WWII Britain: The Home Guard's Silent Assassins
Dan Snow's History Hit
History Hit
4.7 • 13.7K Ratings
🗓️ 23 August 2023
⏱️ 53 minutes
🧾️ Download transcript
Summary
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 inside, while others have collapsed, revealing their secrets to the outside world. Andy got word there must be some hidden in the New Forest where Dan lives, so for this episode, Dan and Andy are joined by New Forest historian Marc Heighway as they go bunker hunting. The team come across some very promising discoveries...
If you've found something you think could be or relate to an Auxiliary bunker, get in touch with Andy and his team at https://www.staybehinds.com/contact-us
Produced by Mariana Des Forges and edited by Dougal Patmore.
Image Credit: “Parham airfield, Museum of the British Resistance Organisation - Auxiliary unit operational base” by Gaius Cornelius is licensed under CC BY-SA 4.02.0.
Discover the past on History Hit with ad-free original podcasts and documentaries released weekly presented by world-renowned historians like Dan Snow, Suzannah Lipscomb, Lucy Worsley, Matt Lewis, Tristan Hughes and more. Get 50% off your first 3 months with code DANSNOW. Download the app or sign up here.
We'd love to hear from you! You can email the podcast at ds.hh@historyhit.com.
You can take part in our listener survey here.
Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.
Transcript
Click on a timestamp to play from that location
| 0:00.0 | Make this a summer of unexpected experiences, only at Portsmouth Historic Dockyard. |
| 0:05.7 | The Historic Dockyard is full of family fun! |
| 0:08.7 | Step aboard real-life history on HMS Victory! |
| 0:11.5 | Discover more about Henry VIII's favorite ship at the Mary Rose Museum, now including the |
| 0:16.2 | all-new Dive the Mary Rose 4D, or become a commando at Action Stations, plus nine more |
| 0:22.3 | attractions to discover. |
| 0:23.9 | Pay once and visit all-year pre-book tickets online to save at historic.co.uk. |
| 0:53.9 | 8th of September, pre-order from your favorite bookshop, or visit historyhit.com slash book! |
| 1:03.6 | Hi everybody, welcome to Dan Snow's History Hit. |
| 1:07.8 | A couple of months ago I got sent a video of one of the craziest things I've ever seen in my entire |
| 1:12.2 | life. Someone had purchased a house at the end of the garden was a small shed and a toilet in |
| 1:19.8 | it. It was like an outhouse, a long drop. Got the Lou here. This is fixed in place and can't |
| 1:28.0 | lift this up at all unless you trip the release mechanism. In this video, someone reached out |
| 1:34.1 | which is out here and pulled a lever at the base of this toilet. The whole wooden structure then |
| 1:42.0 | lifted away from the floor and revealed a ladder leading down into a bunker below. |
| 1:49.8 | On the counterweight system, I'm just going to go down the steps upstairs. The person climbed |
| 1:57.6 | down the ladder and arrived in the chamber with some desks and cans and papers. Got a hook here, |
| 2:03.2 | which is part of the release system for the door. A life and shelter type arrangement. |
| 2:10.4 | A couple of tables or table in a bench. There's actually an event below here. |
| 2:18.4 | Put this down. They then reached into a slide board. Push another lever and gives access to the door. |
| 2:24.5 | That revealed a secret to going. And there was a wireless and an escape tunnel. It was a perfectly |
| 2:31.7 | preserved special operations bunker from the second world. Over here we've got what was going to be |
... |
Please login to see the full transcript.
Disclaimer: The podcast and artwork embedded on this page are from History Hit, and are the property of its owner and not affiliated with or endorsed by Tapesearch.
Generated transcripts are the property of History Hit and are distributed freely under the Fair Use doctrine. Transcripts generated by Tapesearch are not guaranteed to be accurate.
Copyright © Tapesearch 2026.