HOW TOP SECRET BRITISH CIVILIANS PREPARED TO FIGHT TO THE BITTER END TO DEFEND THEISLES FROM GERMAN INVADERS. . . . and Churchill wasn’t promising granddads with brooms, rakes, and pitchforks. He wasgathering volunteers, top secret and superbly trained, to ruthlessly attack and slaughter theNazis wherever and whenever they could. Those civilians unwilling or unable to prepare hard inpain and hardship, who were depressed because defeat was inevitable and living under theHitler jackboot acceptable were not wanted. On 4 June 1940, the Prime Minister broadcast thereality of the situation for the British people, that only the bravest citizen volunteers were nowbeing sought to join those 300,000 plus resolute troops returning from Dunkirk to regroup tofight to the bitter end . . .“We shall go on to the end, we shall continue to fight in France, we shall fight on the seasand oceans, we shall fight with the growing confidence and growing strength in the air, weshall defend our Island, whatever the cost may be, we shall fight on the beaches, we shallfight on the landing grounds, we shall fight in the fields and in the streets, we shall fight inthe hills, we shall never surrender.”
Reviewed and highly recommended by Don DeNevi
“BRITAIN’S SECRET DEFENCES – Civilian Saboteurs, Spies and Assassins During the SecondWorld War”, by Andrew Chatterton. CASEMATE Publishers: 2022, 205 pages, hc; $37.95. See:
www.casematepublishers.com, or email, casemate@casematepublishers.com
This splendid, long awaited, book tells the hitherto untold story of highly secret networks ofBritish civilian volunteers created virtually overnight to thwart, then counterattack, possibleGerman invasion forces all along the English Channel coastline. From saboteurs emerging fromdisguised underground bunkers the length of the country to vicars and doctors passing oninformation about the invading army via wireless sets, the defence of Britain was not in thehands of dad’s and granddads’ sticks and stones, but in the very capable hands of highly trainedsaboteurs, guerrilla fighter, spies, and assassins. No question about it: Hitler’s Wehrmacht andSS troopers were in for a surprise should they reach beyond the beaches of Great Britain.Andrew Chatterton is a respected World War II historian and public relations professional inEngland. Focusing on Churchill’s secret layers of civilian defences those harrowing months of
1940 when uncertainty was at its height. His 12 years of meticulous research and smooth, easy
to read narration, revolved around the documents of all Britain’s Auxiliary Units and SpecialDuties Branches, as he fulfilled a voluntary role in the Coleshill Auxiliary Research Team.Author Chatterton points out that alongside these secret forces, the Home Guard were alsosetting up their own “guerrilla groups”, and the SIS (M16) were creating post-occupationgroups of civilians, including teenagers, to act as sabotage cells, wireless operators, andassassins. The civilians involved in these groups understood the need for absolute secrecy andtheir commitment to keeping quiet meant that most went to their grave without ever tellinganyone of their role, not even their closest family members. There has been no official and littlepublic recognition of what these dedicated men and women were willing to do for their countryin its hour of need. Finally, after eighty years plus of silence, Chatterton has said silence need bebroken. The time has come to highlight their remarkable roles. Truly, this is a must read forthose seriously interested in all the heroic actions generally known but rarely mentioned indetail we approach the 8th decade World War II ended. British Andrew Chatterton is to becommended. Now, we can hope for his next venture into the untold stories of absolute
resoluteness for the growing Allied military literature.
