Bob Millard's accounts of his time in the Auxiliary Unit and his training at Coleshill House
John Warwicker
(Author of "With Britain in Mortal Danger" and "Churchill’s Undergroumd Army")
* The image used in this film at 0:59 seconds in, is copyright to Arthur Ward.
In August 1940 I left the Civil Defence where I
was a messenger with the Fire Service to join the Bathampton Platoon of the
L.D.V., later the Home Guard, and here I met Anthony Bentley-Hunt. In October he
suggested that if I was interested in joining something more exciting than the
Home Guard I should go with him to meet a Jack Wyld who lived in Bathwick
Street. On meeting Jack Wyld I was questioned in detail about my family and
knowledge of the local area and told to come back in a week. When I returned I
was sworn to secrecy and told about the Auxiliary Units. Due to the clandestine
nature of these units information was limited and very much on the "need to
know" basis. It was not until a reunion at Coleshill on the occasion of the
fiftieth anniversary of their stand-down in November 1994 did the true nature of
the organisation become apparent.
The patrol would meet two evenings a week and at weekends for training and construction work on the operational base (OB). Initially meetings were more frequent to get the OB into a habitable condition. Training took two forms, familiarisation with the area and practice with explosives and sabotage devices.
Familiarisation involved walking the area time and time again
until each gap in the hedge, barn, and possible hiding places
became familiar. It also involved the urban area to find where
each alley lead or where a short cut might be taken. During these
excursions we were delighted to discover the OB's of two Admiralty
patrols, one in the wood above the Warminster Road and the other
in Prior Park.
Bob on "The Real Dad's Army" - Channel 4
We also familiarised ourselves with the old stone mines under Combe Down. Other exercises were to lie up in the grounds of Claverton Manor to observe the movements of the military and to thoroughly explore the local railway to determine where demolition charges might be placed. Explosives training took place in the remoter areas of the woods lining the Limpley Stoke Valley. This was limited because of the noise and to conserve stocks. Jack Wyld was, I believe, a quarryman; in any case he was very knowledgeable in the use of explosive and the construction of basic charges. We were supplied with plastic explosive and gelignite together with delay fuses (time pencils) and pull and pressure switches to construct booby traps.
In the spring of 1941 more formal training started. Colonel Colin Gubbins, who had been instructed in early 1940 by Churchill to set up an underground resistance, had set up headquarters for the Auxilliary Units in Coleshill House.
We would have to report there, and it wasn't really until I went
back there in 1994 that I really knew where the place was, although I
had visited it twice. We would get instructions to, of report to the
Post Office in Highworth.
The Post Office in Highworth was run by a white haired lady, Mabel
Franks. If you arrived there without transport you would say to her
that you had been sent to report to her for the Auxilliary Units and
she would say something like "Oh you're one of that lot are you, just a
minute", and she would go to the back of the Post Office, telephone
somebody or other, come back and say "Oh there'll be with you shortly",
and some fifteen or twenty minutes later a van or private car would
turn up and drive you to Coleshill House. They must have taken a
roundabout route to get there because it was never direct. And if you
went by train and arrived at Swindon station then you would ring the
Post Office in Highworth and transport would be sent there for you.
(August 2009) Bob outside what was Highworth Post office
The house, I believe, was still occupied by its owners, but outside
the house there was the Clock House, which was a quite substantial
dwelling, called the Clock House because it had a clock tower on the
front of it, and there the officers and the admin were situated.
Behind the Clock House was the stable yard, which was quite a large cobbled yard with big buildings and stables around three sides of it. People who came there for training would work in this area.
As I recall we did that on the first floor of the building, which was a large room that had bunks down either side and tables down the middle and we would sleep, you would eat and work in that room, get our lectures and talks in that room. I think too that in the stable yard in those days there was a wooden building, a wooden kitchen, and we used to go down and collect our meals and take them back up into this upstairs room and to eat. But, as you can imagine, the training was very, very intensive and you didn't get much sleep.
Patrols from all over the country used to come to Coleshill, and when we went, we would arrived there on the Thursday evening and start almost immediately once you had been shown your bunk and that and given a cup of tea, been talked to, and we worked through until Monday, and leave on the Monday. The training was very comprehensive and was given by officers were from different Army regiments. I don't know how many there were, I think four or five of them, and a number of Army personnel from the Lovat Scouts, who were a sort of commando unit.
(Bob outside the stable block where he stayed during the war.)
Training gave us more information on the use of explosives and explosive devices. We were shown TNT, gelignite and the plastic explosive which we had been issued with. We were told how to estimate the size charge that would be required for a certain job, shown the best place to place a charge to bring down a pylon or cut a railway line. We were also shown how to set up different types of booby traps, and techniques for disabling vehicles.
Besides this sabotage training we were also given some training in personal defence. We were introduced to basic unarmed combat and shown how to use the garrotte and how to use the Fairburn knife that we had been issued with. I can always remember being told to strike upwards and keep your thumb on the blade in case the knife twists. Fortunately one didn't have to do that sort of thing. We were also given instruction in covert communication:- ways in which signs and messages could be left by placing stones and sticks; the way to use dead letter drops for hiding messages and show that the letter drop had been seen, or had not been seen.
We also had instruction in some woodcraft, how to move about silently and how to find somewhere to hide and how to take cover. One lesson that was drummed into us was if we hear people moving about stay dead still, they can pass right close to you and not see you, and this was demonstrated on one or two occasions how you could walk right by somebody even though you were aware somebody was there and still not actually see that they were there.
We did two night exercises. We were shown first of all a plan of, of the area around the Coleshill House by the yard where vehicles would be parked. And then we were taken out some three or four miles in a van, dropped off and given a direction to set off in, and work in pairs to get back and try and get to one of these vehicles and put a chalk mark on it, to show that you had found it and put it up. As you did that there were one or two patrols out, patrolling the area which you had to cross, and you had to dodge these to get in. It was all good Boy Scout stuff, and it was quite fun provided it wasn't raining.
As you can see there was a lot covered and it was very well done. They had the training down to a tee. No time was wasted. Things were pushed home, repeated, demonstrated and then left for you to practice. When you went back to the patrol you had all this in your head, and, of course, in the patrol you tried to practice it and work it out and go over it again and talk amongst yourselves about what had happened. But you did get the occasional visit by one or two of the chaps, from the Lovat Scouts particularly when you were building up your operational base, so that they could see where it was and give you advice, and they would also look over a map of the countryside with you and point out possible target areas and, and things like that. You couldn't communicate with them and ask for help, but, as I remember, over the couple of years I suppose, in the first year they turned up two or three times to see, to see how we were getting on.
As far as weapons were concerned we started with two .300 Ross rifles and in early 1941 a Thompson sub-machine gun was issued together with a personal pistol and Fairbairn-Sykes fighting knife. I had a 5” barrel .38 calibre Smith and Wesson pistol. We also made “punch knives” which we carried in the slot intended for a cleaning rod on the webbing holster. I recall going a couple of times to a military firing range, possibly near Warminster, for range practice.
Fortunately the Auxiliary Units were never tested but were, in the words of their motto, "Ready to serve if called".
See Bob name our new Auxiliary Ale here
Some of Bob's weapons can be seen below.
Coleshill House, Coleshill, Mabel Stranks, Highworth, Highworth Post Office, Colonel Gubbins, Auxiliary Units, Churchill's secret army, Special Operations Executive (SOE), Home Guard, The Countryman's Diary-1939, Peter Fleming, Ian Fleming, Pleydell-Bouveries, Sir Thomas Freake, Sir Henry Pratt, guerrilla warfare
