“Rule Britannia! Britannia rules the waves Britons never, never, never shall be slaves!”

Secret Resistance

In the dark days following Dunkirk, with a Nazi invasion imminent, Churchill ordered the formation of a secret underground army of civilian volunteers.

From their hidden bunkers, the men of the Auxiliary Units were to operate behind enemy lines, disrupting communications and generally creating mayhem.

They received the best of the available equipment, and were trained to the highest levels, and yet they were only given sufficient food supplies to last a fortnight.

They were not expected to survive even that long.

A different past

This is the story of those men and of a sleepy English village in the “mad” summer of 1940, and a story of what might have been.

Based on official records, personal diaries and memoirs, and the battle plans of both sides, this is the untold account of an elite fighting force hidden within the Home Guard that would operate outside of the conventional rules of war.

But how might have events turned out?

Today, Britons think of the early days of the Second World War as a time of national unity. We were “all in this together” with an iron resolve to stop Hitler. But there were strikes and industrial disputes and most people insisted on taking their annual holidays. Above all, nobody truly believed that Britain might fall.

Total War

And while the Local Defence Volunteers paraded with broomsticks and bayonets, Hitler amassed an army of hardened storm-troopers across the Channel. Dedicated to Total War, they would have reacted brutally to any acts of sabotage or resistance.

And when reprisal followed reprisal, and the men of the resistance saw their own friends and families held hostage and murdered, they faced an agonising dilemma.

There would have been only one way out.