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 of resisting the expected occupation of the United Kingdom by Nazi Germany, after a planned invasion codenamed Operation Sea Lion. Having had the advantage of seeing the fall of several Continental nations, the United Kingdom was the only country during the war that was able to create such a resistance movement in advance of an invasion.
The units, sometimes referred to as a part of the British Resistance Organisation, were initiated by Winston Churchill in the early summer of 1940. He appointed Colonel Colin Gubbins to found them. The Auxiliary Units answered to GHQ Home Forces, but were organised as if part of the local Home Guard.
Gubbins was a regular British Army soldier, who had acquired considerable experience and expertise in guerrilla warfare during the Allied intervention in the Russian Civil War and the Anglo-Irish War. Most recently, he had returned from Norway, where he headed the Independent Companies, the predecessors of the British Commandos. Subsequently, he would move to the Special Operations Executive (SOE).
Read more about Auxiliary Units: Beginnings, Special Duty Sections and Signals, Operational Patrols, Cultural References
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