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Preparing for British Guerrilla warfare and Resistance in WW2

For many years the post-war created label of  'British Resistance Organisation' was attached to the GHQ Auxiliary Units as the only guerrilla organisation in Britain known at the time. This was a  misdirected convenience that has distorted an objective history of a much more complex subject. 

A number of bodies were created in Britain as guerrillas or resistance fighters during WW2, with a fundmental distinction between legally constituted, uniformed, military units comprising both Home Guard and Regular army units  (created by the War Office) and non-uniformed civilian organisations created by the Secret Intelligence Service (SIS). SIS were the main driving force in creating Britain’s underground army and they applied the distinction between 'guerrillas' intended to mount a short-term campaign of disruption during an actual invasion and 'a 'resistance' that would operate during any enemy occupation and prepare the way for eventual liberation. Some of these bodies had attached Intelligence sections although these ranged from the most rudimentary to modern wireless-equipped systems (discussed elsewhere).

These guerrilla units were not created to win battles. Rather, their task in 1940 was to support the efforts of the equally sacrificial beach defenders and Home Guard in delaying an enemy advance for even a few hours in order for  the field army to concentrate and launch a counter-attack. For Colin Gubbins, first CO of the Auxiliary Units: 'we were a bonus, that's all'.  If all failed, then the SIS Section VII Resistance would quietly expand from its cadre and prepare the way for eventual liberation – which in 1940 was considered most likely through an implosion of the Nazi state.


The Secret Intelligence Service (SIS, aka MI6) had  established a policy at the start of WW2 that there should be overlays of intelligence networks, with one organisation responsible for short term sabotage and a second organisation - kept separate and secret - that would plays no part in the invasion phase but would prepare for long term resistance following any occupation. This was a principle that was maintained into NATO's planning to counter any Soviet invasion of Western Europe during the Cold War.  In many cases the volunteers were never told for whom they worked and some tasks may have been allocated on a purely individual basis.  Remarkably, although SIS had preached this doctine abroad abroad, and despite there being precedents in guerrilla units being created prior to invasion on Poland and Czechoslovakia, no effort was made until May 1940 to create a short-term guerrilla organisation in Britain (the Section D Home Defence Scheme).  SIS had, however, created a long-term secret intelligence network in Britain from February/March 1940 (Section VII), designed primarily for intelligence-gathering after occupation and this did include a  sabotage element. 

In recent years, the operational patrols of the  Auxiliary Units of the War Office have been popularly labelled as the 'British Resistance Organisation', as the only organisation that had been publically acknowledged (since as early as 1945). This is a fundamental misunderstanding of their role and has  created an enduring modern myth.  Fact and fiction has merged. The War Office were not in the business of creating resistance organisations and for  some generals, the whole concept  smacked of defeatism.  Instead, the War Office focussed on the immediate aim of defeating a Nazi invasion.
 

THE MILITARY UNITS OF THE WAR OFFICE

 

These were intended to fight in uniform and under military discipline during the actual invasion campaign. The traditionally-minded War Office maintained only a slender tolerance towards irregular warfare throughout WW2 and repeatedly tried to suppress Home Guard initiatives.  The most famous, the GHQ Auxiliary Units, were retained mainly as a cheap ‘insurance policy’ because the volunteers had been assured that they would not be returned to the general service Home Guard battalions and were given  a new role as anti-raiding  reconnaissance units for the Home Guard. 

GHQ AUXILIARY UNITS

 

The official  Home Guard guerrillas (supported by regual army 'scout sections') controlled by GHQ. Originally intended only  as an emergency response to the invasion crisis in 1940, the War Office stressed their role was legitimate ‘military action’ rather than the ‘sabotage’ practiced by SIS. They were considered cheap and expendable, and were not the priority for weapons as presented in  modern mythology -  considered for disbandment as early as October 1940.

 

With no clear brief, it 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 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 the LDV/Home Guard.

 

The organised system of 8-man Operation Patrols under a sergeant, and hidden Operation Bases, were not created until August and were not fully equipped or trained until September 1940, hampering any role when arguably it was most needed. From November there was a small regular army element of Scout Sections (based on XII Corps Observation Unit 'Battle Patrols'), which formed their strategic core.  They  remained an essentially coastal organisation (unlike the Section D Home Defence Scheme). 

 

Organised with a military structure and stressed to be still part of the Home Guard (whilst managed essentially as Corps troops), the  teams were not 'civilian' in the legal sense or in comparison to the civilian HDS - but were constituted as part of the 'Armed Forces of the Crown'. They would fight in uniform and under military discipline as part of the organised military response to invasion and this all meant that they were not as secret as the veterans subsequently liked to believe.  Longer-term civilian resistance was left to SIS.

 

The instructions were to operate on the flanks and to the rear of an invading army during an active military campaign, thereby extending the official harassing role of the rest of the Home Guard, but the lifespan of the teams was assumed to be not more than two weeks. Despite the modern mythology, it was therefore not considered worth undergoing much expense in equipping them - with there even being a ban on providing them with weapons in August 1940. The main priority was in providing explosives to conduct as much sabotage as possible before being wiped out.  See HERE for further details of weaponry. A major weakness was that the  continued lack of wireless communications greatly limited the strategic role of the Operational Patrols after the destruction of their designated primary targets. Despite all the weaknesses of the organisation, the ability to delay enemy movements even by just a few hours by the combined action of beach defenders, Home Guard and Auxiliary Units was considered critical in the 1940 anti-invasion planning. The problem for the War Office was then what to do with the Auxiliary Units  thereafter!

 

The nature of the Auxiliary Units changed considerably from 1941 as it became more clearly absorbed by regular army structures and the strengthening of convention forces meant that GHQ increasingly saw them as having little serious purpose.  They survived until 1944 as reconnaissance units for the Home Guard, and until the disbanding of the Home Guard as the men had been promised they would not be returned to general  duties.  The need to maintain morale-during this difficult period saw the Intelligence Officers encouraging a degree of self-delusion as the men continued to train for a role that the War Office now considered  unlikely, with recruitment continuing for two months after the decision to disband had been made. This, coupled with a tendancy for post-war romantic embroidery of personal accounts, has greatly distorted their story - most clearly seen in the mythology that has grown up around the  issue of .22  'sniper' rifles in 1942/3, even as their existence was again being questioned.


The most strategically significant element of the Auxiliary Units was probably its intelligence wing  - the Special Duties Branch. The local element of this was (in contrast to the Home Guard of the Operational Branch) civilian and was directly inherited from the Home Defence Scheme of SIS, whose officers continued to manage it during 1940. Its original function was confused by  an initial methodology drawn from SIS which was designed to operate as a'resistance' during a period of settled occupation but was poorly designed to fulfil the current War Office expectation that it would provide rapid battlefield intelligence. At this time,  the SDB had no effective mechanism for speedily passing on any intelligence (relying on 'runners' and 'cut-outs' passing on written messages).  The Special Duties Branch effectively remained a separate organisation and the Auxiliary Units HQ were never quite sure of its role. From 1941 it developed  a  wireless network based on the novel  TRD set, whose system of voice transmission made it suitable for rapid civilian use without the need for extensive training. The local OUT stations were operated by civilians but the control IN stations relied on Royal Signals or ATS operators from Auxiliary Units (Signals) whose positions would be quickly overrun in an invasion.  The network was also dependent on a continuing Royal Signals  support to ensure its directional aerials maintained a link to the IN station, which were based at army HQs (until 1942 in surface huts vulnerable to dive bombing). As the IN Stations  were  expected to move with army HQs during a rapid blitzkrieg, it is likely that the OUT Stations would quickly become out of touch, with the network collapsing in a matter of days. Nonetheless, the network could have finally provided  an important, albeit brief, notification that the enemy blitzkrieg had penetrated a locality, supplementing he similar work of the Coastguard and Observer Corps. The Special Duties Branch proved to be most important  as an internal security body. Although the wireless network became redundant, as the threat of invasion decreased  its growing number of agents (over 3,000 in 1944) assisted MI5 and Military Intelligence in eavesdropping on the loyalty of the British populace and any loose tongues in the troops massing for D Day. This was the main contribution of the Auxiliary Units singled out for praise at its stand-down in 1944.

See HERE for further discussion of the mythology of the Auxiliary Units and HERE for a series of quotes from the original organisers, directly explaining their purpose.

HOME GUARD INDUSTRIAL SABOTAGE UNITS

 

The direct role of the Home Guard in secret warfare is often overlooked. One of the  duties of top secret Home Guard units and 'Key Men' working in local factories was to ensure the disabling of industrial machinery and fuel supplies. This was based upon a joint project of SIS Section D and MI5 in 1940 to identify possible targets for enemy sabotage - which was then turned upon its head as a blueprint to prevent enemy use of strategic assets.  The intention was to deny the Nazis the use of such facilities but to ensure that the British could quickly put them back into service after a successful counterattack.

 

This was especially important with regard to fuel supplies.  In France, German tanks had literally filled up at local petrol pumps because no-one had given the order to destroy them.  But equally, if there was to be a successful counter-attack, British vehicles would need continued access to fuel. So simply destroying fuel stocks was a poor option. To this end, small teams of Home Guard  would dismantle key parts of machinery at the point that the Nazis were about to overrun an area, as well as removing blueprints etc. Only the members of the team would know the location of the hiding places. The lengths that the Gestapo would go to identify the members of such teams as the  'Pump Disrupton Squads', and their families, can only be imagined.

SEMI-OFFICIAL HOME GUARD GUERRILLA UNITS

Home Guard  guerrilla units created by Individual battalions but semi-official in that they did not receive official War Office sanction.There was a huge popular interest in guerrillas in 1940 which spawned a number of initiatives all over the country (much to the despair of the War Office).  Although the  primary role of the Home Guard was seen as static defence to the 'last man and last round', it also maintained a more mobile harassng role as the circumstances allowed.  To the frustration of the War Office, such operations soon acquired the label of 'guerrillas' with Eastern Counties Home Guard  laying down a policy of guerrilla warfare  in early  1942 saying quite openly that they were going to ‘take to the woods’ upon invasion. This caused consternation in the Auxiliary Units HQ, who were already feeling their status as the official Home Guard guerrillas under threat under threat.The term  'guerrilla'  was officially banned from use in the Home Guard during  1942/3 but still persisted.

Many such  initiatives were inspired by attendance at the unofficial guerrilla  training school established by Tom Wintringham and a number of ex-International Brigade veterans in July 1940.  In the summer of 1940 this  trained more guerrillas than the Auxiliary Units. There is also a suspicion that, whilst MI5 were deeply suspicious of its communistic leanings,  SIS saw the school as a useul source of future partisans and may have provided some assistance in methodology.  Consequently, its instructions  to discard uniforms, blend back into the community and organise secret cells of 2-3 men is more akin to SIS than to War Office methodology.  

 

UNOFFICIAL HOME GUARD UNITS

Unofficial HG guerrillas spontaneously created at local level, sometimes by covert hints and ‘whispers’ from SIS including participation at the Osterley Training School.​ These can be easily confused with Auxiliary Units.

REGIONAL CORPS UNITS - XII CORPS OBSERVATION UNIT

A number of regional Corps (including those in I Corps and III Corps) may have formed their own guerrilla units, modelled on the original plan for the Independent Companies (forerunner of the Commandos) in the Norwegian campaign and XII Corps Observation Unit, formed in Kent and Sussex by General Thorne and Captain Peter Fleming of MI(R) in early June 1940. This was named after the WW1 Lovat Scouts recce teams and was  based around regular army battle patrols, soon supported by Home Guard patrols. It also had  a wireless network provided by SIS. Such Corps units could operate at a more strategic level than the Auxiliary Units, due to their direct relationship to the Corps command structure. In III Corps well-prepared hides (distinct from those of the local Auxiliary Units) were prepared  in Worcestershire to allow troops to emerge and relieve pressure on any attack on the Birmingham approaches, by attacking them in the rear. In III Corps, small sabotage units were formed to carry out demolition on strategic targets. 

NO.1 GHQ RECCONNAISSANCE UNIT ('PHANTOM')

Although 'secret' organisations are fascinating, it must be remembered that in the event of invasion, GHQ needed rapid, reliable information that that in 1940 the HDS and Auxiliary Units simply could not provide (and was beyond the remit of Section VII).

 

In 1940 the primary responsibility for battlefield intelligence-gathering in the case of invasion was the responsibility of No.1 GHQ Reconnaissannce Unit, code name 'Phantom'. This had been formed in October 1939 (as the No.3 British Air Mission / No.11 Hopkinson Mission) under Lt Col. Hopkinson and its heavily-armed patrols, equipped with wireless sets and reporting directly back to GHQ had performed well.  In a lesson that the Auxiliary Units quickly learned, Hopkinson deliberately adopted a 'secret' label for 'Phantom', realising that this was a good way of building up resources without too many questions being asked. . 

 

In June 'Phantom' was reconstituted in Britain with an establishment of HQ (at Lechlade, Glos, later Richmond Park, London), Intelligence section and three reconnaissance groups, each of four patrols. The patrols were equipped with motor cycles, a motor cycle combination and a wireless-equipped scout car. Their task was to criss-cross enemy lines with experienced troops trained to recognise enemy formations, skilled w/t operators and linguists who could listen in to enemy radio transmissions.  Each patrol reported back to a group HQ by dispatch rider or wireless, with their coded messages also received by Corps and armoured division HQs. The high powered wireless sets of group HQ then transmitted directly to GHQ (with pigeons as a back-up!).  They also worked closely with SIS Communications Units. 'Phantom' immediately began an assessment of potential invasion beaches and landing zones, keeping a daily log of weather conditions on the coast and providing potential local landing scenarios. By September 1940 they had four reconnaissance groups, covering the South-East, East Anglia, Yorkshire and a reserve in Gloucestershire (also covering Wales). By contrast, it might be pointed out that the intelligence systems being developed by the Home Defence Scheme and Auxiliary Units in 1940 appears amateurish in comparison, with minimally-trained agents who had to rely on 'runners' to try to pass through enemy lines and no wireless communications. Any intelligence they gathered was likely to be out of date before it was received at Corps level. In February 1941 it was re-named again as  GHQ Liaison Regiment. 

Some of the members of 'Phantom' claimed after the war that they were planning to fight on as non-uniformed guerrillas after any enemy occupation (David Nivon claiming he had a disguise ready as a vicar).  Whether this was true or post-war bravado'literary exaggeration cannot now be confirmed. 

THE CIVILIAN ORGANISATIONS OF SIS

 

Officially, the government rejected the concept of civilian combatants in Britain during July 1940 (they were more cavalier in encouraging resistance groups abroad). The SIS units, however, were unavowable.  They were legally classed as terrorists with no protection under international law and themselves proudly proclaimed they operated without morals or scruples! To complicate the matter, some Auxiliary Units had originally been recruited and trained by SIS and Home Guard guerrillas trained at the Osterley Training School in 1940 (under the influence of SIS) were also urged to fight on after occupation without uniform.  

SIS SECTION VII RESISTANCE

 

Formed around February / March 1940 as an ultra-secret post-occupation resistance force, operating out of uniform from within the community. A detailed account was only published in 2015 (in the book Fighting Nazi Occupation,  now updated as Britain's Guerrilla Army). Formed in utmost secrecy even within SIS, and given cover  within their accountancy branch (Section VII). Based upon SIS experience in creating a spy network in Eire. The wireless network was fully mobilised in June 1940, with probable links to the Special Communications Units of SIS. The priority was in gathering intelligence after any enemy occupation but the organisation also maintained a separate  sabotage / assassination wing. The latter probably expanded in July after Section VII absorbed part of the Section D HDS, giving it the added advantage of wireless communications. The whole organisation was described as being fully operational by October 1940, and remained active until at least 1944. During this time   its intelligence wing assisted MI5 in hunting down enemy spy rings.  The sabotage wing included the recruitment of Home Guard and regular army personnel who were trained in improvised weapons that could be replicated after occupation. These men were told to return to their units and keep such training secret until it was needed. Teenage volunteers were warned to hide during the actual invasion in order to avoid conscription under martial law. Crucially the event of invasion, volunteers were instructed to only commence operations after occupation.  Unlike the Auxiliary Units, this was a countrywide organisation and was  the 'real' British Resistance.

 

SIS cells are documented in Norfolk, Suffolk, Sussex, Isle of Wight, Somerset, Cornwall and Devon.  Oral testimony includes other cells in Derbyshire, Worcester, Birmingham, Nottingham and Manchester.   Some of the most intense research on the Auxiliary Units has been carried out in a number of these areas and the previous failure to identify the existence of such networks is a measure of their secrecy.  It is, however, now possible to re-interpret some evidence of what was previously automatically assumed to be Auxiliary Unit activity as being that of the SIS Section VII organisation (e.g. see Freethy, Ron, Lancashire 1939 - 1945: The Secret War, Chapter 11).

 SIS SECTION D HOME DEFENCE SCHEME

 

Civilian precursor of the military Auxiliary Units.  Intended to fight secretly during the invasion from within the community (as opposed to more obviously dissapearing into 'hides' like the later Auxiliary Units) as non-uniformed guerrillas in teams of six. Officially disbanded in July 1940 in favour of the more legally-acceptable Auxiliary Units. Launched in a rush in May 1940 as a knee-jerk  resonse to the fall of France, but based upon a methodology derived from experience in Poland, Norway and France. Although SIS had made plans for a long term resistance in Britain, no preparations had been made for a guerrilla force to support a military campaign to oppose invasion. In a remarkable feat, a network of cells and supply dumps was rapidly created across the whole country. Because invasion was epected to be imminent they were initially equipped mainly with simple but effective incendiary devices that needed little training.  These were also designed to be easily supplemented  from domestic items, meaning both that they would be self-sufficient and not reliant upon outside supplies and also that they might escape a search from occupying troops.  This was another key difference with the Auxiliary Units.  

 

The War Office never acknowledged the scale of the mobilisation that had been achieved and feared the development of the HDS as an SIS private army. It therefore gleefully seized on a small number of security breaches as a justification for the creation of the military Auxiliary Units as a more legal alternative, based around the new Home Guard. As an attempted  compromise, by July the HDS was arguing the case for a medium term resistance role which would activate once the new Auxiliary Units had been destroyed but this risked bringing it into competition with Section VII. The War Office finally managed to close down the HDS operational wing in August 1940, although SIS discretely transferred some of its intelligence officers and 'Key Men' of Section D to the new Auxiliary Unit organisation in order to quietly provide oversight. Others are likely to have joined Section VII. The intelligence wing of the Home Defence Scheme was transferred en bloc to the Auxiliary Units  and Viscount Bearsted  continued to manage this with his SIS officers as  the basis of the Special Duties Branch of the Auxiliary Units, until the end of 1940. Even then, its CO was a former SIS officer. At this stage the intelligence sections of both the HDS and Auxiliary Units relied on the traditional system of 'runners' and 'cut-outs', passing on paper messages. This was a laborious system better suited to settled conditions rather than trying to negotiate an active battleground. It could not compete with the wireless systems of Section VII or the 'Phantom' squadrons or the telephone network of the Observer Corps or Coastwatching Service.

During June and July 1940, when Britain's defences were at their weakest, it would have been the HDS that formed Britain's main guerrilla force.

BRITAIN'S GUERRILLA ARMY: PLANS FOR A SECRET WAR 1939-45

The most comprehensive and detailed account published to date of Britain's complex  plans, both official and unofficial to fight a secret war in the event of Nazi invasion  At the core of this was the battle between the concepts of civilian and military engagement in a total war. This builds on the 2015 Fighting Nazi Occupation and  subsequent research on Section D of SIS and MI(R) of the War Office  to unravel the secret efforts to prepare for a Nazi invasion. 

Published  July 2024

FIGHTING NAZI OCCUPATION: PLANNING FOR BRITISH RESISTANCE 1939-1945

The original book that first detailed the work of the  SIS Section VII Resistance organisation and explained the wartime distinction between short-term guerrilla and long term resistance organisations, fundamentally reassessing the role of the Auxiliary Units. Now substantially updated as Britain's Guerrilla Army

Published 2015.

TO THE LAST MAN: THE HOME GUARD IN WAR AND POPULAR CULTURE

 

A comprehensive account of the Home Guard that places it in its strategic and cultural context. This includes an account of how its official role of 'harassing' the enemy became widely  interpreted as guerrilla warfare.

Published in 2019

SECTION D FOR DESTRUCTION: FORERUNNER OF SOE AND AUXILIARY UNITS

The only detailed account of the work of Section D of SIS, including its creation of the Home Defence Scheme and its relationship to the Auxiliary Units.

 

First published in 2017 and updated in 2023. 

PIONEERS OF IRREGULAR WARFARE: SECRETS OF THE MILITARY INTELLIGENCE RESEARCH DEPARTMENT IN THE SECOND WORLD WAR

The only detailed account of the work of MI(R)  - the War Office department that provided the policy framework for the Auxiliary Units and which had a close, but sometimes uneasy relationship with Section D of SIS.

Published in 2021.

Coming Soon ....

 

CINDERELLA RIFLES: THE .22 RIFLES OF THE HOME GUARD AND AUXILIARY UNITS

Includes the story of the .22 rifle in Auxiliary Units service and the mkythology that surrounds its issue. 

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