Dan Snow's History Hit

WWII Britain's Home Guard wasn't a bumbling dad's army but in fact included factions of highly trained silent killers and spies hiding out in secret bunkers, caves and safe houses all over the country. The Auxiliary Unit was given a deliberately boring name to disguise the top secret mission they'd been tasked with- if and when the Germans invaded the British Isles, they would have to stop the first waves of soldiers, taking them down as they moved inland, often in brutal and secretive ways. They were locals chosen from and posted around coastal areas who knew the land particularly well and most went to their graves never revealing what they'd been a part of so we're only really just learning about them now.Today, Andy Chatterton and his organisation Coleshill Auxiliary Research Team are mapping the bunkers left by this secretive unit and those used by Special Operations Wireless Operators who were posted in similar areas in the same sorts of hideouts. Many were sealed straight after the war with everything i