It was the summer of 1940, and the vicious Nazis were seemingly closing in on the United Kingdom.
The British Army was highly concerned and began looking for the most skilled men in the military,
capable of living off the land and keeping a secret.
These elite fighters, known as the Auxiliary Unit, were chosen for their knowledge of
the surrounding landscape and were the United Kingdom's last line of defense.
They were also some of the most lethal units in Europe.
Up to a thousand patrol units established their living quarters in secret underground
bases all across the territory, digging up holes and using precarious furniture.
The Auxiliary Unit men were tasked with sabotaging enemy invaders
and were ready to emerge and wreak havoc behind German lines at any moment...
Europe Is In Danger
Throughout 1940, the vicious Nazi Army relentlessly tore through Europe
and attacked several nations such as Norway, Denmark, and Belgium.
By June, France was also in desperate peril.
Despite initial help from the British Expeditionary Force, most of the aid had been
evacuated from the beaches of Dunkirk, leaving behind vast amounts of valuable military hardware.
By the time the summer approached, German bomber aircraft were attacking the United
Kingdom's most important harbors and cities.
With their Allies and neighbors falling into despair, the top
British leaders believed an invasion was imminent.
And they were correct.
The Germans had been planning Operation Sealion for some time, which would have resulted in the
invasion of the United Kingdom if they refused to end the war after the fall of France.
Knowing that his country was in dire need of resources,
Prime Minister Winston Churchill set out to create a resistance movement in advance of an invasion,
the only nation during the war to plan such a maneuver successfully.
Then, in the early summer of 1940, the British War Cabinet approved the creation of Auxiliary Units,
an anti-invasion force trained by the British Armed Forces to
use guerrilla tactics against the Nazis in case of an attack.
After much deliberation, the Prime Minister chose Colonel
Colin Gubbins to lead the newly formed unit as part of the British Resistance.
Once a regular Army soldier, Gubbins had risen through the ranks of the military,
acquiring valuable experience and expertise in guerrilla warfare
as part of the Allied intervention in the Russian Civil War and the Anglo-Irish War.
The colonel had recently returned from Norway, where he led the Independent Companies,
the precursor of the British Commandos.
The secrecy surrounding the insurgent squads meant that their members had no military status.
Because of this, there are only a few official records of their activities.
Such was the secrecy surrounding these elite units that when they arrived for training
at the Coleshill House station, the men were instructed to head to the local Post Office,
where they had to give the local postmistress a password.
The woman would then call Coleshill House,
and Colonel Gubbins would send a vehicle to drive the men to the hidden residence.
For months, around 3,500 men chosen for the Auxiliary Unit
were given weekend crash courses in the arts of guerrilla warfare,
including assassination, unarmed combat, demolition, and sabotage.
Service Auxiliary Units were expected to be highly dangerous,
and the members had a projected life expectancy of only 12 days,
as they had direct orders to take each other's lives in case an enemy capture was imminent.
Despite being nicknamed the ‘Suicide Bunkers’ by the Army’s top brass,
the men simply referred to themselves as Scallywags.
Prepared for Anything
The Auxiliary Unit patrol teams were allocated to Home Guard battalions
as a cover and were even provided with their uniforms sometimes.
In addition, they were supported by the Special Duties Sections, 4,000 civilians recruited to
identify suspicious vehicles, high-ranking officers, and military units. These men
would gather intelligence and leave reports in dead letter drops, which were in turn
collected by runners, and the message was then transmitted through radio to the Auxiliary Units.
Operational Patrols teams of Auxiliary Unit men consisted of between two and eight men,
most often from farming or landowning backgrounds and former Home Guard members,
as they could live off the land and had excellent survival skills.
Although the Auxiliaries wore Home Guard uniforms, they would not participate in the
conventional defense phase. Instead, the men would be activated only in the event of an invasion.
Each Patrol was a self-contained unit, expected to be self-sufficient and autonomous in case of
a Nazi invasion, and was provided with a concealed underground operational base in a local woodland.
Complete with a camouflaged entrance, an emergency escape, and sometimes even a
secret observation post, these underground posts were located all over the country,
particularly in Southeast England due to its proximity to Belgium and France.
The bases were about 15 miles away from each other, and it is thought that up to a thousand
of them were installed all over the country. However, the exact number remains unknown.
These ingeniously disguised shelters were concealed to anyone but their own Patrol
in order to maintain the secrecy of the clandestine unit.
Most underground base bunkers were 12 to 15 feet long
and barely tall enough for men to stand up. They were also austere in nature
and furnished with essential cooking equipment, wooden bunk beds,
chemical toilets, and plenty of rations, including a large barrel of rum for the men's troubles.
Still, some of the bunkers were more creative in their construction and were installed inside
old abandoned manors, badger's dens, old root cellars, and a couple were even built
in centuries-old rooms dug by Picts, a Scottish tribe that thrived in the early medieval period.
One of the underground forts, intended for men who'd been routed from their own bases,
held up to 120 people.
In addition to these ingenious bunkers, the Auxiliary Unit men were also provided
with the latest weaponry available, including a silenced pistol,
commando knives, high-quality explosives, and incendiary devices.
Their special weapons also included long-range 22-caliber sniper rifles,
available for them long before the regular Army and the Royal Marine Commandos.
A Mission That Never Came
The Auxiliary Unit men had orders to attack invading Nazi troops from behind their own lines,
while conventional non-secret forces fell back to the last-ditch General Headquarters Line.
Fuel dumps, railway lines, aircraft and depots were priority targets,
as were senior German officers, whom the men studied during their time off.
In preparation for the seemingly incoming attack, the patrol teams secretly reconnoitered
abandoned country houses in the area, which could be used to install a German base.
For months, some of the highest skilled men in
the country prepared and were ready for an imminent attack.
However, despite Hitler's plan to invade the United Kingdom,
his scheme never came to fruition. As the Battle of Britain came to a close,
the Royal Air Force proved to be too powerful a force to be reckoned with.
By June of 1941, the Luftwaffe had suffered enough mass casualties and losses,
and Hitler decided to turn his attention to the East, particularly the Soviet Union.
The Secret Army
Because the Germans never went through with Operation Sealion, the underground bases of the
Auxiliary Units were never used for anything other than training exercises and as sleeping quarters.
The units stayed put after the immediate Nazi threat passed and didn’t leave until 1944,
when many of the Scallywags joined the Special Air Service to continue defending their country.
The men from the Auxiliary Units kept their vow of silence and did not tell
anyone about their secret troops nor about the existence of the underground bases.
Some of the soldiers were even mocked for their supposed disservice to the nation
and had to keep quiet about their training and bunker experience, even to their families.
According to Trevor Miners, who served with the Auxiliary Units established in
Oxfordshire when he was only a teenager: [QUOTE] "We would never talk about what
we were trained to do [...] One of my unit was even sent a white feather by
someone who thought he was a coward for not going out to fight, but we knew different."
Because of the secrecy,
the underground tunnel quarters in the United Kingdom remained a secret for almost 20 years
until researchers and historians began to uncover the mysterious story of the
guerrilla Englishmen. However, by then most of the bases had collapsed or fallen into disrepair.
From the 60s onwards, the British Resistance Archive has spent hundreds of hours
trying to rediscover the locations of the bases.
However, instead of preserving the researcher's job when they find a base
or follow a tip from a private landowner, their job is to only document and photograph them
before the Earth claims them for good.
For decades, the lore of these thousands of guerrilla-trained men have been the subject
of much speculation, and after the passing of the last known member of the Auxiliary Unit in
early 2020, there are no more known witnesses that could explain their role and wartime activities.
The legendary story of the Scallywags remains a perpetual enigma,
cementing their status as the British Army's most secretive and perhaps most lethal unit.
Thank you for watching Dark Docs. Do you think these guerrilla-trained British men
would have been able to stop the incoming Nazis?
Let us know your thoughts in the comments below and don't forget to hit the like button
and subscribe to all our Dark Documentary channels for more exciting stories.