Apr 092021
 

What if the Battle of Britain had not been a success? What was the plan had the Nazis successfully crossed the channel?

Museum Curator Chris Pratt talks to the HistoryHit folk. Chris packs a lot into 30 mins. Well worth a listen: https://podcasts.apple.com/gb/podcast/britains-secret-army-the-resistance/id1526490428?i=1000516365466

The Museum at Parham is planning to re-open on Sunday 23rd May: www.parhamairfieldmuseum.co.uk/british-resistance-organisation/

Jan 042021
 

We have had an unprecedented response to our article in The Telegraph. This is fantastic to aid research and honour the brave men and women of the Auxiliary Units.

 Posted by CART HQ on January 4, 2021
Nov 182020
 

If you haven’t seen our recent CART interview on WW2-TV (YouTube) you need to check this link out – https://youtu.be/Xr1E5FaG1oU

Hosted by Paul Woodadge of WW2-TV this is a cracking interview about Auxiliary Units. Paul hosts many other fascinating WW2 topics. His channel link is: https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCUC1nmJGHmiKtlkpA6SJMeA

We hope we can do another interview focusing on the Special Duties side next time. Enjoy !

 Posted by CART HQ on November 18, 2020
Nov 072020
 

This year marks the 75th anniversary of the end of WW2. As Remembrance Day events are cancelled due to Covid, we take time to remember those that were involved with Auxiliary Units.

Whilst each person’s entry on our website is a personal memorial in itself, we have created a new page highlighting the increasing number of Memorials, Plaques and Information Boards dotted around the country.

Please take a few moments to explore the page and see what Auxiliary Memorials might be near you. We are aware that most of them are in southern England and Wales. We would love to see more recognition throughout the whole of Britain: www.staybehinds.com/memorials-connected-auxiliary-units

Of course, YOU might know of more memorials, plaques, information boards, or local features that have Aux links that we are unaware of. We’d love to hear of more and add them to our site !

We may have our social interactions curtailed this year, but we can take a virtual tour instead – Remembering Auxiliary Units: www.staybehinds.com/memorials-connected-auxiliary-units

Pictured below are Auxiliers Trevor Miners (Perranporth Patrol) and Peter Potter (Fingringhoe Patrol) at the Cenotaph March 2015, stood in front of the Tank Regiment statue at Whitehall.

Whitehall was the first HQ for Auxiliary Units.

WE WILL REMEMBER THEM

www.staybehinds.com

Nov 032020
 

Pelynt village (near Looe) in Cornwall is the latest place to erect a memorial to Auxiliary Units. The memorial was unveiled in spring, but due to the virus there was not the turn-out hoped for. The memorial has been placed outside Pelynt village hall at a specially prepared seating area.

what3words: https://what3words.com/pelting.handfuls.finishers

CART was also planning to attend with our large multi-award winning display of Auxiliary Units equipment and information. We will do this when we are allowed our freedom back and it is safe to do so.

Thanks goes to John Jolliff for being such a force in bringing the history of these brave men and women to his community by way of his many informative talks. Thanks also to Mary Talbot for her organizational skills and this photograph of the memorial.

Find out more about the Pelynt Patrol: https://www.staybehinds.com/patrol/pelynt-patrol

Oct 092020
 

CART’s Press Officer Andy Chatterton talks with the History Hack ladies all about Auxiliary Units. History Hack is a fantastic online history resource that engages knowledgeable speakers about all aspects of history. You can find Andy’s Podcast here: https://historyhack.podbean.com/e/235-history-hack-the-british-resistance-in-ww2/

Many thanks to History Hack !

They can also be found on Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/HackHistory2020

Jul 212020
 

Hope you are all enjoying the new website (www.staybehinds.com)

We also want to point you in the direction of our YouTube channel: https://www.youtube.com/c/BritishResistanceArchive/videos

There’s everything from interviews with Auxiliers, their training, the Operational Bases, the Special Duties ATS ladies, Memorial plaques, tours of bunkers, Auxiliary Units Headquarters, reenactors and a good deal of the shows we normally attend each year.

There are over 130 different videos up already, and this is a platform we’ll be looking to do more on this year inline with the new site.

Check out Churchill’s Secret Army on YouTube. Enjoy!

 Posted by CART HQ on July 21, 2020
Jul 192020
 

Recent projects

For the final day of the Festival of Archaeology, we are looking at some of our most recent projects. As yet they these do not have full or final reports but there are still interesting findings we can share.

Nether Stowey

At Nether Stowey we had the opportunity to briefly investigate an Operational Base that was already partially collapsed. The site was on a farm, and had proved an ongoing issue for the sites owners, as their sheep regularly found a way through increasingly expensive fencing and into the OB. Once there they struggled to extract themselves and over the years, more than one had ended their days there. The plan was therefore to bury the OB and prevent this happening. CART were offered the opportunity to investigate the OB prior to the site being buried. In this situation there is no need undertake a total excavation. Parts of the structure will remain intact for future generations to study. The purpose was to learn what was not immediately obvious. There was limited time, with a day or preparation and a day for excavation.

A draft report on the excavation details the findings. Whilst the main chamber was the typical elephant shelter, both the entrance and escape exit are different. See our images of the dig for more details. Possibly the escape exit may represent a later addition, although no specific proof of this was found. The end chamber is built from bricks, unlike the concrete blocks of the main end walls, except around the route to the escape tunnel. We have a couple of basic plans to show the layout, though the more formal plan was drawn up prior to the excavation so does not show the entrance that was identified. Creating detailed plans and reports is a lengthy process and just recently our new website has taken priority. However, hopefully this will indicate how the new website will be developing as we have the chance to complete and add this material online. 

A final bonus from the excavation was the publicity in the local area regarding the excavation resulted in CART being given a copy of a photograph of the Nether Stowey Patrol.

Ferndown

Over a period of several weeks in 2019, CART, supported by Dorset Council and their wildlife volunteers with some technical support from the New Forest Community Archaeology team. From the first identification of the exact location by local resident Adam Dunn, to the extensive excavation and final interpretation board, has been quite a journey. Our initial report shows the difference from what we knew at the start of the year to now. The Ferndown Patrol report contains some of the images from this, another site which had an extensive ventilation system of glazed pipes, which was partially uncovered during the dig. Metal detecting and ground penetrating radar were both deployed in the initial stages to locate the buried structures. The former found the water tank with its concealed filler cap, whereas the latter was better for finding the shaft and the disturbed ground of the ventilation system. We are grateful to Gary Sterne of Maisey Battery for bringing his expensive kit and helping us out. Do check out his site in Normandy, for some very extensive digging and some remarkable associated historical research that is rewriting one of the central stories of D Day.

Our walkthrough video shows the site at the end of the excavation.

Our attempts to have a formal unveiling of the new interpretation board and the remains deliberately left extant were unfortunately foiled, first by severe storms this spring, then by the coronavirus pandemic! We would like to put on an event to show off the finds but perhaps that will have to wait for the 2021 Festival of Archaeology!

And as an extra bonus here is our colleague, John Wareham, instrumental in setting up the Ferndown excavations, with his video of the Auxiliary Units display built for a show season that won’t be happening. John is definitely our experimental archaeologist, learning how to remake items not built since the war.

Coleshill

Finally we bring you a short report from the Coleshill Estate. The team there have continued their investigation of the training structures at the site and have identified a new Operational Base there. This appears to be of a much earlier type than the previously known elephant shelter, being a box-like structure of corrugated iron on wooden beams. This may suggest that the design of OBs developed officially during the war, perhaps as more experienced Royal Engineer Officers became involved. 

We hope you have enjoyed our brief tour through the archaeology of Auxiliary Units. CART continue to research the Auxiliary Units and new information has been forthcoming even during this week. New material is now being regularly add to our website, so do keep coming back to see. We would be keen to hear from anyone investigating Auxiliary Units sites of all types, anywhere in the country, to share what we have found and to help learn from our mistakes. We are grateful to those archaeologists, both professional and amateur, who kindly shared their research with us to share with you. Please contact us if you have any information about Auxiliary Units that you don’t see on this website already. We think we have included everyone who was involved, but we know there must be missing names.

Best wishes from all at CART

Jul 172020
 

Archaeological Geophysics and OBs

Investigating buried structures using geophysical techniques has been increasingly common in recent years. It allows large areas to surveyed relatively quickly and uses differences in the responses generated by the buried archaeology and natural or fill materials to locate structures and identify their extent. If you have ever been confused by what it involves, Historic England have a straightforward explanation in their guide to research techniques.

The use of such techniques on Auxiliary Sites has been relatively limited. This may relate to the belief that the sites are identified and not recognising that elements of the structure may extend beyond the immediately visible OB, as we saw with the ventilation systems at Binnegar and Bromyards Downs in previous pages. Many structures are in woodland, where the application of the techniques are more difficult. 

At Coleshill, a metal detecting survey and magnetometer was used to identify metallic targets for investigation. A ground penetrating radar was briefly trialed over the known demonstration Operational Base at Coleshill House and showed that it was detectable to the technique. 

Subsequently a formal magnetometry survey was conducted by the short lived Churchill’s Underground War Group, at Langrish House in Hampshire, in an attempt to identify a possible Operational Base in the grounds.  Nothing was found though documentary evidence has subsequently suggested the OB was elsewhere.

Castle Neroche

The Buckland St Mary In-station was known to have been built at Castle Neroche. The Castle was an Iron Age Hillfort converted into a Motte and Bailey Castle during the Anarchy period. Sergeant Arthur Gabbitas who documented the role of his Royal Signals colleagues in the Auxiliary Units Special Duties Branch was stationed there for a while. He left a brief description of the site. Historian and former Royal Signals Officer, David Hunt, visited the site in 2008, obtaining a useful first hand account of the location of the Operational Base, a “Zero” station for the the Chirnside Network, from a local resident who remembered it. His account included the presence of ventilation pipes showing like rabbit holes in the side of pits in Castle grounds. No remains could be found at the time but the site was recorded on the Somerset Historic Environment Record. There are separate records for the above ground Met Hut, which David remembered as still present during his own childhood visiting the site, and the Operational Base

In 2017, CART arranged a visit to the site, to see if any evidence remained. David’s reports provided a focus for the search. The Met Hut base was measured and photographed. The location of the door could be identified. A search of the surrounding area found a small fragment of wire on the adjacent bank, twisted as if to connect to a terminal, perhaps for a battery. At the location identified for the Operational Base, fragments of glazed earthenware pipe were found, a feature often seen at such sites. A very careful search found a small hole near the edge of the bank with the top of two earthenware pipes just visible at its base, just a few centimetres below ground level. The earth had washed down into the pipes over the years, creating the hole. The pipes were almost certainly part of the ventilation system previously noted. Nearby an aerial tree was identified with fragments of the aerial feeder cable projecting from the bark. Because the entire site is a scheduled monument, no excavation of any sort was possible.

A report was prepared and submitted to the County Archaeologist who fortunately was interested enough to arrange for a further non-invasive investigation after obtaining the necessary permissions. Liz Caldwell from GeoFlo (www.geoflo.co.uk) was commissioned by the Southwest Heritage Trust, which was organised by Chris Webster, to survey the site. We think that this report represents the first time that an Operational Base was located by such techniques. With permission we include images from this report in an album of images form the site. The survey was conducted with a Fluxgate gradiometer (Bartington Grad 601-2 ) and Resistivity meter (TR/CIA Resistance Meter) processed with Geoscan Geoplot 3.00v  software. The survey showed with a high degree of confidence the location of a structure underground, with a high magnetic signal, consistent with an elephant shelter structure. The ventilation pipes were not visible using these techniques.

On a repeat visit visit to the site, with a change in the conditions, a very shallow regular depression could be identified at the site identified by the non-invasive techniques. A further hole with a pipe junction was identified, in line with the first, supporting the interpretation of a ventilation system. Two aerial trees were identified. We do not believe there is a third extant tree at the site, though there is another tree with a lightning scar, an appearance that can look similar to an aerial scar. As both aerial trees and lightning strikes are located on high ground they can exist in close association.

Suffolk Comparisons

Coming right up to date, a group from Keele and London South Bank Universities have published a pre-print paper utilising several techniques, namely, Ground Penetrating Radar (GPR), Resistivity, Conductivity and Metal detecting across three Operational Base sites, one intact, another collapsed and a third destroyed to test the modalities. Metal detecting proved valuable in locating the site of the structures, with GPR showing extant chambers and depths. The other modalities also produced useful information and allowed the construction materials to be identified. This is an interesting proof of concept study and suggests that the study of buried structures of the Auxiliary Units with non-invasive techniques is both useful and practicable. We look forward to further investigations of this nature.

Tomorrow we look at the Operational Base in 3D

Jul 152020
 

Small but sweet

After having presented some large scale projects, its time to recognise that not every archaeological excavation needs to be on this scale. The two projects described here are on a smaller scale, but produced very useful findings.

Bromyard Downs

In Herefordshire, the Bromyard Downs Project undertook an investigation of two possible Auxiliary Units hides identified from oral accounts. One consisted of nothing more than a depression in the ground. The other was only approximately located. Metal detecting revealed  a possible locaiton for the latter and the presence of some concrete blocks.

The project online portal hosts the report.

The findings confirmed the oral history of the area. In this project we saw that even the history of the site from the 1970s and 1980s had been lost. One OB had been intentionally destroyed. However, with only the entrance shaft excavated, it is not impossible that some significant part of the main structure remains. A number of sites have been found where the entrance shaft was lowered and filled in, while leaving the main chamber of the structure intact.

It also featured in the local newspaper

Puddletown

CART undertook a small excavation on private land near Puddletown Forest, near Dorchester in Dorset. The location of the Operational Base had been identified by the landowner, who invited CART to investigate, though there were few visible remnants to see at the start. This excavation identified a section of brick wall, at the entrance to the OB. In other areas there was little apparent, but careful excavation revealed the remains of corrugated iron sheeting placed vertically. Groups of nails were found in clusters with occasional fragments of wood preserved where the iron had leached into the wood from the nails, slowing its decay. The original wooden framework had rotted away, as had the majority of the corrugated iron. Changes in colour and texture were all that identified the edges of the structure and where the corrugated iron walls had been.

Nearby in a large hollow, a number of .45 calibre cartridge cases and bullets were found. Possibly from a Thompson Sub-Machine gun, these might have been the result of practice by the Auxiliary Units men. However, the US Army also trained in the area and used the same weapon, so could also have fired this weapon here. The presence of 1942 dated .300 rifle rounds supported the latter interpretation.

Excavations are not complete at this site, but current findings suggest that the structure was a box like underground hide built with a wooden frame. When the area was planted as forest, after the war, the weight of the trees above the OB appear to have caused it to collapse.

We have a small gallery of this excavation for you to view.

Tomorrow we look at Sussex and the work of Chichester and District Archaeology Society there.