Churchill's secret army of farmers who were ready to fight the Nazis on British soil

In the summer of 1940, France had fallen and Hitler’s armies were massed across the Channel. Britain was braced for invasion. While Churchill rallied the nation to resist, a secret force was preparing to wage war behind enemy lines if the worst happened and the Germans landed.

Alistair Moffat tells the story of two largely invisible forces. The first comprised the Auxiliary Units, recruited from gamekeepers, miners, farmers and others who knew the countryside intimately. Their task was to sabotage the invaders by destroying ammunition dumps, bridges, railways and transport depots. The second was a network of amateur radio hams who intercepted German messages, harvesting vital intelligence about enemy movements.

The Auxiliaries’ story is the more disturbing. In the event of invasion, these men were to disappear into bunkers ingeniously concealed beneath earth mounds or in woodland, emerging to attack the occupiers with explosives and knives. Once activated, they were expected to survive for only two weeks.

More chilling still were their orders concerning the British population. Moffat writes that the Auxiliaries, nicknamed ‘the Assassins’, were under instructions to eliminate anyone who might compromise their operations by passing information to the Germans.These could include Nazi sympathisers and even local police chiefs who might be tortured by the Gestapo into disclosing vital co-ordinates.

The radio listeners fought a quieter battle, intercepting German Morse transmissions from their bedrooms, attics and garden sheds and forwarding the messages for analysis to Bletchley Park.

One listener was a man bedridden by severe injuries sustained in the First World War. From his bed, he intercepted a lengthy message sent by German spies in New York to their handlers in Berlin. This work earned him a letter of thanks from Churchill and a medal from the King. It is the book’s most moving episode, in a story packed with extraordinary acts of courage.

Bound by the Official Secrets Act, many of those involved took their experiences to the grave. Their silence makes the subject difficult to research and, although Moffat lists his extensive sources, the absence of footnotes makes it difficult to trace the evidence behind individual stories.

He also has a fondness for digressions: the Titanic’s wireless messages, Operation Mincemeat and Dad’s Army all get airtime, but rarely advance the central story.

Several excellent books have already explored the Auxiliaries and the secret listeners, but Alistair Moffat brings something more personal to this project. At one point he goes in search of the surviving bunkers scattered across the British landscape, from Scotland to Cornwall. In the process he turns up everything from bedsteads to old beer bottles. It is these encounters with the physical remnants of a vanished secret war that bring the book vividly to life.

Pictures provided by COLESHILL AUXILIARY RESEARCH TEAM  (www.staybehinds.com)