Churchill's Secret Army

Summary

Dan Snow’s History Hit – “Churchill’s Secret Army”
Episode Date: April 20, 2026

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Overview

This gripping episode of Dan Snow’s History Hit takes listeners deep into one of World War II’s most secret and extraordinary organizations: the British Auxiliary Units (aka “Churchill’s Secret Army”). Dan and historian Andy Chatterton explore the overlooked world of wartime resistance, covert operations, and hidden underground bunkers meant to sabotage the Nazis in the event of a German invasion. Joining them is Ken Welch, likely the last surviving member of the Auxiliary Units, as they revisit the very bunker where Ken and his father once hid and trained to fight from the shadows.

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Key Discussion Points & Insights

Context: Britain's Darkest Hour

• The Summer of 1940: Germany's swift victories in Europe, culminating in the fall of France, left Britain vulnerable, with fears of imminent invasion (05:32-07:41).
• British Defenses: The government constructed vast defensive networks—pillboxes, stop lines, anti-tank obstacles—to funnel any invaders into kill zones (08:15-10:48).
• Hitler’s Invasion Challenge: Lack of unified German planning, with army, air force, and navy proposing contradictory methods; the Royal Navy and RAF as key obstacles to invasion success (11:03-14:46).

Quote:
“By mid-1940, a formidable nationwide resistance network was already in place... thousands of men ready to take to secret underground bunkers... This was Churchill’s secret army.”
— Dan Snow, 15:29

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The Auxiliary Units: Secret Saboteurs

What Were the Auxiliary Units?

• Specially trained local men (often farmers, quarrymen, miners) sworn to secrecy, tasked with sabotaging and assassinating German occupiers from hidden underground bases (16:25-18:09).
• Members could not tell even their families. Anyone who discovered the unit’s secrets was marked for assassination upon invasion (18:38).

Quote:
“Anyone who did happen to come across their operational base or ask too many questions would have to be added to a list of people that would have to be assassinated as soon as the Germans came in.”
— Andy Chatterton, 18:38

Establishment and Operations

• Roots in pre-war MI6 and military organizations; rapidly expanded after Dunkirk in vulnerable counties (17:04-17:21).
• Training was intensive, involving nocturnal sabotage tactics, explosives, silent kills, often at Coleshill House, near Swindon (17:39-18:09).
• Each unit’s window of operation was just two weeks—the expected time to survive occupying sabotage missions (18:38-19:19).

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Ken Welch’s Story: Firsthand Testimony

Memories of the War and Joining the Unit (19:56–21:30)

• Ken Welch, aged 98, recalls joining at 16, led by his quarryman father.
• Youthful excitement masked ominous reality; families were never informed of their true role.

Quote:
“I was full of life and very interested in stuff like that... I never considered the consequences if we were invaded.”
— Ken Welch, 21:30

Training and Life in the Bunker (22:22–24:22)

• Training included demolition, assassinations, and survival. Ken recalls training at Swindon and weekends spent in cramped bunkers.
• Planned acts included destroying railways and viaducts to delay German advances.

Ruthless Secrecy and Hard Choices (24:03–24:40)

• Members accepted the necessity of assassinating civilians (potential informants) and even comrades if captured or incapacitated.

Quote:
“If we were invaded... somebody would have had to have gone and said goodbye to those [witnesses]. They would have had to have been shot, I’m afraid. Terrible situation.”
— Ken Welch, 24:03

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The Search for the Bunker (32:27–38:23)

• Reunion with the Past: Ken helps locate his old operational base after 80 years—remarkably, the structure remains intact, demonstrating the skilled camouflage and construction by local men.
• Bunker Features:
  • Vertical entrance shaft, blast wall, cramped main room with bunks and basic stove, emergency escape tunnel.
  • Evidence of explosives storage and primitive living conditions for seven men expecting to survive just two weeks.

Memorable Moment:
Ken, visibly moved, re-enters the bunker and reminisces about cramped life and drinking tea with his father:
"I thought it was wider than this, but it isn’t. We used to make tea back there on the steps... in those days."
— Ken Welch, 34:49

Andy’s Reflection:
“You get that impression of just how grim it would have been... Seven men in here for a fortnight under real pressure... no real light, just really, really grim stuff.”
— Andy Chatterton, 36:41

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Britain’s Other Secret Resistance: The Shadow Network

Discovery of "Section 7" – MI6’s Wider Resistance Plan (39:20–45:39)

• New research reveals a far larger, national post-occupation resistance group known as Section 7, led by MI6.
• Section 7 was so secret even MI5 and the military were kept in the dark.
• Recruited men, women, and even teenagers nationwide, teaching sabotage, unarmed combat, and clandestine communications.

Extraordinary Testimony:
Peter Atwater, recruited at 14, acted as a courier and observer, passing info to radio operators in draper’s shops, using code words for security.
Under the wireless set: a grenade, ready for a scorched earth escape (41:01–45:39).

Women in Resistance and Hidden Networks (47:01–50:54)

• Women received combat, explosives, and sabotage training; notable cases include Irene (Leeds) and Priscilla Ross (Hornchurch).
• Stories of women using unarmed combat in everyday life surfaced years later, confirming the scope of training.

Memorable Story:
Jennifer Lockley’s mother, seemingly a quiet housewife, once ejected a pushy salesman with a textbook fighting move—skills learned in secret wartime training (49:52).

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Ongoing Mystery & Lack of Recognition

Unanswered Questions and Appeals

• The vast size and secrecy of Section 7 remains unsolved—possibly tens of thousands were involved, with records hidden deep in classified archives, if existing at all (52:31–54:52).
• Official recognition remains absent; auxiliary and Section 7 members received no medals, and their stories largely vanished (55:00).

Call to Action:
“If any of this rings true, you need to get in touch with Andy... We’re in the last months and years of being able to talk to these people.”
— Dan Snow, 53:10

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Notable Quotes and Moments

| Timestamp | Quote / Moment | Speaker | |-----------|----------------|---------| | 05:32 | “In the summer of 1940, the balance of the Second World War was firmly in Hitler’s favor...” | Dan Snow | | 15:29 | “By mid-1940, a formidable nationwide resistance network was already in place... This was Churchill’s secret army.” | Dan Snow | | 18:38 | “Anyone who did happen to come across their operational base... would have to be... assassinated as soon as the Germans came in.” | Andy Chatterton | | 21:30 | “I was full of life and very interested in stuff like that... I never considered the consequences if we were invaded.” | Ken Welch | | 24:03 | “...somebody would have had to have gone and said goodbye to those [witnesses]. They would have had to have been shot, I’m afraid.” | Ken Welch | | 34:49 | “I thought it was wider than this, but it isn’t. We used to make tea back there on the steps.” | Ken Welch | | 36:41 | “Seven men in here for a fortnight... no real light, just really, really grim stuff.” | Andy Chatterton | | 49:52 | “[Jennifer recalled her quiet mother] suddenly sending the pots and pans salesman flying through the air... Now she can see her mother had performed an unarmed combat move.” | Historian/Researcher | | 53:10 | “If any of this rings true, you need to get in touch with Andy... We’re in the last months and years of being able to talk to these people.” | Dan Snow |

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Timestamps of Key Segments

• 05:32 – 15:29: Context, British Preparations, Hitler’s Plans
• 16:23 – 19:19: Auxiliary Units – Concept, Training, Secrecy
• 19:56 – 25:43: Ken Welch’s Experience – Interview & Recollections
• 28:51 – 38:23: Exploring the Bunker, Reflections on Daily Life
• 39:20 – 45:39: Section 7 – The Wider, Secret Resistance Network
• 47:01 – 55:00: Women in Resistance, Hidden Stories, Search for Recognition

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Conclusion

“Churchill’s Secret Army” brings long-concealed stories to light, blending expert historical insight, field investigation, and rare eyewitness testimony. Dan Snow and Andy Chatterton vividly reconstruct both the scale of wartime British resistance and its deep secrecy—reminding listeners that, had history gone just a little differently, ordinary Britons were prepared for extraordinary acts.

If you or your family have tales, artifacts, or suspicions about hidden wartime resistance activity, the podcast team is eager to hear from you.

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For more:

• Andy Chatterton’s book Britain’s Secret Defenses: Civilian Saboteurs, Spies and Assassins
• “Churchill’s Secret Army” documentary on History Hit TV

Contact: [e-mail]

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End of Summary

Transcript

[Dan Snow]

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[Andy Chatterton]

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[Dan Snow]

Hi everybody. Welcome to Dan Snow's 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, my producer Jana and I went in search of hidden World War II bunkers in the New Forest near where I live. And these bunkers are so exciting. 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 to try and disrupt that German invasion. They were called auxiliary units and the men who served in them were Britain's unassuming silent assassins. And in the vast majority of cases, they took the secret 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 ever made marking the location. As I said, the auxiliaries 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 a local man said he'd come across one of these bunkers as a child when he was playing with his friends in the forest. But we made only a very minor discovery. So, listen, I accept that single wire may not have been the most exciting thing in the world. Well, friends, there's been a development in the story since 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. You hear the waves crashing, the pebbles beneath my feet. I can't tell you exactly where I am, sadly, because I'm going to keep this location a secret. But the History Hit 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 of 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 the brilliant historian Andy Chatterton, 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 lowdown 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 wasn't just the victory, but how fast it had happened. German forces used what is commonly known as blitzkrie, an innovative form of lightning warfare combining tanks, aircraft, artillery, infantry, radios and speed. The supposedly impregnable defence of the Maginot Line 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 had been lost. It seemed very possible that a German invasion of Britain was imminent.

All right, andy, summer of 1940. Big headline is shocking mind blowing collapse of Allied forces in Western Europe. The Brits, the French totally defeated in the Battle of France. That came as a surprise.

[Andy Chatterton]

Yeah, a massive surprise. If you think at start of 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 you know, and we can look back in hindsight and say whatever we like about the German invasion or the likelihood of German invasion of Britain, but at that point it was an absolute shock and the German army seemed unstoppable.

[Dan Snow]

And had the British government made any plans for defending the home islands before that disaster?

[Andy Chatterton]

Yes, it had started in the years kind of running up to the Second World War. There was a slight ponderance around actually, is attack the best form of defense? So large amounts of battalions went out to France because that was the, the feeling that actually attack is the best form of defense. That's not to say that regulars weren't still in Britain. And after the fall of France, basically, with all our mobility basically left on

[Dan Snow]

the beaches, almost all the tanks and vehicles and trucks, everything's just left in front.

[Andy Chatterton]

Exactly right. Suddenly we have to think about how do we defend Britain without such mobility. So General Ironside, the CNC of home forces constructed in a matter of weeks this whole that we still see in our landscape today. Pillboxes and stop lines and anti tank teeth and anti tank ditches. Just huge amounts of concrete that come into our landscape.

[Dan Snow]

In fact, Andy, I mean this is almost like it was planned, but we are now about 30 meters due south of a concrete pillbox.

[Andy Chatterton]

Yeah, there it is.

[Dan Snow]

It's overgrown. It looks like it's in someone's private garden, it's overgrown with ivy and it's got long grass growing on the roof. But, yeah, that is not an uncommon feature. People listening to this abroad, it's quite normal to see that along, particularly the British south and east coasts, like where we are now, Devon. This beach would have been pretty good for M50.

[Historian / Researcher (possibly co-author or expert guest)]

Yeah, it would have been.

[Andy Chatterton]

Would have been perfect.

[Dan Snow]

Perfect beach.

[Andy Chatterton]

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 that look a bit rubbish, if I'm being honest.

[Ken Welch]

Yeah.

[Dan Snow]

German armored division lands here. I don't know how long that.

[Andy Chatterton]

Yeah, well, exactly, exactly. But seeing it in a wartime setting, seeing it connected up with the other pillboxes in the area, 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, means that then we can use the limited mobility that we've got much more effectively. The Germans will always go in there with the least puff of the resistance. So by pushing them around the pillboxes, by pushing them around the tiger's teeth, we can much better utilize the limited amount of tanks and vehicles we have to more effectively counter attack.

[Dan Snow]

Right. So actually the governments and the military have already got a grip on this. They're playing for the Germans landing on these shores. What to do? Gosh, there's a plan which is fight them here on the beaches, but then if they do get inland to sort of funnel them, channel them into places where you can ambush them, kill them, use the high ground.

[Andy Chatterton]

Exactly right, exactly right. And Ironside at the time got a large amount of criticism and continues today, but actually, I think he was utilizing the resources he had at that point really well, really well. And it. Oh, it's almost like an Iron Age hill fault 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. You're happy to.

[Dan Snow]

And a bit like the trench warfare that generation of officers would have known so well, you use the barbed wire, you leave sort of gaps here and there and then they're very well covered with artillery and mortars and machine gun. So it's like it could create killing zones.

[Andy Chatterton]

Exactly right, exactly right. So that, yeah, as you say, the whole of the south is covered in these concrete Boxes which, as I said look pretty rubbish, but actually would have been a really effective way of stopping them.

[Dan Snow]

Andy, that's what's going on here in Britain. What's going on just over there on the other side of the Channel? What preparations is Hitler making?

[Andy Chatterton]

It's an interesting question because the fall of France has happened. Germany is uproariously 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. Goering's ultimately confident that he can destroy the, the Royal Air Force to give the mayor superiority. He doesn't think that's going to be a problem. He's. He's kind of seen the Battle of France and to an extent the RAF did struggle and the effectiveness of the Stuka, the dive bomber plane. I mean, Goering's a confident guy anyway, right? But now after France, he is super confident. He didn't think the RAF stands a chance.

[Dan Snow]

So the Air Force are telling Hitler we don't even need to invade, we're going to knock the RAF out, then we're going to bomb Britain to its knees. They'll have to make peace.

[Andy Chatterton]

Exactly right.

[Dan Snow]

But the army and the Navy, what are they up to?

[Andy Chatterton]

Well, the Navy wants quite a narrow invasion, period, 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 wider window to operate in because they don't want to be stuck in a narrow zone where the British army can concentrate the counter attack. So immediately there's a real issue with the invasion plans because everyone has different objectives, have different plans. And it's 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.

[Dan Snow]

So the Navy wait for a day like this. We're on this beach, it's a beautiful day, the sun's out, the sea is 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 in.

[Andy Chatterton]

That's exactly right, yeah.

[Dan Snow]

But the army, I guess they want. So they want to land, keep the British guessing. They want to land from anywhere, from the Isle of Wight To Dover.

[Andy Chatterton]

Exactly, 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 odd troops back from Dunkirk, but they're still recovering, frankly. And the whole of the German military forces incredibly confident this could happen, perhaps apart from the Navy, who see the reality of what the Royal Navy is capable of.

[Dan Snow]

So Hitler's invasion plans fraught with difficulties and contradictions. Right from the beginning.

[Ken Welch]

Yeah.

[Andy Chatterton]

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 bottom river barge going across the

[Dan Snow]

Channel, people can think about a sort of canal boat almost.

[Andy Chatterton]

Yes, exactly. Exactly right. It's absolutely bonkers.

[Dan Snow]

Ironically, it'd be all right on a day like this. It would be many of these days on the.

[Andy Chatterton]

No, they're not. They are not.

[Dan Snow]

So that's why the Battle of Britain matters, because if you're going to take all these canal boats, these barges, across the Channel in the teeth of opposition by the Royal Navy, you need to have total control of the air so your planes can help your fragile naval forces to beat off the British.

[Andy Chatterton]

Exactly right. You're already at a disadvantage. You don't need your enemy to have superiority in the air as well.

[Dan Snow]

And so winning superiority in the air is a necessary precondition for nes invasion stuff.

[Andy Chatterton]

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 a British planking overhead, you know, you're pretty much done for. So, yeah, absolutely. Air superiority is a must, but Goering's supremely confident that's going to happen.

[Dan Snow]

And that's the point about the Battle of Britain. Britain defeats that German attempt to win control the skies. So that's why the invasion could never take place, because they haven't got that precondition.

[Andy Chatterton]

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 Sea Learn 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 pillboxes around us 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.

[Dan Snow]

There's 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 organization called the Auxiliary Units. Thousands of men ready to take to secret underground bunkers in the event of an invasion, ready to emerge and sabotage the enemy advance. This was Churchill's secret army.

So Andy, what are these bunkers that we're looking for?

[Andy Chatterton]

They are being used by this group called the Auxiliary Units, whose role is to disappear to these bunkers as soon as they, 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

[Historian / Researcher (possibly co-author or expert guest)]

at night and disrupt the supply chain.

[Andy Chatterton]

This isn't about taking on the German army face to face, this is about causing as much chaos at night to

[Historian / Researcher (possibly co-author or expert guest)]

slow down that German advance.

[Dan Snow]

Sabotage, assassination, ambush.

[Andy Chatterton]

Exactly, all of those things. Anything that's going to take the Germans to take a step backwards, to pause,

[Historian / Researcher (possibly co-author or expert guest)]

to allow our regular troops to have

[Andy Chatterton]

more time to recover and counterattack.

[Dan Snow]

Is this a pre war thing or is it suddenly getting stood up in a bit of a panic as Britain faced invasion in the summer of 1940?

[Andy Chatterton]

It has its roots in pre war. It has its roots in two pre war organisations, one set up by MI6, one set up by the British military by kind of May just around Dunkirk, it's kind of up and running and being recruited very, very quickly across the countries in these kind of key vulnerable counties.

[Dan Snow]

That German invasion doesn't come, but this organization remains. They continue what they're training and preparing.

[Andy Chatterton]

Yeah, 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

[Historian / Researcher (possibly co-author or expert guest)]

because they were so often shown up

[Andy Chatterton]

as not being very good at guarding airfields or country houses and also train at the Auxiliary Units headquarters in a place called Coleshill House, up near Highworth, near Swindon. And there they would go and train for a weekend. Again, not being able to tell their wives and family where they're going, but nonetheless go up 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 sentry

[Historian / Researcher (possibly co-author or expert guest)]

silently with a knife, all the stuff

[Andy Chatterton]

that you need to know to be effective.

[Dan Snow]

And these are men who are still doing their day jobs?

[Andy Chatterton]

Yeah, absolutely. And quite tough day jobs. I mean, lots of them are farmers and quarrymen and miners. So 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 the point the Germans entered their town. So if we're in Devon, for example, and 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.

[Dan Snow]

Nobody could know.

[Andy Chatterton]

Nobody could know, not their closest family and friends. And anyone who did happen to come across their operational base or ask too many questions would have to be added to a list of people that have to be 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 that 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've 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.

[Dan Snow]

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, well, 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 that he hasn't been back to since.

Hello.

[Andy Chatterton]

Hello.

[Dan Snow]

Now, you can't be Ken.

[Ken Welch]

I'm Ken.

[Dan Snow]

You don't look old enough. What are you talking about?

[Ken Welch]

I'm only 24.

[Dan Snow]

Oh, exactly. You look 25. Nice to meet you. I'm Dan. Let me take my shoes off.

[Ken Welch]

Oh, you don't have to do that.

[Dan Snow]

Well, we wipe them. Are you sure? Okay. Yeah, we've.

All right.

[Ken Welch]

Please. Didn't even offer.

[Dan Snow]

Ken, you were A young boy.

Do you remember the war starting?

[Ken Welch]

Yes, I do. I was 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 Chamberlain declare war with Germany

[Dan Snow]

and talk to me about your dad, because he did a job that you probably didn't know about initially.

[Ken Welch]

Oh, yes, he worked in a quarry, taking out big lumps of granite for making monuments and stuff like that. And then the war came along and somehow he got into this Auxiliary Unit business.

[Dan Snow]

You didn't know about that?

[Ken Welch]

No, I didn't know what was happening.

[Dan Snow]

So he would go to work all day, but he'd be off during the night doing his. You didn't know what he was doing?

[Ken Welch]

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 like that. And I was 16 then, but I was only a month off, 17. And so I said to him, a bit boy, can I have a go at that? So they arranged for me to join, put me age on for a year.

[Dan Snow]

So your dad let you join the unit?

[Ken Welch]

Yes, he let me join, yes. Yeah, I suppose he thought he could take care of me somehow.

[Dan Snow]

But you must have been an exceptional teenager, because they didn't want any old kid hanging around with them.

[Ken Welch]

Well, I was full of life and very interested in stuff like that.

[Dan Snow]

And did you know what you were joined, do you think? Well, I'm just joining the Home Guard. I'll just go and sign up.

[Ken Welch]

I knew it wasn't 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's supplies there, stuff like that. And we would go out at night. We wouldn't go out during the day, we'd go out at night and do as much damage as possible. We would have made Penrhyn Viaduct unusable in case we were invaded, you know, that sort of stuff. We had to do as much damage to delay the enemy as possible.

[Dan Snow]

So you're a member of this crew and you did the training. You had some explode. Demolition explosives?

[Ken Welch]

Yeah, that's right.

[Dan Snow]

Assassination. What, small arms?

[Ken Welch]

Yes, they. We used to go to Swindon for training for a weekend. Once in a while I went up to Swindon. I remember going up. It was in November time and it was very cold and we were in these Big half round huts and there was two tortoise fires in them when we got there. One each end, both red hot. They were, I remember. And we had our meals with the officers and we were treated like officers and we went out training at night, crawling around the fields. We had a bit of fun up there.

[Dan Snow]

And was it fun being alongside your dad?

[Ken Welch]

Yes, we got on very well, Father and I. Yes.

[Dan Snow]

And what about the secrecy? Did you have to discuss killing people if they found out where the base was and things like that?

[Ken Welch]

We had to sign a secret document, you know, to swear the secrecy. There was a cottage, a couple of people lived in the cottage that could see not the entrance, but the gateway to where our OB 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 hold of them and torture them to find out what they knew. So if we were invaded, somebody would have had to have gone and said goodbye to those. They would have had to have been shot, I'm afraid. Terrible situation. I don't know who would have done it. They might have drawn straws to find the one that would go and do it.

[Dan Snow]

So those are the kind of conversations you were having planning for the invasion, right down to killing this old couple?

[Ken Welch]

Yes. Oh, yes, that's right. And if anything happened, 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, questioned me if I was captured, you see. So that was the situation. It was a scary situation. I, I never realized how scary it was.

[Dan Snow]

I bet it was more scary for your dad.

[Ken Welch]

Yes, yes.

[Dan Snow]

Imagine being on the unit where they have to shoot his own son.

[Ken Welch]

Yes, that would have been the situation.

[Dan Snow]

What do you remember of the bunker?

[Ken Welch]

I just remember going up there and spending a weekend and. And stuff like that, just to see how we got on over for a couple of nights. There was an front entrance, of course, and then there was a way out the back. We had a little ladder to climb up to out the back. And after we got out the back, we just have to hope there was nobody out there to see us coming out. But we had to take our chance on that. I suppose so, Ken.

[Dan Snow]

It's very exciting. We're going to try and find the old bunker today, are we?

[Ken Welch]

I think so. Going to see what it is.

[Dan Snow]

Surely it'll be like a. A salmon returning to where it was spawned. You have a homing beacon? Take me right there.

[Ken Welch]

Yes, yes, it's rather a long time since I returned home and prodigal son as far as it's concerned, I think. Yeah.

[Dan Snow]

So what, 80 years or something?

[Ken Welch]

Well, yes, it is, I suppose. Yes. 1944 till now. Yeah, that's right.

[Dan Snow]

This is Dan Snow's history here.

More after this.

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[Tristan Hughes]

Ever wondered what it feels like to be a gladiator facing a roaring crowd and potential death in the Colosseum? Find out on the Ancients podcast from history hit twice a week. Join me, Tristan Hughes As I hear exciting new research about people living thousands of years ago, from the Babylonians to the Celts to the Romans, and visit the ancient sites which reveal who and just how amazing our distant ancestors were. That's the Ancients from history hit.

[Dan Snow]

Andrew Chatterson. What are these bunkers like?

[Andy Chatterton]

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 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

[Historian / Researcher (possibly co-author or expert guest)]

a counterweight system and swivels around and lets you in. It might be that you pull what

[Andy Chatterton]

looks like a tree root and that will either activate the counterweight system or it'll ring a bell in the bunker

[Historian / Researcher (possibly co-author or expert guest)]

and the other guys can let you in.

[Dan Snow]

Oh, that's cool.

[Andy Chatterton]

Or you have like different colored. Each member of the patrol has a different coloured marble and then you roll it down what looks like a mouse hole, goes underground, rattles about in a tin and then they let you in.

[Dan Snow]

Don't be silly.

[Andy Chatterton]

Yeah, yeah. So once you're in, you'll find a ladder going down, maybe kind of 12, 15ft into a shaft, almost like a chimney. Go down to the bottom. Quite often you're confronted at the bottom with a blast wall.

[Historian / Researcher (possibly co-author or expert guest)]

So that's there to. If the Germans happen to get into

[Andy Chatterton]

the hatch and dropped a grenade down,

[Historian / Researcher (possibly co-author or expert guest)]

it protects the main chamber from the blast.

[Andy Chatterton]

You weave your way around the blast door and then you're into the main chamber. So the main chamber is where the guys would have been during the day. Bunks 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 give the Germans a 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 there'd been explosives stored 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 some didn't even bother with an escape tunnel at all.

[Dan Snow]

So how do you even go about looking for these needles in a haystack. Are they all over the uk?

[Andy Chatterton]

Okay, they are almost exclusively in coastal counties. So if you think from the Orkneys at the top of Britain, kind of down the northeast coast, all the way up. Yeah. East coast, southeast corner, south coast, southwest and South Wales.

[Historian / Researcher (possibly co-author or expert guest)]

There's not much on the west side

[Andy Chatterton]

of the UK because they didn't see

[Historian / Researcher (possibly co-author or expert guest)]

there's a perceived threat from the Irish side.

[Dan Snow]

And they're set in from the coast a bit.

[Andy Chatterton]

They tend to be set in kind of five to six miles inland because they don't want to be caught up in any initial wave of invasion.

[Historian / Researcher (possibly co-author or expert guest)]

And then they're in areas where there's a key target as well.

[Andy Chatterton]

So it might be near a key road or a key bridge or near

[Historian / Researcher (possibly co-author or expert guest)]

an airfield that Luftwaffe might take over,

[Andy Chatterton]

a key manor house that the Germans might take as a local hq, in some cases, near the house of a

[Historian / Researcher (possibly co-author or expert guest)]

prominent member of the British Union of Fascists, who would have been seen as a collaborator and would have been assassinated immediately as well.

[Andy Chatterton]

So tend to be 5 to 6 miles inland near key targets, incredibly well disguised.

[Dan Snow]

So have you developed a bit of a nose for it? Do you just walk across a landscape

and think, I reckon there should be one around?

[Andy Chatterton]

You do get a weird feel for it because you can kind of see. Well, actually that's a good escape route down there.

[Historian / Researcher (possibly co-author or expert guest)]

There's a river down there, there's a good target there.

[Andy Chatterton]

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 auxiliary units in 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.

[Historian / Researcher (possibly co-author or expert guest)]

Then you look at.

[Andy Chatterton]

Well, actually, there's a good target there.

[Historian / Researcher (possibly co-author or expert guest)]

Oh, and there's a forest there. That's likely where the OB is.

[Andy Chatterton]

You know, if it's intact, you could be walking around that forest for weeks without finding it. But yeah, it's a. It'd be too easy.

[Dan Snow]

You and I have got previous there, buddy. Tearing around the new forest,

we arrive on top of a tree covered bank overlooking an old quarry. Among the scrub is a square manhole like one that you'd 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?

[Ken Welch]

Well, not too bad. Not too bad at all. Whoever discovered this place again must have had some hell of a job getting into.

[Dan Snow]

Goes down into an open chamber cut into the granite. It's not exactly an easy way in for an older gentleman, but lucky. A better route has been found by the local historians Chris Hale and Gareth Wearne, 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?

[Ken Welch]

I can hang on to this. Okay.

[Dan Snow]

Okay, let's do it.

[Ken Welch]

Okay.

[Dan Snow]

All right. Let's come on up.

We go round the bank and are faced with a muddy incline that goes up to a small hole in the side of the rock face.

What do you think, Andy? Feel good?

[Andy Chatterton]

Feels good. Well, I can see wiggly tin already. Which is. Which is a good sign. Always a good sign.

[Dan Snow]

You truly have no idea anything of note was here if you weren't already in the know.

We're coming to something up here.

We make our way up cautiously with Ken climbing over fallen trees and jutting out.

[Historian / Researcher (possibly co-author or expert guest)]

Have a rest there, Ken, and see.

[Dan Snow]

Just. Yeah, have a. Have a pause there.

[Ken Welch]

Yes. Okay.

[Dan Snow]

You. What do you make of this? There.

[Ken Welch]

Yes. I seem to remember that that doorway looked bigger than it is.

[Andy Chatterton]

Yeah. So we think this was probably the escape tunnel. So we think it. Dog.

[Historian / Researcher (possibly co-author or expert guest)]

Dog legs out that way was out the other end.

[Andy Chatterton]

Do you think? Do you think, what's it like?

[Dan Snow]

What's it like being back here after 80 years, Ken? Surprise.

[Ken Welch]

Yeah, I'm surprised. Didn't think I'd ever see this again.

[Andy Chatterton]

When was the last time you came, George, you think October, 11-4-44, something like that? Yeah.

[Dan Snow]

The Second World War was still raging when you were last here.

[Ken Welch]

Yes.

[Dan Snow]

Crikey. What do you think? Should we try and. You want to try and get inside, Ken?

[Ken Welch]

Yeah. Have a go.

[Dan Snow]

Eventually we make it inside.

[Andy Chatterton]

That's it.

[Historian / Researcher (possibly co-author or expert guest)]

What's your head?

[Dan Snow]

Wow.

[Andy Chatterton]

We're in.

[Dan Snow]

What do you think of this place then? Does it look familiar?

[Ken Welch]

This is a good gosh.

[Andy Chatterton]

So what was in this section here?

[Historian / Researcher (possibly co-author or expert guest)]

Was this where the beds were?

[Ken Welch]

Yeah, I remember it. I thought it was wider than this, but it isn't. I think they did made tea and stuff back there on the steps.

[Historian / Researcher (possibly co-author or expert guest)]

Was that right?

[Andy Chatterton]

Was that the tea making facilities critical.

[Ken Welch]

So you may have a cup of tea. I was much able to stand up easier than I can now.

[Andy Chatterton]

So from here you have been a

[Historian / Researcher (possibly co-author or expert guest)]

base here for a fortnight and you'll be going out every night. I can't believe there would be seven to eight men cramped in here. Seven men cramped in here. It's not a lot of space, is there? So, Ken, so you would come in

[Andy Chatterton]

and in here in 43, 44, what

[Historian / Researcher (possibly co-author or expert guest)]

would we have seen in this structure?

[Andy Chatterton]

Would we see bunks either side?

[Ken Welch]

Yeah, of course we would have seen some bunks on. On each side. I think there was three. Three bunks, I think all the way down. Down to the bottom. Never had much room in the middle as far as I can remember. No, like I say, we used to have a cup of tea, but used to make them on the steps, I think. Right, yeah. And a primer stove, you know, in those days.

[Andy Chatterton]

Yeah.

[Ken Welch]

Never had the modern ones like today.

[Historian / Researcher (possibly co-author or expert guest)]

No. And what was the lighting? What did you use for lighting?

[Ken Welch]

Candles.

[Historian / Researcher (possibly co-author or expert guest)]

Candles? Just candles.

[Dan Snow]

And would you leave weapons in here?

[Ken Welch]

Our weapons? We took our weapons home.

[Dan Snow]

Oh, you took them home?

[Ken Welch]

Yeah. The explosives and stuff were stored here.

[Dan Snow]

You kept all the explosives here?

[Ken Welch]

Yeah, I think it was down there at the entrance, just as you come in. In there, in that space.

[Dan Snow]

Oh, there. Yeah. I think must be very relaxing sleeping with your head next to all those

[Historian / Researcher (possibly co-author or expert guest)]

explosives with candles about.

[Dan Snow]

Yeah, smoking.

How is this different to other ones you've been to?

[Historian / Researcher (possibly co-author or expert guest)]

Well, this is slightly different because they've made use of the quarry surroundings and

[Andy Chatterton]

obviously quite a few of them worked in the quarry.

[Historian / Researcher (possibly co-author or expert guest)]

So we're quite used to handling explosives and digging out. And this is what this one really is.

[Andy Chatterton]

Usually they're in a forest or a

[Historian / Researcher (possibly co-author or expert guest)]

copse or something like that. So this is a little bit different,

[Andy Chatterton]

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.

[Dan Snow]

Yeah. I mean, yesterday it poured with rain. As a result, in here.

It's pretty damp today, so would have been grim, potentially.

[Andy Chatterton]

Really, really grim. Yeah, absolutely.

[Historian / Researcher (possibly co-author or expert guest)]

And yeah, imagine trying to get some

[Andy Chatterton]

sleep and it's so important for them to get Sleep during the day because you're coming out every night to go

[Historian / Researcher (possibly co-author or expert guest)]

on a mission, to go and blow up a convoy, to go and assassinate someone.

[Andy Chatterton]

So you needed that rest. But gaining rest in here must have been really difficult.

[Dan Snow]

Imagine if the enemy had invaded and this would have been your home for two weeks.

For two weeks, yeah.

[Ken Welch]

Or longer, if you live long enough. Our life expectancy was two weeks because

[Andy Chatterton]

your window of operation was so small, Expected to be so small, just a fortnight.

[Historian / Researcher (possibly co-author or expert guest)]

You had to go out every night to go and destroy something, to go and cause havoc.

[Andy Chatterton]

If the Germans came to Mabe, you

[Historian / Researcher (possibly co-author or expert guest)]

and your dad would have disappeared.

[Andy Chatterton]

You would have come here, Come here

[Historian / Researcher (possibly co-author or expert guest)]

and your mum wouldn't have any clue

[Andy Chatterton]

where you've gone or what you're up to. No. You never told her?

[Ken Welch]

She never knew. Yeah, I know. I don't think she knew the day she died. Wow. Or even when she died. I don't think she knew.

[Dan Snow]

And you're a teenager?

[Ken Welch]

Yes, I was a teenager. 17. 17 years old.

[Dan Snow]

Must have been fun being with your dad. Oh, I'd like to be with my son.

[Ken Welch]

Yes, I was much. He was good. He took care of me. No doubt about that. Wherever he went, he took me with him. Like, you know, if he went out on exercise, crawling around the fields, I'd be with him.

[Dan Snow]

And you must have been proud to be with your dad?

[Ken Welch]

Oh, I was quite happy, yes. Enjoyed it. Really enjoyed it in those days. My goodness me. Thank you for bringing me here. 1944. 80 years.

[Dan Snow]

There's something extraordinary about bringing someone back to a place like this. You can see it in their face, the moment the memories 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 auxiliary bunker, the kind we'd have been so desperate to find on our last venture into this story. It really brought to life what it would have been like to be cramped inside, 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.

[Historian / Researcher (possibly co-author or expert guest)]

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's 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 Leicestershire and Nottingham and Liverpool and all over the country, where we know absolutely there were no auction units, which was confusing to say the least. And then in 2010, the official history of MI6 came out by a chap called Keith Jeffrey. And in that book there are about three paragraphs unreferenced about Section 7. Now, Section 7 is a MI6 SIS group that was there purely as a post occupation resistance. So after Britain had been defeated militarily, this group would have become active and it's MI6 that is the foreign secret service rather than MI5, because of what they were doing in mainland Europe. They were taking what they'd learned 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 all the members that they recruited all signed Official Secrets act. And 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 signed the Official Secrets Act. And almost all of them went to the grave without telling anyone anything.

[Dan Snow]

Who are the ones that you have managed to talk to and have they

been willing to finally break their silence?

[Andy Chatterton]

Yeah, so it's really interesting.

[Historian / Researcher (possibly co-author or expert guest)]

So from the Keith Jeffrey official history thing, we know that there were three guys in SIS MI6 who were kind of leading this. There's a chap called Valentine Vivian, who was head of section 5, which was counter espionage. There was a chap called Richard Gambier Parry, who was part of section 8, which was the communications, so the 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 with diplomatic mail. But these guys were in charge of the recruitment and training and the 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 wide this 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 were recruiting for Section 7. Peter was 14 when he was recruited for Section 7. He was an ARP messenger and he was part of the Air Training Corps as well. 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. Topless, who was a draper. At the back of Mr. Topless's draper's shop was a fake cupboard. You go through the fake cupboard. In the back is a room with a wireless set. In there are two female wireless operators called a Mrs. Key and a Ms. Swan. He would then pass this information on to them. They would then radio this information about the occupying forces to either a unoccupied zone. So they thought that Britain would be like France, there'd be an occupied zone and an unoccupied zone, with Scotland's most likely to be the unoccupied zone, with some kind of Petain Vichy, like government in charge there. Or the information, because Richard Gambier Parry was involved, the information from these wireless sets might have been powerful enough to eventually end up in Canada with some kind of government in exile. So his role was to do this. Incidentally, 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 this was a resistance cell, broken through and found Ms. Swan and Ms. Keith in the back room, they could have pulled the grenade very easily, thrown it over their shoulders, grabbed their wireless set and escaped to carry on. Because this is about long term resistance. So the Auxiliary Units and Special Duties Branch had that very set window to disrupt an invasion. This is much more like the 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. A room or a building in which people on the run from the occupying forces could be passed on. So rather like the escape 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 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 were setting up an escape line for enemies of the occupying forces to try and get them out to an unoccupied zone, presumably 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 part of the escape line, so they knew who to pass them on to. So it looks like it was 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 subject to 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 said that a bit later on he was taught was how to be a sniper. So a 15 year old was being taught and he used some very specific terminology here. He was being taught, he said, by terrifying ex 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.

[Dan Snow]

You listen to Dan Snow's history hit don't give up on us just yet. There's more coming.

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[Tristan Hughes]

Ever wondered what it feels like to be a gladiator facing a roaring crowd and potential death in the Colosseum? Find out on the Ancients podcast from History Hit twice a week. Join me Tristan Hughes as I hear exciting new research about people living thousands of years ago, from the Babylonians to the Celts to the Romans, and visit the ancient sites which reveal who and just how amazing our distant ancestors were. That's the Ancients from History hit.

[Dan Snow]

And it wasn't just young boys, girls as well, correct?

[Historian / Researcher (possibly co-author or expert guest)]

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 Leicestershire were telling me exactly the same stories about their grandfathers in this case being taught by terrifying NCOs using very similar terminology. And then just before I published, a family got in touch whose grandfather, William Hughes, was a sharpshooter 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 Mersey. 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 garrotte. 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 was being done here in preparation for an occupation. So that's a 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 near Leeds. So there's two things there. There's no women in the auxiliary units and there was no auxiliary units in Leeds. So we knew something was going on. So we talked to her 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 thought she was 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 Leeds. She was in a cell with her father, her uncle and her two cousins based in a cave. And she was taught how to use, as I said, Molotov cocktails, how to use the garrote, how to derail trains, how to make the occupying forces lives an absolute nightmare. Now, her daughter Jennifer thought she might be losing it a bit in her final days. But then when we started talking to her about section 7, some stories from her childhood started to make sense. So, for example, she remembers in the 50s, standing in her hallway as a pots and pans salesman had come to the door, and her mother had opened the door, and the salesman was quite aggressive in his sales, Patterson, and put his foot in the door to stop Irene shutting it. The next thing that Jennifer remembers is the pots and pan salesman sailing through the air, pots and pans tumbling everywhere. Because now she can see that her Mother had performed like an unarmed combat move on this guy.

[Dan Snow]

That is amazing.

[Andy Chatterton]

I know, I know.

[Historian / Researcher (possibly co-author or expert guest)]

And Jennifer's saying so out of character for her mother. This memory had just stuck with her because, you know, her mother was a wouldn't say boo to a goose type of lady. But suddenly this chap was flying through the air. And the whole point of SIS recruiting women is basically the mistake that the pots and pans 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 Hornchurch. Now, Priscilla said that very similar things to Jennifer, and obviously in a very separate part of the country, Hornchurch in Essex, she was taught how to make Molotov cocktails, how to garrotte, how to derail trains, how to assassinate German officers. Her base was under a church in Hornchurch with a tombstone that if you move the top, kind of swivelled over and revealed an entrance underneath the church. So I've been in touch with the church in Hornchurch and had, from their perspective, a weird conversation about whether they had any moving tombstones in their graveyard,

[Andy Chatterton]

which they did not.

[Historian / Researcher (possibly co-author or expert guest)]

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 to maybe

[Dan Snow]

go and look at, Buddy, we're going to haunt.

No question about that.

So what you're saying is here there is a network, people still living among us today because they were young, they were boys and girls who are trained killers, saboteurs and resisters. And because they never got the. 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?

[Historian / Researcher (possibly co-author or expert guest)]

Absolutely. So, for example, Peter Atwater and Matlock knew of two other cells 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's what he was in. And in fact, to the extent that there's the blue plaque above, what was the draper's shop saying? This was a auxiliary unit radio cell. But it wasn't. So Peter didn't know what he was in at all. That's how secret is. The people who are 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 was high up in the WI in Yorkshire. She told her family that she was responsible for driving, using the WI as a cover for driving around Yorkshire. And she used very specific terminology, delivering explosives and weapons to caves all around Yorkshire.

[Andy Chatterton]

So there is.

[Historian / Researcher (possibly co-author or expert guest)]

There's so much tantalizing information out there. We know relative. Well, 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 can come from. If Britain had fallen and we were occupied, is the US going to get involved in the war? If so, the Atlantic Ocean's a big old gap between us and liberation. What does success look like for an ongoing resistance? I'd say it's. And again, very much suicidal, but just talks about the bravery of these people.

[Dan Snow]

So, obviously one of the first things

I want to 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 Nan is not like Irene and can actually throw a pots and pans salesman down the footpath. And what about the archives? Presumably this stuff has been. The government has declassified this stuff. Now, is there a paper trail here

that you can exploit?

[Andy Chatterton]

Nope.

[Historian / Researcher (possibly co-author or expert guest)]

I don't know whether they've gone for a longer period of the official secret just because the people they were recruiting 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 histories. And actually interesting. Section 7, officially of MI6 is the Accountancy arm. So they've hidden this resistance group under an accountancy arm. So even if you're looking up section 7 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.

[Dan Snow]

Are we confident that you think you will one day?

[Historian / Researcher (possibly co-author or expert guest)]

I hope so. Wouldn't that be amazing? I'm not sure when it will be released, if it is, but we'll certainly keep searching because I'd 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 and thousands. I mean, the Auxiliary Units was, we think, about six and a half thousand and the Special Duties Branch about four and a half thousand. But this has the potential to be double that at least. So, yeah, much more than that. So this is huge potential to be an amazing story.

[Dan Snow]

And wouldn't it be great to get the last survivors some recognition? Because there's been zero acknowledgement, zero recognition, nothing at all so far?

[Historian / Researcher (possibly co-author or expert guest)]

Absolutely nothing. Yeah, no, no, exactly right. The only thing, as I said, is this three paragraphs in the Official history of MI6 kind of hidden absolutely nothing from 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 Cenotaph on Remembrance Sunday, for example. And that's the Auxiliary Units, which has essentially been in the public eye since David Lamp wrote that first book about it in 1968. And there's certainly no medal for any of these groups. None of these groups were officially given the Defence Medal, unlike the Home Guard. So, yeah, absolutely no recognition at all, which is really awful considering the sacrifice these guys were prepared to make in this country's hour of need.

[Dan Snow]

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 beget more questions. And, well, we realize there's need for more answers. So, as I say, if you've heard stories from family members like the ones Andy mentioned or stumbled across something unusual while you're out walking the dog or exploring your local, we would love to hear from you. Please get in [e-mail] Andy and I are always looking for new leads. You can dive deeper into Britain's wartime 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 Churchill's Secret Army. All you've got to do is subscribe to his creator. 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 Coleshill Auxiliary Research team for their meticulous work. See you next time.

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[Dan Snow]

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