Auxiliary Units

The Auxiliary Units or GHQ Auxiliary Units were specially trained, highly secret units created by the United Kingdom government during the Second World War, with the aim using irregular warfare to help combat any invasion of the United Kingdom by Nazi Germany, which the Germans codenamed Operation Sea Lion. With the advantage of having witnessed the rapid fall of several continental nations, the United Kingdom was the only country during the war that was able to create a multi-layered guerrilla and resistance movement in anticipation of an invasion. The Auxiliary Units would fight as uniformed guerrillas during the military campaign.

Service in the Auxiliary Units was expected to be highly dangerous, with a projected life expectancy of just 12 days for its members; along with orders to either shoot each other or use explosives to kill themselves if capture by an enemy force seemed likely.

Urged on by the War Office, Prime Minister Winston Churchill initiated the Auxiliary Units in the early summer of 1940. This was to counter the civilian Home Defence Scheme already established by SIS (MI6), but outside War Office control. The Auxiliary Units answered to GHQ Home Forces, but were organised as if part of the local Home Guard.

Churchill appointed Colonel Colin Gubbins to found the Auxiliary Units. Gubbins, a regular British Army soldier, had acquired considerable experience and expertise in guerrilla warfare during the Allied intervention in the Russian Civil War in 1919 and in the Irish War of Independence of 1919–1921. Most recently, he had returned from Norway, where he headed the Independent Companies, the predecessors of the British Commandos. In November 1940 Gubbins moved to the Special Operations Executive (SOE).

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