Uploads from Ian D B

B-17 Flying Fortress 41-9051 'Flaming Mayme'

nobody@flickr.com (Ian D B) — Sat, 18 May 2013 11:37:41 -0700

Ian D B posted a photo:

14 September 1943.

Less than one month after taking command of the newly re-designated 813th Bomb Squadron (formerly 325th BS) Captain William C Anderson, his crew and passengers were killed when their B17 crashed on the upper slopes of Skiddaw in the Lake District, close to the path which slants up from Carl Side to the summit.

The 813 BS was a 'Pathfinder' squadron, equipped with the H2X radar, which had been developed from the British H2S system, the world's first airborne ground scanning radar.

They were undertaking a navigation exercise flying from RAF Alconbury in Cambridgeshire to RAF Turnhouse near Edinburgh when the aircraft crashed in low cloud. They may have been preparing to land, possibly the navigator - unused to the nature of flying in British weather - was unaware the aircraft was a long way off course.

CREW & PASSENGERS
Captain William C Anderson
First Lieutenant Robert J Sudbury
Captain Raymond R Oeftiger
Second Lieutenant Raymond E Diltz
Staff Sergeant Bryson R Hills
Staff Sergeant Robert L Jacobsen
Major Tom C Henderson
Major Henry B Williams
First Lieutenant Clarence H Ballagh
First Lieutenant Theodore R Doe

Dambusters 70th Anniversary

nobody@flickr.com (Ian D B) — Thu, 16 May 2013 10:50:31 -0700

Ian D B posted a photo:

16th May 2013

Dambusters 70th Anniversary

nobody@flickr.com (Ian D B) — Thu, 16 May 2013 10:39:10 -0700

Ian D B posted a photo:

Flypast today at Derwent Reservoir in the Peak District where 617 Squadron trained for the operation.

I have cloned out all the people watching from the opposite bank.

Liverpool Blitz, Then & Now

nobody@flickr.com (Ian D B) — Wed, 15 May 2013 11:35:56 -0700

Ian D B posted a photo:

Bomb damage at James Street, Liverpool after the raid on the night of 2/3 May 1941.

Liverpool Blitz Memorial

nobody@flickr.com (Ian D B) — Tue, 14 May 2013 10:19:36 -0700

Ian D B posted a photo:

This memorial has a mother clutching her baby with one arm while reaching up the steps to her son who is preoccupied with his toy aircraft (which appears to be a twin engined bomber of some type).

Around four thousand civilians were killed during the bombing of Liverpool.

View On Black

Messerschmitt Me410 Hornisse A-1/U2 Werk Nummer 420430

nobody@flickr.com (Ian D B) — Mon, 13 May 2013 12:23:54 -0700

Ian D B posted a photo:

One of just two surviving Me410s, this one is at the RAF Museum in Cosford. The other is currently in deep storage at the American National Air and Space Museum.

Note the bomb bay beneath the nose.

The Me410 was known as a Zerstörer (destroyer). Their role was as a light bomber or a bomber destroyer (see contemporary photo below).

The Me410 was the final version of the Me210 which had been dogged by design flaws.

Me210s were so notoriously dangerous, killing numerous test pilots and crews, that the final version had its name changed from 210 to 410 to avoid the bad association.

The delays in getting the design right played a significant part in Germany's defeat in the air; so much time and money was spent on trying to fix the problems that by the time the Me410 became operational in 1943 it was already outdated and could not compete with the long range P51 Mustangs defending American bomber streams.

See this pdf for full history of A-1/U2

www.rafmuseum.org.uk/documents/collections/85-AF-78-Me-41...

Engine run after restoration in the 80s

clip on Youtube

Liverpool Blitz, Then & Now.

nobody@flickr.com (Ian D B) — Tue, 30 Apr 2013 12:58:27 -0700

Ian D B posted a photo:

This is the HMV shop window in Liverpool. It is on South John Street within the shopping and leisure complex at Liverpool One. The girls in the old photo below would today be walking past this window, albeit in mid air...

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This Google map shows where many of the Luftwaffe bombs fell on Liverpool

maps.google.co.uk/maps/ms?ie=UTF8&t=m&vpsrc=6&amp...

Liverpool Blitz, Then & Now

nobody@flickr.com (Ian D B) — Sun, 28 Apr 2013 14:39:36 -0700

Ian D B posted a photo:

This is Sidney Road in Bootle where bombs fell on September 2 1940. Being close to the docks, Bootle got it bad.

Been busy with work for the past week, am way behind with everyone again but will catch up soon.

I've had to clone in part of the roof on the right (it's far from perfect), the original photo didn't have that bit and as can be seen from the photo below, there is now no continuation of the roof. Original image from Liverpool Picturebook (I think - I have saved lots of old images but didn't always record the source). It is still worth a plug, having a fantastic collection of old photos of Liverpool.
www.liverpoolpicturebook.com/p/l1.html

Godwin Battery, Yorkshire

nobody@flickr.com (Ian D B) — Mon, 22 Apr 2013 11:50:59 -0700

Ian D B posted a photo:

This WWI gun battery has fallen into the sea, the result of some serious coastal erosion. Even just standing there you can see the cliffs crumbling before your eyes. These photos show Al (Highy) who showed us around.

Details here from Pastscape;

Fort Godwin was a coastal battery built to defend the ports along the Humber estuary. It opened in 1915 and was constructed for two 9.2-inch guns. The battery was in use throughout WW1 and modified during the WW2. In 1940 it was equipped with a 4-inch gun and a new pair of searchlights.

www.pastscape.org.uk/hob.aspx?hob_id=929478&sort=4&am...

See also Paul's stream showing the erosion and remains.

www.flickr.com/photos/pasujoba44/8440785132/

The National Picture Theatre, Hull.

nobody@flickr.com (Ian D B) — Sun, 21 Apr 2013 06:34:16 -0700

Ian D B posted a photo:

This is the facade of what was the National Picture Theatre on Beverley Road in Hull. It is believed to be the last remaining ruin of a civilian building from the Blitz in Britain.

It was hit at about 10pm on March 17th 1941. Incredibly all 150 people inside survived when a parachute mine exploded at the other end of the cinema; they had been unable to leave when the air raid alert sounded, so sheltered in the strengthened lobby of the building.

The film they had been watching was Charlie Chaplin's "The Great Dictator"!

There is currently a dispute over whether the Grade II listed building should be turned into a memorial or whether it should be converted into apartments and a restaurant. Please see the link in the comments below about the campaign to prevent that.

Google Stree View here

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The Bombing of Hull

Although various cities claim to be second only to London in being bombed by the Luftwaffe, Hull was probably the city which suffered the most.

Being a relatively easy target for Luftwaffe crews both in terms of navigaton and air defence, Hull was attacked throughout the war from start to finish. As well as being targetted specifically for its industry and port, Hull also took bombs meant for but not dropped on other Northern cities; unused bombs were sometimes dumped on Hull before crews made their way back to mainland Europe.

1,185 people in Hull were killed by German bombs during the war, of which one fifth were children.

Only 5,945 of the 92,660 homes in Hull had escaped bomb damage.

1,472 buildings were totally destroyed, 2,882 were so badly damaged that demolition was necessary.

data from wikipedia
en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hull_Blitz

Wellington bomber HF613 near Castleton, Derbyshire

nobody@flickr.com (Ian D B) — Sun, 14 Apr 2013 12:26:21 -0700

Ian D B posted a photo:

15 February 1943

Wellington HF613 took off from a satellite base of RAF Wellesbourne Mountford which is near Stratford and was home to No 22 Operational Training Unit.

The largely Canadian crew were on a cross country navigation exercise with the pilot, Sergeant Kester warned to keep an eye out for and not to enter storm clouds.

80 miles north of their base and over the Hope Valley in the Peak District, the bomber did just that although whether Sgt Kester had any choice in the matter is another thing.

Eye witnesses interviewed by Pat Cunningham in 2006 said they heard the bomber approach from Bradwell, flew over the cement works then it sounded like it was trying to turn around.

What happened inside that storm cloud can never be known, but Cunningham suggests the pilot, with just 22 hours solo experience of flying Wellingtons, was suddenly having to go from visual flying to relying on instruments - in a cockpit suddenly darkened by the storm and with updrafts and turbulence to cope with as well.

Moments later the Wellington went into a powered dive, crashing 1km east of the village of Castleton at Peakshole Water, killing all on board.

This memorial plaque is placed close to the impact point. There is a young Canadian Maple tree planted beside it.

CREW
Sgt John Douglas Kester, RCAF, pilot
Sgt Richard Foote Cairns, RCAF, navigator
Sgt Bernard Elliott Wilkinson, RCAF, bomb aimer
Sgt William Arthur Billy Marwood, RAFVR, wireless op / air gunner
Sgt William James Hackett, RCAF, air gunner.

Kilnsea Sound Mirror

nobody@flickr.com (Ian D B) — Thu, 11 Apr 2013 12:49:56 -0700

Ian D B posted a photo:

This concrete structure dates from WWI and is at Kilnsea in Yorkshire.

Before the advent of radar in WWII, sound mirrors were devices positioned around the south and east coasts to try to detect incoming German bombers and airships.

The metal post in front of the mirror had a microphone attached to gather the reflected sounds.

_________________________________________________________________

This page will tell you lots about the development of acoustic location.

www.aqpl43.dsl.pipex.com/MUSEUM/COMMS/ear/ear.htm

This page has more with a map showing the location of sound mirrors.

www.andrewgrantham.co.uk/soundmirrors/

Warth Mills Prisoner of War Camp

nobody@flickr.com (Ian D B) — Sun, 31 Mar 2013 13:08:34 -0700

Ian D B posted a photo:

This photo shows Monkey Bridge (which carries the Bury - Manchester line) over the River Irwell at Bury and the eastern corner of what was Warth Mills POW camp. Not easy to see in this light, but by the water's edge is a small section of the original perimeter wall. This was my stomping grounds as a kid.

The conditions at Warth Mills Internment Camp for 'enemy' civilians have already been described here.
www.flickr.com/photos/maycontaintracesofnuts/8605989432/

_______________________________________________________________

Prisoners of War

After the camp was considerably 'reconditioned', German and Italian prisoners of war started to use it. Initially the prisoners were U-boat crews and Luftwaffe crews but after Normandy there was a huge surge in Heer (Army) and SS prisoners. By the time the camp was decommissioned in 1947, over 100,000 prisoners had spent time at Warth Mills.

POWs were categorised according to the strength of their political views and also their role within the Wehrmacht and they wore a patch on their uniform to show that. Those deemed 'White' were considered less extreme, Grey POWs were somewhere in the middle and Black POWs were ardent Nazis; SS, paratroopers and U-boat crews were automatially graded Black. Their grading also determined where in the country they went. Those considered to be a greater risk were sent further north (or to North America).

POWs were put to work earning the going union rates for their labour and received the same rations as British servicemen meaning they were better fed than British civilians.

Escape attempts from Warth

There were several attempts to escape but no German prisoners managed to leave the country. One got as far north as Kendal, while two others made it to London before being caught.

In 1942 a couple of prisoners were recaptured 'on the moors crouching behind a stone wall' according to the Bury Times. A Mr Tom Milburn apprehended them. One of the Germans spoke a little English. He grinned and said, "A bit of luck!" Mr Milburn said the German asked him the name of the town they had come from. Mr Milburn told him it was Liverpool. "They both laughed because they knew I wasn't telling the truth" he said.

See also comments below.

POWs and the public

The people of Bury had some awareness of the prisoners. The odd escape attempt was reported in the Bury Times (which by 1945 was identifying Warth Mills by name) and people would have seen the camp from the train to Manchester. Some people will have also seen, especially after D-Day in 1944, German POWs being marched from Knowsley Street Station down Manchester Road and turning right at Radcliffe Road (at the corner of which there was a public air raid shelter which we used to play in as kids, but it has now been filled in) and on to the camp. Other civilians would have worked alongside some POWs.

The Bury Times of 1st March 1945 had the headline NAZI POW KISSED NURSES IN KITCHEN OF BURY HOSPITAL adding that one had even proposed marriage. Some of the nurses at the Florence Nightingale Hospital in Bury were Irish but all 5 involved were still bound by and prosecuted under the Internees Access and Communications Order of 1942. Most were fined and/or lost their jobs. The prisoners were moved to other camps.

In October 1942, a young lad told his pal that he had seen Italian prisoners with their hands tied behind their backs at Bolton Street Station in Bury. His mate grassed on him and he was fined £1 plus paid 15 shillings expenses. Alderman Whitehead told him "You ought to have more sense and be careful in your conversation about war. You never know who is listening."

(That the same year a mother of 9 children aged between 4 months and 13 years was fined the same amount for neglecting her children, the NSPCC reporting her for going out at night and leaving them all - babies as well - alone in front of an unguarded fire and also for generally not providing adequate food, clothing or maintaining their good hygiene)

Warth Mills on OS Map

This map shows most of the POW camps in Britain. There was one near you!

Warth Mills Internment Camp.

nobody@flickr.com (Ian D B) — Sun, 31 Mar 2013 02:59:10 -0700

Ian D B posted a photo:

Photographed at dawn, these are the original cotton mill buildings in the middle of what is now Warth Business Park on Radcliffe Road in Bury.

_________________________________________________________________________

When I was at school (Derby High School) in Bury there was a paint factory next door called MacPhersons. We knew it used to be a Prisoner of War camp and our cross country running route took us past the old concrete walls and barbed wire posts which are still there today (see photo below).

Researching the history of Warth Mills POW Camp has revealed a disturbing side to Britain’s wartime history though, one which most history books and museums gloss over or don’t mention at all; the treatment of many thousands of 'enemy' civilians, most of them Jewish refugees who had fled persecution in Germany. Of all the research into Bury’s local history undertaken I have not found one single reference to the conditions there. Indeed, the book “Bury and the Second World War” (see sources below) gives just three sentences to the subject and says nothing at all of the conditions.

I was going to present this as one history about Warth POW camp but the subject deserves to be recorded separately so I will do another piece later about Warth Mills' use for military prisoners.

There were a handful of internee camps around the country but the one at Warth Mills in Bury was – according to every account I have read – the most notorious of all.

That is not to say Jewish refugees were murdered or forced into slave labour at Warth Mills but their treatment is still shameful occurring at a time we nationally consider to be our finest hour (1940, Dunkirk and the Battle of Britain etc).

Initially when war was declared in September 1939 all Germans and Italians in Britain (some 80,000 of them) underwent a process where they were categorised according to risk to national security.

However, once Germany had occupied France and the invasion of Britain seemed imminent, Churchill decided to “collar the lot” and every German and Italian, regardless of their ethnicity or reason for being in the UK was imprisoned. While that seems understandable – and graciously a great many refugees did not hold that against the authorities even though they were split up from their families and denied letters or radio and newspapers – the treatment of them, particularly at Bury, is indefensible.

It is hard to comprehend now but Jewish people, many of whom had been in concentration camps, were locked up with other Germans who were Nazis. Fights and suicides were common.

Conditions were so bad at Warth that the place was condemned as unfit for habitation by the Red Cross. Inmates had no beds, just wooden boards or slept on the floor with little or no bedding, no heating and no electricity. 2,000 people were at Warth in 1940 with reportedly just 18 water taps and only one bathtub. There were no toilets either just some buckets in the yard.

The place was rat infested, the food scarce and vile and prisoners had to eat standing up because there were no tables. The roof leaked rain, the inmates were denied medicine and medical treatment and received no information about their families.

To add to the internees' misery, the guards stole from them and the Commandant, a Major A J Braybrook with the Territorial Army was later convicted (July 25 1941) of stealing money and property to the value of between fifty and sixty thousand pounds from the Jewish internees.

Churchill decided to further reduce the perceived risk posed by these people by shipping them off to camps in Canada and Australia. 1,216 internees, many of whom would have been at Bury, boarded the SS Arandora Star on July 1st 1940 which was not escorted by destroyers for the Atlantic crossing. It was sunk the day after by a U-boat off the coast of Ireland. 630 internees drowned.

The sinking created a big change in public opinion and the practice of locking up all civilians or shipping them overseas gradually ceased. By early 1941 the majority had been released.

Warth Mills ceased to be an internment camp and instead became a Prisoner of War camp after being 'reconditioned'.

Some sources

Warth Mill Remembered Kenneth F Sheridan, Association of Jewish Refugees magazine (page 3), June 1990. This short first-hand account by a former internee at Warth is well worth reading.
www.ajr.org.uk/journalpdf/1990_june.pdf

Court of Inquiry Report into the manner in which Major Braybrook, Commandant at Warth, was investigated.
webcache.googleusercontent.com/search?q=cache:n54kK4lTvAE...

Bury and the Second World War, Ken Inman and Michael H Helm, 1995.

Remembering Refugees Then and Now, Tony Kushner, 2006

An Italian Hero in Lancashire.

nobody@flickr.com (Ian D B) — Wed, 27 Mar 2013 16:19:49 -0700

Ian D B posted a photo:

The photo above shows the place where the girls in this story fell into the River Irwell at Burrs in the north of Bury.

The ghostly face top right is the only image I could find of Santo Verde, the hero of this story. It is from the Bury Times of April 25 1945 which ran with the headline

CORONER PRAISES GALLANTRY OF ITALIAN PRISONERS OF WAR
Helped with Civilian to Rescue Drowning Children

It is a remarkable story - a POW who was chatting with a local man heard a young girl scream. He saw her and her sister being swept down the River Irwell so he dived in and saved one of them, sacrificing his own life. The public response was as touching as his heroism.

________________________________________________________________

19 April 1945. Santo Verde was aged 27 and a prisoner stationed at Burrs Hostel and working at the Star Bleach Works (the whole area is now Burrs Country Park). In peacetime Santo was a farmer from Sant' Antimo near Naples. He had been captured in Libya.

The girls were 5 yr old Betty Goodwin and her sisters 8 year old Alma and 10 year old Catherine.

They were paddling in the water beneath the arches where it wasn't so deep but Catherine and Betty slipped and were swept downstream.

Hearing their screams Mr Albert Poxton of Stock Street, Bury dived in and, struggling against the current, managed to rescue Catherine. She clung to his back as he swam to a less deep part of the river, whereupon he collapsed and they were pulled out of the water.

Santo also dived in with his pals trying to help too. Santo pushed 5 year old Betty to an island in the river. But as Cpl Major Pasquale Marocco helped the girl, Santo got into difficulties. He “flung up his hands and came up two or three times then disappeared”.

He drowned in 15 feet of water, the current being too strong for his other comrades as they also tried to help him. They were;

Guiseppe Sodano
Salvatore Lopolo
Pasquale Tenora
Paolo Liguori
Enrico de Nunzio.

The Inquest

At the inquest Coroner Col R M Barlow questioned the wisdom of the girls' mother letting those 3 young children play out by the river. Mrs Louisa Goodwin said that she had 6 kids one of whom was a baby and she wasn't able to look after them all. Colonel Barlow asked if she couldn’t have found help or clubbed together with other mums. He said that he is “constantly sitting in this court hearing of deaths yet we go on allowing people to be in the position of this mother”. Where damage from enemy activity is concerned, he said, we all come together, and go to a lot of trouble, so why does the same community spirit not extend to providing care for dependents? The coroner ensured the heroism of Santo Verde and the others in this story was recognised by the Royal Humane Society and there was some financial reward for the men too.

The Funeral

On April 28 the Bury Times further reported
VILLAGE WILL TEND GRAVE OF ITALIAN PRISONER
WOMEN WEEP AT FUNERAL

"The name of Santo Verde will long be remembered in the tiny Bury village of Burrs" the paper reported. The girls family wrote a letter to Verde’s mother “waiting in a small town (near) Naples for the return of her soldier son.”

Villagers promised to tend the grave and keep fresh flowers on it.

The Bury Times reported that more than 150 people attended the funeral. The Italian flag draped Santo Verde's coffin which was carried by 6 of his comrades. He was buried at Gigg Lane cemetery next to another Italian soldier.

Both bodies apparently were exhumed in 1958 and transferred to the Italian Military Cemetery at Brookwood in Surrey.

Note; there's not much on the internet about this story but there is a recent comment on the Lancashire Fusliers Message Board providing some info but credit should be given to the publication below from which it has been copied.

Unsung Hero by J Dunleavy, Backhill - Rivista Della Comunita' Italiana, September 1993, page 14.
backhillonline.com/assets/files/pdf/1993/SEPTEMBER_93.pdf

The only bad thing about burning your bridges behind you, is that the world is round.

nobody@flickr.com (Ian D B) — Mon, 25 Mar 2013 11:53:38 -0700

Ian D B posted a photo:

Gunstone Brothers' graves, Luke Copse CWGC

nobody@flickr.com (Ian D B) — Sun, 24 Mar 2013 12:30:36 -0700

Ian D B posted a photo:

These are the graves of two brothers from Sheffield who died together on the first day of the Battle of the Somme, July 1st 1916. They are buried where they fell which is the tradition of British and Commonwealth armed forces.

The manner of recruitment during WW1 saw the formation of Pals Battalions where brothers, friends and workmates from one town all joined up together, trained together and, when they left their trenches and marched into a hail of machine gun bullets, they died together. The result was that entire towns and villages lost many of their young men in one day.

Two such men were Frank Gunstone and his younger brother William.

You can see their numbers 660 and 661 and can picture them in Sheffield stood next to each other in the queue to join up, the older of the two stepping forward first. It is easy to imagine them proud in their uniforms, showing off to their family and maybe their girlfriends and then going off to France to fight for their King and Country...

And visiting Luke Copse cemetary which is right in front of the remains of their trench you can, with next to no effort, picture their Commanding Officer blowing his whistle and the two brothers - who had never before been in battle - climbed the ladder out of the trench and were immediately cut down.

The Pals Battalions - working class lads from towns such as Accrington, Barnsley and Salford fell here in great numbers but didn't gain any ground. On that first day, nearly 20 thousand British men were killed.

While it is not difficult to imagine lads like the Gunstone brothers dying in the field, the enormous casualty figures are too high to really appreciate. New Zealand, for instance, suffered casualties in 6 weeks at the Somme that amounted to 1% of the entire population of the country.

By the end of the 20 week long Battle of the Somme, nearly a third of a million men of all nationalities had been killed - and the Allies had advanced 6 miles.

War Weapons Week

nobody@flickr.com (Ian D B) — Sun, 17 Mar 2013 14:16:31 -0700

Ian D B posted a photo:

This composite doesn't really stand up to close scrutiny - I have erased and cloned and generally buggered about with it just to get this bit lined up. I couldn't get the same position as the photographer without having a wall and a tree in my view - Ramsbottom Market Place has changed a bit over the past 70 odd years. But the Grants Arms is still there.

The original photo showed a demonstration in Ramsbottom during War Weapons Week (April 26th - May 3rd 1941) of what was then a state of the art British 25 pounder field gun.

Old photo from Ramsbottom Heritage Society. Visit them here.

www.ramsbottomheritage.org.uk/cpg/index.php

A final amount of £1,150,000 was raised by the people of Bury.
(Inman & Helm, 'Bury and the Second World War', 1995).

Air Raids on Bury, Lancashire.

nobody@flickr.com (Ian D B) — Fri, 15 Mar 2013 02:35:29 -0700

Ian D B posted a photo:

This is a record of the Luftwaffe air raids on Bury during World War 2 excluding the V1 attack at Christmas 1944.

There may well have been more than those recorded here and I still have some more research to do, but I believe this piece covers them all.

The reason I have added it is because there is very little on the internet or in print about air raids on Bury. That is probably because Bury suffered very little - at least until Christmas 1944 when out of the blue a V1 struck at Tottington killing 7 people. Until then, there had been no deaths in Bury as a result of German bombs, though one source contradicts that.

Thus the inhabitants of Bury were very fortunate, the majority of bombs landing in fields and gardens rather than on houses.

The image above shows Walker's Field from Chesham Road where one bomb fell - please see below under October 12 1941 for details.

Regarding the attacks it is doubtful the pilots of the Luftwaffe bombers knew quite where they were. Some may have been opportunist attacks but other sources evidence all these attacks happened during air raids on Manchester, so it is probable the bomber crews thought they were attacking the city or intended to attack the city but could not find their target.

Re; the info below, anything in italics is a quote from the Bury Times of the time. The reason the paper is vague about locations is so as to not provide the enemy with intelligence.

For more photos and stuff about Air Raids on Northern England, please see this photo set.

Air Raids & Bomb Sites

British Resistance base

nobody@flickr.com (Ian D B) — Mon, 11 Mar 2013 11:55:01 -0700

Ian D B posted a photo:

Last summer Al showed me round some curious historical places in Lincolnshire including the little known remains of an Operational Base of the British Resistance dating from 1941.

This view shows him on a fallen tree which lies across what was probably the collapsed ammunition store. The breeze-block built hole beyond is the entrance to the emergency exit tunnel.

This website has all you could want to know about the British Resistance, and this particular page has a cutaway diagram of a typical OB.

www.coleshillhouse.com/bunkers.php

The Auxilliary Units were created after the fall of France when it was expected that Hitler would invade Britain. The units were made up of soldiers and civilians (farmers, poachers etc, people who knew the land) and they were trained in guerrilla warfare.

Members of a unit, say half a dozen men, would not know the identities of other units and they would've had a very short life expectancy, maybe two weeks.

They were to use hideouts like this which were well hidden, and then carry out sabotage attacks from behind enemy lines.

Apart from the their short life expectancy, it is certain, going off the behaviour of the Nazis elsewhere, that such activities would have seen the populations of entire British villages murdered in revenge for partisan attacks.