Section VII of SIS
The British Resistance organisation

In early Spring 1940, the Secret Intelligence Service (SIS, aka MI6) began planning a nationwide  British Resistance, to operated after any Nazi occupation.  This was deeply secret, not least because SIS were not supposed to operate within the UK (this being the province of MI5). The very concept of a Resistance was also anathema to the War Office as it smacked of defeatism. Even within SIS its existence was concealed, managed under the cover of the SIS accountancy section (Section VII) by long-time SIS officer David Boyle (above). Occasionally  it is simply known as 'DB's organisation'. Boyle was a lifelong SIS officer, although no hint of this is given in his 312 page autobiography. Those that were recruited to this shadowy organisation were given only the minimum information needed to carry out their individual tasks, never knowing who exactly gave their orders beyond vague references to 'British Intelligence', represented by the 'men in suits', who rarely gave their names, and the volunteers were ordered never to speak of their work. Most never did. This, rather than the much misunderstood  GHQ Auxiliary Units, was the real British Resistance organisation.

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The existing intelligence  SIS network in Ireland was used as one model for the organisation, comprising a number of cells, some of which were linked by wireless.  At the time this was a novel structure. The primary function of the British operation, following SIS tradition, was to collect intelligence - which could then be transmitted to any government in exile. There were also a number of sabotage cells (whose arms caches can be dated to as late as 1944) and also 'lone wolves' who would carry out individual missions.  It was thought likely that, as in France, the Nazis might introduce 'Occupied' and 'Unoccupied' zones if successful in any invasion of Britain. In this more settled phase of occupation the  traditional  system of a 'grapevine telegraph' of couriers to pass intelligence between the zones  would finally come into its own  (rather  than during any military invasion phase). They were also preparing 'escape lines' to pass escaped prisoners and fugitive between the zones. 

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To protect the organisation, its members were ordered not to become involved in opposing the actual invasion. They would only be activated once the country was actually occupied.  For this reason, men and women  who were in reserved occupation or were too old to be called up were selected (their age having the unfortunate consequence that most died before feeling able in more recent times to reveal their secret). Those already in the Home Guard were instructed to keep a low profile. Teenagers were also used as couriers (sometimes using roles as ARP Messengers as cover) and, in at least one case, were trained as wireless operators.  The agents would then serve as a cadre to expand the resistance if and when necessary - ready to support liberation by an external army or from the implosion of the Nazi state (considered a real possibility in 1940).  To that end it is highly likely that SIS saw the training of saboteurs at the Osterley Home Guard training school as a useful reservoir of potential recruits.  The focus at Osterley on making home-made incendiaries, explosives and timing devices was certainly in line with the methodology of Section D and was in sharp contrast to the training of the Auxiliary Units - which relied on a continuance of military supplies. There are only tantalizing glimpses of the existence of the Section VII Resistance but this  was a nationwide organisation with cells  documented in Norfolk, Suffolk, Sussex, Isle of Wight, Somerset, Cornwall and Devon. Oral testimony includes other cells in Worcester, Birmingham, Nottingham and Manchester.  There is anecdotal evidence for arms caches in Snowdonia and Birmingham and  archaeological evidence for a mid-war  arms cache from Mellor, near Stockport. It is possible that the network expanded in July 1940 by absorbing some of the inland HDS cells that were not taken over by the Auxiliary Units.  Some training was carried out at the Altcar training range on Merseyside.  The puzzling report  of a cache of 30 SMLE rifles and Enfield revolvers found in the roof space of a former Manor House in Grassthorpe, Nottinghamshire in 1993 is potentially another example of a section VII cache (mistakenly identified at the time as related to the Auxiliary Units but now being researched by CART).  The organisation survived until at least 1944. 

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The existence of the deep cover Section VII Resistance  was protected by what, at first sight seems a confusing muddle of other organisations that had guerrilla or intelligence-gathering function. The ruthless hope was that while the Gestapo were tracking down Home Guard members of the Auxiliary Units, the civilians of the Section D Home Defence Scheme or the more unofficial Home Guard guerrilla units, they would not realise that there was a hidden layer of British resistance. Indeed, the organisation of the Special Duties Branch of the Auxiliary Units seems almost designed to be sacrificial and quickly broken by an enemy. This layered  methodology was explicitly promoted by SIS in countries about to be occupied, always stressing that any guerrilla activity, assumed to have a very short span of survival, should have no contact with the longer term resistance organisation. (This later became NATO policy towards resistance groups in North Germany during the Cold War). An additional complication is that some operatives,  previously assumed to be part of  the SDB network, might actually have been part of Section VII. A small number of wireless operators are reported to have used a wireless set contained in a 'briefcase'. This does not fit the large box-like SDB TRD or WS17 sets but might actually be Parasets. The latter used morse code on a HF network and therefore were unlikely to have reported back to an SDB IN station.

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Britain was not invaded by the Nazis but part of the agreement to allow SIS to operate in Britain was that Section VII would assist MI5 in internal security. This included both 'eaves-dropping' on the local community and locally-stationed troops and using their wireless sets to help triangulate any enemy spy wireless transmissions.    Any spying on the British public made the operation particularly  sensitive and there was also the possibility, that having created a wartime intelligence network in the country, it might prove useful in the on-coming Cold War! This added to the traditional policy of SIS never to comment on its operations, whether present or past.