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Britain was under threat of invasion in 1940, so Winston Churchill devised a plan to create a guerrilla taskforce across Britain. This became the Auxiliary Units \u2013 a highly trained and secretive network whose mission it was to inflict maximum disruption on any invading force, Churchill\u2019s secret army.<\/p>\n
Anna Wilson, who lives in Bath, Somerset, and has been researching her family tree since 2004, found out that her great uncle Angus Bruton Wilson (pictured above, seated second from the left) was a member of this elite division.<\/p>\n
\u201cAngus was born in 1894 in Tupsley, Herefordshire, to John and Rachel Wilson,\u201d she says. \u201cJohn was a seed merchant, and Angus joined the family business after he left school. \u201cI never met my great uncle, but I always felt that I knew him through stories shared by my father and uncle. He was a charming man, as well as a keen football and rugby player. Angus also won many trophies for his beloved Hereford Rowing Club.<\/p>\n
\u201cIn 1930, he married May Hatton, widow of the acclaimed artist Brian Hatton who was killed during the First World War. I have one of Brian\u2019s beautiful sketches in my lounge.\u201d Angus was a member of the Royal Flying Corps, and served in France with the Balloon Section during the First World War. He was a Local Defence Volunteer for the Home Guard, and his obituary mentioned that he had served as a \u2018special sergeant\u2019.<\/p>\n
\u201cIn July 2020 I realised the benefits of having my tree online when I received an email via Ancestry<\/a> from a researcher for the British Resistance Archive (staybehinds.com<\/a>). They were researching members of the Auxiliary Units, who were known colloquially as the \u2018stay behinds\u2019.<\/p>\n \u201cThe researcher told me that my great uncle Angus was patrol leader for the Hereford group of the Auxiliary Unit Patrol, codenamed Caleb. I had never heard of this organisation before. \u201cThe British Resistance Archive website is fascinating. Its researchers aim to find information on those involved in the Auxiliary Units, and recognise their service. Volunteers were usually recruited locally because they had excellent knowledge of the land. Farmers, miners, gamekeepers and poachers were particularly valued.\u201d<\/p>\n Approximately 3,500 men were recruited nationwide and dispatched to Coleshill House in Oxfordshire for training. They became highly skilled in sabotage, demolition, combat and assassination. Local patrols operated from underground bases, some of which still exist today. They had the most modern weaponry available, including machine-guns and explosives. If a patrol unit was overwhelmed, they were expected to shoot themselves rather than be taken alive.<\/p>\n \u201cThere were \u2018James Bond\u2019 elements to their experience, especially when they arrived for training at Coleshill. They would have a coded exchange with the local postmistress, who would then telephone Coleshill House to inform them that a new trainee had arrived.<\/p>\n