The British GHQ Auxiliary Units of WW2

GHQ AUXILIARY UNITS

Auxiliary Units sniper with Winchaest 74

For details on the individual patrols of the Auxiliary Units and a collection of personal reminisacences of local volunteers, see the CART website.

The present study is focused on an analysis of the organisation as a whole and attempt to dispel the mythology that has distorted the true significance of the organisation.. Over the past 70 years a wide range of myths have grown up around the Auxiliary Units and these have become fossilised in the historical record. Such myths have taken on an emotional attachment, difficult to cast aside and are casually repeated both in print and over the internet, where accounts are often 'cut and pasted' from one account to the next and old, undated, texts are assumed to be up to date without scrutiny or challenge.

The nature of the Auxiliary Units can only be properly understood by appreciating its complexity - not easily summarised on a website - and so those interested in the subject are pointed towards Britain's Guerrilla Army (2024) which is the most up to date, detailed account of their history. .

Despite the long-accumulated evidence to the contrary, the Auxiliary Units are still popularly labelled as the 'British Resistance Organisation' or a 'last ditch' movement. Never described as such at the time, this mythical label has become a convenient advertising and marketing label at the expense of historical accuracy. This is a fundamentally flawed concept – which is not to downplay in any way the contribution to defending the country that its volunteers were prepared to make as military stay-behind units in the overall defence plan to support the regular army. One problem is that there are four stories to be told of the Auxiliary Units history -

1) the official view of their role;

2) what the Intelligence Officers told their men to maintain morale;

3) how what they were told was was interpreted by the volunteers;

4) The development of a post-war mythology.

Fundamentally, a distinction must be made between organisations designed to operate in a military capacity during an active anti-invasion campaign and those who would mount resistance after occupation. This distinction was first explained in Fighting Nazi Occupation (2015), where the history of the War Office Auxiliary Units and the actual British Resistance of SIS was first presented in detail and the process of unravelling the mythology of the Auxiliary Units began. Fighting Nazi Occupation has now been updated as Britain's Guerrilla Army (2024).

To create the post-war image of civilian resistance fighters on the European model, after the war one Auxiliary Units Intelligence Officer exaggerated in maintaining he had never trained his men in uniform (choosing not to regard the standard Home Guard denim overalls as ‘uniform’). The romantic notion that the Auxiliary Units were 'civilians', in contravention of government policy, and were completely unknown to the local community has been accepted almost without question. It ignores the well-documented motivation of the government and War Office in creating the Auxiliary Units that the civilian Home Defence Scheme of SIS Section D should be replaced with a legal military alternative. The August 1940 monthly report by the CO Colin Gubbins was delayed until early September so that he could say that a shortage in some uniforms had been resolved. and the patrols were part of an organised military hierarchy under a sergeant and wearing regimental badges. The Chief of Staff, Home Forces (General Paget) stressed that: ‘The action of these units is not sabotage, but offensive action by fighting patrols against military targets’. They were therefore to be engaged in legitimate 'military action' rather than the disreputable civilian 'sabotage' of SIS. Rather than the modern myth of 'civilian saboteurs', at the time the War Office firmly regarded them as picked troops of the Home Guard. The last CO of the Auxiliary Units (Col. Douglas) explained in 1944 upon their disbandment 'For nearly four years Auxiliers, who were hand-picked men, have had rubbed into them that they were part of the regular army and GHQ troops'.

It was not the role of the War Office to create resistance organisations and the founders of the Auxiliary Units, Colin Gubbins and Peter Wilkinson (see HERE), were both clear that the organisation was intended as a short-term expedient in the immediate invasion crisis to hinder the movement of the invasion army away from the coast (it was never a national organisation) as part of a wider strategy to buy time for the field army to concentrate and launch its counter-attack. The operational patrols of the Auxiliary Units were a military expedient to operate as uniformed commandos within what was anticipated to be a month-long campaign, rather than an attempt to create an organised resistance organisation to operate under enemy occupation. Gubbins concluded that the Auxiliary Units were 'designed, trained and prepared for a particular and imminent crisis: that was their specialist role.’ He added, ‘We were expendable. We were a bonus, that’s all.’ Peter Fleming of XII Corps Observation Unit concluded that their life expectancy would be around 48 hours.

With no clear brief (mirroring the confusion surrounding the formation of the parent Home Guard), the Auxiliary Units had hesitant beginnings and did not begin to properly mobilise until mid-July 1940. The Auxiliary Units officers were originally intended only to serve as an advisory body to the creation of small commando teams directly managed by the LDV, rather than managing its own patrols. These were primarily to act as guides to regular army commando units, who would be slipped behind enemy lines. Unfortunately there were not the resources at the time to expand the existing 'Independent Companies' to provide the army commando units and the LDV organisation was not sufficient to organise its own teams. Aux Units HQ then began to organise its own small patrols on the model of XII Corps Observation Unit but its confused origin mean that its existence was already known to local officers in the LDV/Home Guard.

Their role, with no sense of mystery, was summarised in the 1957 volume of the Official History of the Second World War dealing with Home Defence. Here it was recorded ‘Auxiliary Units were trained to work in the rear of an invader, harrying his advancing columns and cutting them off from supplies of water, food and petrol’. Collier continued: ‘Thus an enemy who landed would find himself opposed, not only by a Field Army supported by substantial bomber and fighter forces and backed by the Home Guard, but also by patrols emerging from hidden centres to check his advance and strike at his communications'. Their role was effectively to be suicide bombers who would extend the equally suicidal harrying actions of the Home Guard by mounting sabotage attacks at night on German communications and supply bases behind the front line. Their life expectancy was just a few days and so, contrary to popular mythology, the War Office did not believe it was worth spending a huge amount of resources on them in 1940. The priority was to provide explosives but, although they received some standard Home Guard rifles in August 1940, they did not begin to be issued with other personal weapons (pistol and cheap sheath knife) until September, even as the Nazis were cancelling their invasion plans for the year. Indeed, they were considered for disbandment as early as October 1940. The broader weapons issue is considered in a series of pages under Auxiliary Unit weapons. They were not, for example, the first British units to receive the Thompson sub-machine gun (some had been issued to the BEF in January 1940). They did not receive the first of the explosive Time Pencils. Neither were they issued, as one Intelligence Officer claimed, with special high-powered .22 sniper rifles - with the .22 rifles that they were issued (the first only with from April 1942 and some not until October) being of doubtful military value.

The supposed role of the Auxiliary Units in being prepared to mount a campaign of assassination against anyone who might have learnt of their existence has attracted particular attention. This has been greatly exaggerated and is discussed HERE. In reality, a wider range of individuals knew the identity of the Auxiliers than the veterans believed when they told their stories decades later. Assassination on the scale suggested by some post-war commentators (including Home Guard officers, police officers and even their own Intelligence Officers) would consequently have created more disruption and panic than any fifth columnist! In 1940, Gubbins was mainly concerned with the security of the hidden operational bases, the knowledge of which was more strictly controlled - although in Worcestershire the Auxiliary Units patrols played hide and seek with the local Home Guard (who were all clientele of the same public houses) - who tried to track them to their bases!

The essence of the role of the Auxiliary Units in 1940-41 was to provide covert support to the regular forces - interrupting the flow of supplies to the enemy and disrupting lines of communication. They were not expected to survive more than a few weeks and so were not considered worthy of large-scale investment. They were, however, supplied with large amounts of explosives to enable to carry out their task - including large quantities of Time Pencils, which had begun to be distributed across Europe by Section D in September 1939.

The organised system of 8-man Operation Patrols under a sergeant, and hidden Operation Bases, were not created until August but they were not fully equipped or trained until September 1940, hampering any role when arguably it was most needed. From November the Auxiliary Units were finally able to create a small regular army element of Scout Sections (based on XII Corps Observation Unit 'Battle Patrols'), which would form the strategic core of the organisation, crucially equipped with wireless to allow communications after invasion..

The volunteers had been promised that they would not be returned to general Home Guard service and this posed a problem as the invasion threat diminished and conventional resources improved. The Operational Patrols initially survived largely through bureaucratic inertia but from 1942 a new role was found for them as well-armed reconnaissance units, featuring the Sten gun, acting to support ther local Home Guard in what was believed to be the threat of German 'spoiling raids' to disrupt plans for the liberation of Europe. . In describing this new role in his draft 1944 official history of the Auxiliary Units, Training Offcier Nigel Oxenden displayed a contemporary cynicism, describing the rumours of raids as ‘a gift to IOs’ [Intelligence Officers] and ‘a wonderful tonic for fading enthusiasm in the ranks’. He went on ‘Sceptics wondered whether it was ever intended as anything more. The effects, with careful nursing lasted for the next two years.’ From this point, now holding joint exercises with the local Home Guard, any pretence at secrecy began to dissolve and an air of self-delusion began to permeate the Auxiliary Units as they clung on to their 'glory days of 1940, by continuing to train for anti-invasion sabotage.

As morale began to slip, the Training Officer complained that the men now knew less about explosives than they had in 1940! The interest of the men was maintained by delivery of an increasing range of weaponry, which reassured them of their status. Thus the main order for the famous .22 sniper rifles with silencers and telescopic sights - in themselves of limited usefulness as a sniper rifle - were only issued from April 1942. At the time, the war was still not going well for the allies but the main threat of invasion had passed and US forces were now pouring into the country to already prepare for the invasion of Europe. Similarly it was only in 1942 the the decision was made to build underground hides for the Special Duties Branch IN Stations.

Replica of an IN Station TRD wireless set as used by the Special Duties branch (built by author)

Replica of Auxiliary Units TRD wireless set

The Special Duties Branch (SDB), although formally part of the Auxiliary Units structure was in practice a completely separate organisation. It derived from the intelligence network of Section D's Home Defence Scheme which Gubbins was obliged to take over without any real idea of how to use it and he reluctantly continued to rely on SIS expertise. Whilst SIS had its own intelligence network, linked by wireless (Section VII), it maintained a strong interest in the development of the SDB (not least to ensure its own organisation was not compromised) and the Auxiliary Units HQ had little part in how any gathered intelligence was utilised. The Home Defence Scheme intelligence network had been set up on traditional SIS methodology designed to operate in the settled conditions of enemy occupation or in a neutral country but what the War Office initially wanted of the Auxiliary Units SDB was a means of providing immediate battlefield intelligence In 1940 the c.1,000 civilian agents of the SDB, despite the romance of their 'dead letter drops' and messages concealed in tennis balls or hollowed-out keys etc, could have only provided a limited service in passing back intelligence on a fast-moving German invasion. It relied on 'runners' passing through enemy lines and although this was standard methodology for intelligence-gathering in settled conditions, it was a process likely to be easily overtaken by a fast-moving 'blitzkrieg' in which armoured columns would quickly advance and then turn in a hook to cut off defending forces, who would consequently have to be always ready for a swift withdrawal. In such circumstances, even if a 'runner' could beat the speed of the enemy advance - how would they know where to deliver their message? Any message that was delivered was likely to be too out-of-date to be of use. For the future, Gubbins pinned his hopes on being able to create army Scout patrols that had standard wireless sets if not the SIS long-range sets as supplied to the XII Corps Observation Unit and Section VII. Meanwhile, the army would have relied on the forward wireless cars (and even pigeons) of the 'Phantom' units of GHQ Liaison Regiment, who shadowed the enemy and whose operators were skilled German-speaking specialists able to listen in to enemy wireless traffic.

The introduction of an SDB wireless network in 1941, modelled on the clusters of Royal Observer Corps posts reporting to a group HQ by landline telephone, but based on the experimental VHF TRD set, was an attempt to overcome the difficulty of passing back intelligence on an advancing army, but the technology was flawed. It relied on very directional aerials and the continued support of the Royal Signals to connect to surface IN Stations attached to army HQs - that were likely to move out of signal range in the face of an enemy advance. There was no means of continuing this system after the army had retreated or, worse, had been defeated. The TRD has acquired the legend of being super-secure but its signals (although not the messages) were detectable to the enemy as long as they were monitoring the VHF band. It was only in 1942 that the IN Stations were provided with more secure underground hides but by this time the threat of invasion had largely passed. By now the real purpose of the SDB was to assist Military Intelligence and MI5 in monitoring loose talk in the local population and particularly among troops relaxing in local pubs or with local girls. This explains why, as the threat of invasion decreased, the number of agents increased to over 3,000 in 1944. It is a moot point as to whether the wireless network was then retained largely out of an inertia similar to that with the operational patrols, with the agents (a large number of whom had been recruited from the SIS Home Defence Scheme) leaving their messages in 'dead letter drops', for collection by Field Security or MI5 officers (Auxiliary Units HQ had little part in this process). The wireless network only found its purpose as part of the general wireless traffic deception prior to D Day, when all wireless traffic in Britain carried out coordinated periods of intense activity (including broadcasting nonsense messages) and radio silence, to confuse the Germans when the real invasion occurred. The picture is complicated by the possibility that some cells, initially identified as being part of the SDB, but using a technology beyond the latter's capability, might actually have been part of Section VII.

Much of the modern romance surrounding the Auxiliary Units focus on their use of secret underground 'hides' or 'operational bases', mainly built by Royal Engineers (whose existence was made public as early as 1957) or the intrigue of dead letter drops hidden in gate hinges etc. These provide an element of fascinating mystery that have distorted an objective analysis of the role and significance of the Auxiliary Units. Yet, despite their carefully- constructed secret trap doors and escape tunnels, post-war exercises in Germany in 1973 (involving 23 SAS) suggested that their hides could have been be located in less than an hour by sniffer dogs (see HERE).

The Auxiliary Units were not the 'last ditch' of Britain's defence by the simple fact that they were intended to support a still active British field army - buying valuable time for the latter to regroup and, in General Thorne's view at least, to cover the flanks of a British counter-attack. This principle was key to the 1940 defence plan and was heavily reliant of the self-sacrifice of the Home Guard and Auxiliary Units. Their potential as a resistance organisation was discussed - and dismissed - at the time as not being the task of the War Office. Instead, the most significant contribution of the Auxiliary Units may well have been the internal security role provided by the later period SDB. The actual British Resistance, organised by the Secret Intelligence Service (SIS aka MI6) was organised on a very different basis but remained largely unknown until 2015 (see HERE).

ON THIS WEB SITE

WEAPONRY

The changing weaponry of the Auxiliary Units. See also legends of the Thompson sub-machine gun and Winchester 74.

DEADLY ASSASSINS

Analysis of the legend of the Auxiliary Units as deadly assassins

SPECIAL DUTIES BRANCH

The role of the intelligence wing - the Special Duties Branch

CLANDESTINE WIRELESS

Wireless sets used by Auxiliary Units. and related clandestine wireless sets.

AN OPEN SECRET

How secret were the Auxiliary Units.

KEY QUOTES

Quotes from organisers that explains the purpose of the organisation.

BADGES

The badges of the Auxiliary Units

The CART website is an invaluable resource for researching individual patrols of the Auxiliary Units and Special Duties Branch - but it still clings to the 'Resistance' headline.