Came Park Auxiliary Unit Patrol

This page was last updated at 8:05pm on 24/10/12

Thank you for selecting information on the Came Park (Came Down) Auxiliary Unit Patrol and their Operational Base in Dorset. The info below have been kindly supplied by Dr. Will Ward (CART CIO for Dorset)

Currently unknown

It is currently unknown when the patrol was formed.

The membership of the Came Down patrol appears to be quite complex, despite the opportunity to question surviving patrol member Maurice Brake about this, prior to his death in 2012. He did not remember Charles George Brake, even though he appears in the nominal roll, with a Dorchester address, nor Douglas Henry Farmer. Both appear on the May 1943 nominal roll. He did recall the Baker brothers, who lived at Bradford Peverell, and his younger brother Cyril who appears to have served unofficially, as his name does not appear on the surviving personnel lists. He did not remember Roderick Braybrooke who was mentioned in a local newspaper article but is also missing from the nominal roll. Some of this may be because Maurice Brake did not join the unit until August 1943, shortly after the Brake brothers, but this would suggest that Farmer and Carnell had by then moved to another patrol, as they are not recorded as having left Aux Units. Where there were several patrols close together, sometimes they did swap personnel around.

The OB has largely collapsed with short sections of the Elephant Shelter remaining extant.

View from footpath along collapsed remains of the escape tunnel towards the bunker

View from the end of one of the surviving sections of bunker.

This was a classic Nissen Hut OB with shaft at one end and escape tunnel towards the town. Parts of the hut survive, together with the remain of the walls, indicating that it was divided into sections. Nothing obvious remains of the shaft.

View in another surviving section showing the dividing wall with doorway and collapsed roof beyond.

There was an ammunition store in Culliford Clump, hidden within the centre of an ancient bowl barrow (which had a hollow in the middle of the mound). The OB was apparently built by soldiers of the Dorsetshire Regiment stationed in the town, which was the home of the Regimental Depot. This was most unusual but the men were apparently extremely secretive about what they had done, despite the interest of their colleagues. Despite this the construction of the ammunition store was apparently spotted by Bert Jewell, who was working for the Rural District Council and wrote to the War Office to ask for rent! They were apparently rather more concerned about how he knew what was happening. In 1970, the Royal Commission on Historic Monuments noted the presence of a trench atop the barrow assuming it dated from the 1858 excavation of the site, though it may have been rather more recent! The location is quite visible from the modern Dorchester bypass but is overgrown with dense bramble and no remains are visible.

The ammunition store was in the centre of the barrow mound in the middle of this clump of trees.

Observation Post/s: Currently unknown

Currently unknown

Currently unknown

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Nothing currently

Dorchester vs Hitler, Colin Churchill, Dovecote Press, 2006 ISBN 1 904349 44 7
Further pictures can be seen here http://s134542708.websitehome.co.uk/pillboxes/html/aux_unit_hides_0.html
 

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