Peter Wilkinson, GSO2 Auxiliary Units (Organisation and Planning)
‘it was, in fact doubtful whether many of them would have survived the first few days of invasion’
Progress Report on Auxiliary Units for period ending 1 September 1940 by P. Wilkinson: TNA CAB 120/241
'Originally, there was a slight muddle in the concept because nobody could quite make up their minds whether we were trying to set up something for immediate action against the Germans in the event of an invasion. Or, whether we were trying also to set up a nucleus of an English secret … a British Secret Army. If it was the former, which I think was probably the idea of the War Office and probably GHQ Home Forces, the security was not a paramount consideration. On the other hand, if you were trying to produce a ‘long-term’ organisation, then obviously one had to deal with an entirely different sort of clandestine technique. I certainly in the initial stages, adhered to the latter. Gubbins, I think, was about half way in between. … The War Office, and indeed GHQ Home Forces, I believe, saw the thing in the early stages, in the former sense. '
Peter Wilkinson interview in S. Sutton, ‘Farmers or Fighters. Dissertation on the existence and function of Britain’s ‘secret army’. Auxiliary Units in southern England during 1940-44’. Unpublished BA dissertation 1995, Canterbury Christchurch College.
'at the very best they would have been a ‘flea-bite’ behind the enemy lines. They might have sown a certain amount of confusion and insecurity but they were never on a scale that could have been of any decisive importance. And, I think that in the cold light of reason, it is at least arguable, as many senior officers held, that they were not worth the effort that was put into them!'
Interview with Peter Wilkinson interview in S. Sutton, ‘Farmers or Fighters. Dissertation on the existence and function of Britain’s ‘secret army’. Auxiliary Units in southern England during 1940-44’. Unpublished BA dissertation 1995, Canterbury Christchurch College.
'I think that both Gubbins and I took a very realistic view of the limitations of Auxiliary Units and their very short –term nature. It was for this reason that before I left in November, 1940, I was, with Gubbins’ knowledge and approval, planning a sort of ‘inner-circle’ of specially selected members of Auxiliary Units who would be really secret and who might form the nucleus of a future Resistance Organisation if they survived the first month. I saw myself as the Chief of Staff of this super-secret organisation and had planned a secret hideout for myself whilst masquerading as an engineering apprentice at Rugby … But this plan had not gone beyond a pipe-dream by the time Gubbins and I left Auxiliary Units and I doubt if the concept would have been acceptable to Colonel Bill Major.'
Interview with Peter Wilkinson in S. Sutton, ‘Farmers or Fighters. Dissertation on the existence and function of Britain’s ‘secret army’. Auxiliary Units in southern England during 1940-44’. Unpublished BA dissertation 1995, Canterbury Christchurch College
‘any suggestion that Auxiliary Units could have provided a framework for long term underground resistance is, in my opinion, absurd.’
Wilkinson, Peter (2002), Foreign Fields, p.104
'Sir Peter [Wilkinson] told it like it was, obviously irritated by the myth of a secret society of ninja-like assassins that was becoming an accepted part of Aux Unit folklore.'
Ward, Arthur (2013), Churchill's Secret Defence Army, p.xxii.
