Today marks the 50th anniversary of the death of Sir Winston Churchill.
Thank you on behalf of a grateful nation for guiding us through dark days and ensuring we had a well equipped and well prepared resistance force.
On 2 July 1940 Winston Churchill and the War Cabinet stated that:-
“The regular defences require supplementing with guerrilla type troops, who will allow themselves to be overrun and who thereafter will be responsible for hitting the enemy in the comparatively soft spots behind zones of concentrated attack”
Winston Churchill to Anthony Eden, 25th September 1940 stated:
“I have been following with much interest the growth and development of the new Guerrilla formations……known as ‘Auxiliary Units’. From what I hear these units are being organised with thoroughness and imagination and should, in the event of invasion, prove a useful addition to the regular forces”.
The guerrilla type troops Churchill described became known as the GHQ Auxiliary Units or British Resistance Organisation. Colonel Colin McVean Gubbins then established a network of civilian saboteurs to attack invading German forces from behind their lines.