WWII Discovery: A Secret No More
Following Victor Smith’s fascinating article, ‘Something at the end of the garden: a secret Second World War radio listening post in Northfleet’ (Issue 119), Gordon Taylor got in touch and mentioned David Steed’s article that first featured in Earthworm, the magazine of IOTAS… it builds nicely on Victor’s article.
I was about twelve when I found a wooden seaman’s chest in my father’s shed, which he had left unlocked. Nosey as all boys are, I opened it and found coils of red wire, black wire, small copper tubes with glass vials in the centre, skinny wire, wire cutters and tools: a James Bond killing kit. Father caught me with my head in the box, and for the first time since the early years of the 1940s, he decided to talk about his wartime work as a Sergeant in the Auxiliary Units or the British Resistance Group.
In 1940, the future looked bleak, and it seemed only a matter of weeks before Hitler gave the order to invade Britain. We were on our knees, so Winston Churchill sanctioned the formation of a British underground resistance organisation; they were given an obscure name, the ‘Auxiliary Units’, which could pass as a branch of the Home Guard. The men were to be in groups of six with no contact between groups; they communicated by dead letter boxes. My father’s was a dead tree (message left in an old tennis ball slit open) near Nash Court Farm, unknown at the time the messages were picked up by the Farmer, Mr Lamont, who had a radio hidden in the concealed cellar in the farmyard with the aerial hidden in the ivy of a dead tree and was trained to do that one job, in the event of the Germans landing the Units would leave their homes and assemble in underground Operation Bases
(OB`s) which had been constructed in secrecy by Army Engineers from other parts of Britain. They had five bunks (one man was always on duty), rations and water (for two weeks) were stored in readiness, the entrance was concealed, and there was an emergency “back door”. Their job was to let the German forces head for London and then blow up the bridges, railway lines and roads BEHIND the main army, thereby cutting off the supply of vital fuel and munitions. After two weeks, they were to return to their homes and everyday lives.
The back doorbell of Spratling Court Farm rang in early 1940, and two men asked to come in (they turned out to be Peter Fleming, Ian Fleming`s brother of James Bond fame, and Captain Norman Field). They asked my father, “Would you like to help with the war effort? Yes, of course.” My father answered, “Sign here.” It was the Official Secrets Act and forbade the signatory from ever divulging anything for life. He had to recruit five others he could trust: Farmers, Gamekeepers and anyone who knew the countryside, especially in the dark. They were then trained at a house called ‘The Garth’ near Wye in Kent and were provided with red and black wire timed fuse, wire detonators, and copper tubes with acid in glass which, when squeezed, corroded in a timed manner through a thin wire and then ignited a fuse wire. The thin wire was piano wire, strong, used to stretch across roads at the right height to decapitate German army motorcyclists, and magnets to stick mines to any metal surface. Some three thousand men were recruited, many of whom later, when the threat of invasion was over, served behind enemy lines in the lead-up to D-Day because they were an illegal force by the terms of the Geneva Convention. They would have been shot as spies if caught and convicted. Most men said little about their role after the War, and some died denying their involvement. Each man was provided with a “ Countryman Diary 1939” advertising Highworth`s Fertiliser (see below for the cover and a few inside pages), which could, if accidentally seen, not raise any suspicions. Inside was a guide to causing mayhem with all sorts of ways of blowing up aircraft, tanks, bridges and booby traps if wanted.
My father’s unit used two OBs; one was in a disused chalk pit twenty feet deep alongside the footpath, which runs between the junction of Spratling Street and Spratling Lane and Coldswood farm. You shinned down a rope behind an ivy curtain. Halfway down was the entrance.
After the War, the chalk pit was filled with WW2 concrete tank traps (small pyramids) and soil and is now farmed over. The other was on the old Haine Brickworks (now Haine Industrial Estate). At the base of a tall chimney, there was a coal heap with a sheet of tin supporting it.
The tin support was false and slid to one side to allow entry; this OB also contained a bicycle. Ingenious ways were found to alert the men hidden from view; a long drainpipe was laid, and to “knock on the front door”, you popped a glass marble down a hollow post, ran down the pipe to the OB, and dropped into a metal pot. My discovery in 1957 was followed by an enquiry from an author who had stumbled on rumours of a British Resistance movement whilst researching a book on what life would have been like had we lost the war and were now ruled by Germany. His name was David Lampe, and the book was “The Last Ditch”, published in 1968; it is exciting reading. There is a Museum at Parham in Suffolk dedicated to the Auxiliary Units: http://www. parhamairfieldmuseum.co.uk/
John Warwicker MBE of the museum, has written an excellent history of the Auxiliary Units called “Churchill`s Underground Army”, a fantastic read. “ A Birchington Patchwork” by Nick Evans (£14.50 at Quex Farm shop and around Birchington) has a good chapter on Billy Gardner, a flamboyant Birchington Auxiliary. GHQ at Coleshill in Oxfordshire also has a replica OB and exhibits on “ Churchill`s Secret Army” website:
http://www.coleshillhouse.com/
My curiosity didn`t kill the cat, but my experiment (unknown to my father) in trying to set fire to a Cordex fuse using petrol and a bonfire and the resulting explosion persuaded him to dispose of all his incendiary store safely. My “Jetex model aircraft” fuse was like a blue touch paper on a firework SLOW; on the other hand, Cordex burns at 90 feet per second and, wrapped around a tree, will sever it instantly. Apart from waking up the Village of Manston, I escaped with ringing ears and an angry father. I have just touched on the fringes of a well- kept secret with some personal memories via word of mouth, but the whole story is a good read.