eric G. Field (Assistant Group Commander);
(both were Brandon men, with
descendants still living in Brandon.)
Lt. D.C. Carey (Assistant
Group Commander);
Lt. R.F. St. B. Wayne (Assistant Group Commander);
Captain Gentle M.C. was awarded the M.B.E. in the 1945 New Year's Honours List for "services rendered to the 202 Battalion Home Guard".
Brandon's OB members were ...
Sgt. Philip R. Field; (Thetford
Road, Brandon)
Cpl. S. William "Bill" Baker; (Railway
Terrace, Brandon)
Pvt. Roy D. Budden; (Garage
owner from Elveden)
Pvt. Albert L. Drewery;
Pvt. George A. Eagle; (Bury
Road, Brandon)
Pvt. George H. Holden;
Pvt. D. Smith;
Jack Randall* (not confirmed);
(plumber & builder)
Walter Blake* (not confirmed)
Billy Stead* (not
confirmed)
Henry Berry* (not
confirmed)
Lakenheath's OB members were ...
Sgt. Freddy A. Crowther;
Cpl. Hector W. Crocker
Pvt. George Palfrey;
Pvt. A.E. Rolph;
Pvt. S.W. Rolph;
Pvt. H.W. Smith;
Pvt. Reg H.T. Young;
Hockwold's OB members were ...
Sgt. W.T. Cooper;
Cpl. A. Maggs;
Pvt. R. Bartlett;
Pvt. J.A.M. Enefer;
Pvt. E.A.A. Hicks;
Pvt. R.C. Rolph;
Pvt. A.E. Starling;
Other OBs under Capt. Gentle's Command (Do
you have any further details?)
Sgt. H.E. Parfitt;
Cpl. M.H. Thompson;
Pvt. R.C. Beck;
Pvt. J. Goram;
Pvt. F.H. Ottoway;
Pvt. E. W. Pratt;
Pvt. B.P. Walpole;
Sgt. B. Warnes;
Cpl. C.J. Williams;
Pvt. G. Brown;
Pvt. R. Fuller;
Pvt. H. Gates;
Pvt. D.F. Gilder;
Pvt. E.C. Huggins;
(Special thanks to the BRO Museum, Parham, Suffolk, for details from the nominal roll stored there.)
Recollections of Brandon's Auxiliary Unit
"One weekend we were on some sort of skirmish and our section was billeted in a shop. Our 'enemy' was what you called the secret unit, we knew them as the Home Guard Commandos. One of the Home Guard Commandos got onto the roof of the building we were in and put a firecracker down the chimney of a pot belly stove we had and 'blew us all up'." - Les Bond (Home Guardsman)
This website was designed and developed by Darren Norton, Brandon, Suffolk