Members of the Coleshill Auxiliary Research Team 

 

Members can be contacted through our main email address. Please use their name in the subject box.  




Some Members have reported problems with logging into the Secret Members Page, we think it is because you are not using the latest version of Internet Explorer. This should be ver.8


Tom Sykes - Founder

Tom started the project after a moving to the area and hearing of the site. He runs the project in his spare time from his home in Highworth. Tom used to work in television and he edits the video content and takes most of the images on the site. See Tom talking about the group here. The website itself was built by Tom and his marketing company Goldeneye Creative. Tom loves WW2 history and is very proud of this website and being able to help young and old network on this amazing subject. He is looking forward to arranging events for the group and local people in the near future. Read more about the group and it's aims here

 

Keith Blaxhall - National Trust Head Warden (Coleshill)

Keith was qualified as a Building and Land Surveyor and worked for an architect, a  national contractor and in local government. Keith is now Head Warden for The National Trust in West Oxfordshire and manages country estates, archaeological sitesand woodlands covering in all approx 10,500 acres. He is also secretary of The Ridgeway Military and Aviation Research Group with a museum at RAF Welford near Newbury. Keith is a member of The Airfield Research Group and The Mosquito Aircraft Museum and contributed parts to The Assault Glider Project at RAF Shawbury.


Bob Millard - Member of the Bath Aux Unit and a Coleshill Trainee

In August 1940 Bob left the Civil Defence where he was a messenger with the Fire Service to join the Bathampton Platoon of the L.D.V., later the Home Guard, and here he was recruited into the Aux Units. It was not until a reunion at Coleshill in 1994 that Bob learned the true nature of the organisation. Bob has given up a huge amount of his time to help this group and his story and film can be seen here.  



Richard Ashley - Our Weapons Adviser

Richard has been Military firearm collecting for well over 55 years. Time served gunsmith and gunmaker. 22 years as R.E.M.E. armourer, S/Sgt. Police armourer for 25 years with Suffolk and Norfolk police. Examined firearms and prepared reports for court use. Section 5 dealer for 25 years and had what was considered to be one of the finest collection of military firearms and associated equipment including fighting devices.  He lectured on military firearms and equipment and worked for many major and regimental museums. He has been armourer and guide with the British Resistance Museum for 5 years.

 


Peter Antill - Our Military Researcher from Cranfield University

Peter is currently a research assistant working for Cranfield University at the Centre for Defence Acquisition in the Defence Academy of the United Kingdom, Shrivenham. 

Peter has practical experience in the service industry as well as the civil service.  A degree holder from both Staffordshire University and the University College of Wales, Aberystwyth he also holds a PGCE (Post Compulsory Education) from Oxford Brooks University.

A published author, he is currently conducting post-graduate research into British defence policy and expeditionary operations while also contributing to a military history project with two friends, located at http://www.historyofwar.org.


Download Peter's PDF on Operation Sealion on our DOWNLOADS PAGE




Bill King
 
Bill is an independent Management Consultant and comes from a naval family.
Bill developed an early interest in military history.

Bills’ main interest
areas settled on the Second World War with particular reference to the role of
Airborne and Special forces and in Clandestine warfare.
Bill has conducted extensive research on the
role of the British Resistance Organisation (Auxiliary Units) and has contributed to
the book ‘With Britain in Mortal Danger’ published in December 2002.

He is an Honorary Member of the US 17th and 101st Airborne Divisions and of the USAAF435th and 436th Troop Carrier Groups. He is a former Chairman of the Ridgeway Military and Aviation Research Group (RMARG).

Bill has appeared in the Television programmes ‘History Mysteries’ on BBC2 and the Channel 4 series ‘Dads Secret Army’. In addition to these activities Bill has given talks on Auxiliary Units to interest societies throughout Wiltshire and the south. Bill is married with two grown-up daughters and lives near Swindon on the Wiltshire / Gloucestershire border.


David Blair - Our Scottish Aux Unit HQ Researcher

David has been researching Scottish Auxiliary Units for 13 years now, his research has enabled him to talk with former Auxunit members and get an idea of the Organisation in Scotland. He has located a few Operational Bases still in good condition and gathered information about networks all over Scotland. David is a former Paratrooper having served for 17 years. He lives in St Andrews in  Fife with his partner and now works with the Scottish wildlife Trust as a training team instructor carrying out practical conservation work. Once his research is complete (is it ever?) He hopes to produce a book on the Scottish units.


Donald Brown - Writer of "Somerset versus Hitler" and ex WW2 Researcher

Donald has been a A & SH. Headmaster a member of the Mendip Ranger Service and Defence of Britain Survey. He has also been a researcher of WW2 history around Somerset and especially the secret activities on Mendip. He has written a book called "Somerset versus Hitler" Countryside Books 1999, 2001 ISBN 1 85306 590 0 which is now sadly out of print although Amazon seem to sell it. See our SHOP. Donald is now retired from all the Aux unit work including research he points out!  All his findings are deposited with the Somerset Record Office and / or BRO  Museum, Parham.

 


Bill Ashby

Son of Lt. W. Ashby (East Sussex Scout Section Officer)

Bill is a member of the National Malaya & Borneo Veterans Association having served with REME during the Malayan Emergency.  His hobby is military history concentrating on 49(WR) Infantry Division in Normandy, The London Blitz which he remembers and of course the Auxiliary Units. He is retired, married and lives in Swindon.  



Martin Kender - WW1 & WW2 Historian

Martin is a military historian with interests in defence policy, strategy and tactics, home defence, (anti aircraft and anti submarine warfare, air defences and air raid precautions, target registration and fire control, fixed defences and fortress and emplacement engineering.)

He has a particular interest in the twentieth century defence of southern england and in the Great War in the Eastern Mediteranean.

 


Jim Warren - Retired Volunteer with the Bath Blitz Project

Jim is a married, retired civil servant who volunteered to maintain websites as a retirement hobby, initially for the Bath Blitz Memorial Project, and then later for the Bath Heritage Watchdog.  He is on the committee of both (entirely voluntary) organisations.

He  first encountered Coleshill House as part of his Bath Blitz activities. 

Jim is  attempting to preserve as many memories as possible of those who lived through the blitz of Bath.



Stewart Angell - Researching Sussex Auxiliary Units

Stewart started researching the Sussex Auxiliary Units in 1992. Four years later following extensive interviews with original patrol members and many hours in the field looking for the remains of their secret hideouts his findings were published as ‘The Secret Sussex Resistance’ (Available to buy through our shop)

He is a member of Subterranea Britannica and a founder member of the Sussex Military History Society.


Rev. Matthew Gibbs

Husband and father of two girls he is an amateur historian interested in the military history of the 20th Century.

His main area of interest is in non-combatant services and the civilian services focusing particularly on the Royal Army Chaplain's Department and the Home Guard, especially Yorkshire Units.

An extention of this interest is the Auxiliary Units who used the convenient cover of the Home Guard for their own purposes.

He's interested in their organisation, history, the development of uniforms and insignia and their training and role in WW2


Andy Sturgess

Born 23rd February 1953 in Guildford, Surrey,  moved to Dorset at the age of 9 where a deep
understanding of the countryside developed. 

While at school in Beaminster, discovered via a friends father, an underground bunker on the
downs "to be used by men from the village in the event of invasion" we were told ! Many visits
made while supposedly on school crosscountry to enjoy hidden bottles of beer ! Unrelated, then followed a lifetime interest in WW11 with special focus on aviation and the lancaster bomber in particular.

Along side a fulltime job a firework display company developed. This required training in the use of various fusing and ignition devises both electrical and based on the infamous "Bickford" type delay fuse.
While reasearching another matter a sketch of an OB was seen. This flashed back and related to the Bunker near Beaminster. Research on this was
confirmed as an Auxunit Bunker.
Having had a 40year connection with this bunker it rekindled old interests and full research followed regarding the Auxunits history, operational training and field craft.


Phil Matthews - Combatives Historical Researcher
Phil is from Bristol and is a combative historical researcher with a particular interest in WW2 Training and Techniques. I was selected to provide a new forward for the only jointly written work by both Fairbairn and Sykes entitled "Shooting to Live", the proceeds of which still go to benefit their decendants. You can buy the book in the shop. See Phil's work and website  here  

Craig Brown - Australian WWII Special Operations Researcher

He has been researching various aspects of Australia's "Secret War" since 1999 and has written extensively on Australian WWII Special Operations units and related subjects. Travelling between Canberra and Far North Queensland, he is a full-time writer and heritage consultant.

In 2005, he stumbled across an as-yet unacknowledged contemporary of the Auxunits in Australia. This unit utilised many of the same training materials and operating concepts as the UK Auxunits, but were organised to operate against invading Japanese rather than Germans.

He hopes in the near future to put together the first ever published work on this mystery Australian unit. Craig's website can be viewed here  

Clive Bassett

Clive has a life-long interest in WW2 Special Force Units, including S.O.E., O.S.S., Jedburghs and the Auxiliary Units. He is one of the founder members, Trustee and Committee Member of the “Carpetbagger” Museum at RAF Harrington. His first awareness of the Aux Units was over 30 years ago when he was able to buy an original “Countryman’s Diary”. Meeting with the nephew of Jedburgh Officer Victor Gough, whilst jointly planning a series of “Secret War” events, continued this interest. Before joining the Jedburghs Victor Gough served with the Aux Units in Somerset, there is a display at Harrington with full details of his service. Participating in an Aux Unit reunion a few years ago at Parham in the company of Bob Millard, who he previously met at one of the “Secret War” events he hosted, was a very special occasion. Clive belongs to a number of WW2 interest organisations. He also enjoys researching remote SOE, OSS and Norwegian Training locations, travelling to France and Norway visiting Resistance Museums and the continued study of WW2 History. The website for the “Carpetbagger” Museum can be found at www.harringtonmuseum.org.uk


Nick Marshall

Nick has been re-enacting since 1978, and presently covers the Late Roman army and the Victorian and Great War Royal Navy. After a visit to the British Resistance Organisation (BRO) Museum, he co-founded ‘Behind Enemy Lines’ in September 2009 to re-create an Auxiliary Units operational patrol.

He sees re-enactment as ‘practical history’ and has spent much time learning how to use the technology and skills of the different periods he portrays. He aims to experience aspects of life in those periods and has marched along Roman roads in Roman kit, built Anglo-Saxon houses and dug trenches in Flanders.

‘Behind Enemy Lines’ train using the same manuals and much of the same equipment (not the explosives!) as the original patrols. They also intend to carry out night exercises with other re-enactment groups. Nick is looking forwards to trying out his fieldcraft skills!

He is interested in the BRO in general, but his main focus is on the patrols in the Welsh borders, which is his home area. He knows the locality of ‘Shadrach’ patrol (south Herefordshire) extremely well and so this is the patrol he re-enacts, despite now being based in Leicestershire.

 


Austin J. Ruddy

Born in North London, Austin J. Ruddy has a degree in Archaeology. He has studied and collected the social and military history of the Second World War, particularly the British Home Front, for most of his life.

Austin has appeared on radio and television talking about wartime history and regularly researches and writes for magazines, newspapers, journals and websites. He was a volunteer fieldworker for the Defence of Britain archaeology project, is a member of the Pillbox Study Group and fundraises for the Royal British Legion. He is a founder member of Leicestershire Home Guard Remembrance, a small re-enactment group, that displays Home Guard equipment and memorabilia at local 1940's events, in memory of 18 Leicestershire Home Guards killed on duty.
Austin's first book, 'British Anti-Invasion Defences 1940-1945: The Pillbox Study Group Handbook' was published in 2004.
During the course of research for his next book, 'To The Last Round: The Leicestershire & Rutland Home Guard 1940-1945', Austin uncovered an inland Auxiliary Unit type organisation called Shock Sections, set up to defend the Beaumanor Hall Y-Service Intercept Station.
Austin is currently writing a book about Leicestershire's ARP/Civil Defences versus the Luftwaffe air raids, a sequel to his previous book, To The Last Round.

Austin has been studying Auxiliary Units for the past 20 years and is currently researching other WW2 British anti-invasion/anti-occupation resistance units that operated parallel to the Auxiliary Units. 

Austin J Ruddy's Books

 

Owen Sheers

Owen Sheers was born in Fiji in 1974 and brought up in Abergavenny, South Wales. He was educated at King Henry VIII comprehensive, Abergavenny and New College, Oxford. Owen has won the Eric Gregory Award and the 1999 Vogue Young Writer’s Award. His first collection of poetry, The Blue Book (Seren, 2000) was short-listed for the Welsh Book of the Year and the Forward Prize Best 1st Collection 2001. Owen has also written for Radio, TV and newspapers.

Owen’s first novel about the Auxiliary Units, Resistance (Faber, 2008) won a 2008 Hospital Club Creative Award and was short-listed for the Writers Guild Best Book Award. Resistance is translated into nine languages. Owen’s recent collaboration with composer Rachel Portman, The Water Diviner’s Tale, an oratorio for children, was premiered at the Royal Albert Hall for the BBC Proms 2007. Owen was a 2007 Dorothy and Lewis B. Cullman Fellow at the New York Public Library. He currently divides his time between New York and Wales. You can read more about Owen's Auxiliary related book here. 




If you would like to join CART please email us. Membership is free and you will get a password to access the "Secret Page" on the site where members contact information can be found. Membership status is only given to people who can contribute worthwhile information to the group on a regular basis. 




Paula Pearcey - Group Admin Support & Auxiliary Database Co-Ordinator

Paula is Tom's Fiancée and she introduced the Coleshill site to him at the start of 2009 and has supported the work since then. She regularly listens to long phone calls and helps Tom type up reports and notes for the website. With her ECDL advanced spreadsheets qualification, Paula enjoys playing her part in helping relatives find out more about their Aux family.  Paula also wishes to point out that she does all the trips to the letterbox as well!!

 


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