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Hello and welcome to another World War II podcast.

By the end of June in 1940 the Battle of France was over, the British Army had been plucked

from the beaches of Dunkirk. Much of its heavy equipment

to be left abandoned in France. It looked like Britain would be the next target for

the Nazi war machine. Having witnessed the debacle in France, a betting man might have put his money on the Germans when it came to invading England.

On the 14th of May 1940, Anthony Eden called on men between 17 and 65 in Britain who are not in military service but wish to defend

their country to enroll in the local defence volunteers.

By July, over 1.5 million Britons had volunteered.

Another group was also created, a clandestine army that in the event of invasion will be called upon.

Britain will be the first nation to have a pre-planned resistance network.

They went under the unassuming name of Aux or Augs units.

I'm joined by Tom Sykes from the Coles Hill Auxiliary Research team.

Tom thanks for joining me.

So the Auxiliary units work with a spin-off from the home guard?

Well, I wouldn't use the phrase spin-off. No, they were properly premeditated and planned by Churchill. You know, it was under Churchill's order order quite a few homeguard people the guys were

recruited into walks units but they were completely separate organization.

So is it all Churchill's idea? He came up with it.

Churchill made an instruction and he said the regular defences required supplementing with

guerrilla type troops who will allow themselves to be overrun and who thereafter will be

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