Fighting Nazi Occupation: British Resistance 1939-1945 by Malcolm Atkin

Author:Malcolm Atkin
Language: eng
Format: epub
Tags: HISTORY / Military / World War II
ISBN: 9781473872837
Publisher: Pen and Sword
Published: 2015-09-18T04:00:00+00:00

The role of the Intelligence Officer HQ was left to the discretion of the corps commanders and in the majority of cases the IOs were ordered to go to ground with the rest of the patrols, having already given them instructions for operations.25 But some IOs were ordered to remain with Corps HQ and one had even been tasked with acting as Police Liaison Officer after invasion. The longstanding confusion over the role of IOs is seen in the fact that as late as May 1942, hidden Operational Bases had not been built as IO control centres and not all IOs had wireless communication to Divisional or Corps HQ or to the Scout Patrols. Indeed, some wireless sets had been removed from the IOs. In May 1942 Beyts asked for nineteen WS17 sets for the IOs for them to go to ground, and for underground hides to be built for the IO unit. But by June, the WS17 was out of production and the Auxiliary Units were told that they would have to source them locally.26 The WS17s were needed to maintain contact with both military HQ and Scout Patrols; and finally, on 1 June 1942 authorization was given for the construction of nineteen Operational Bases for IO HQs. Such fundamental weaknesses had increased the questioning of the role and efficiency of the Auxiliary Units at corps level and above. Thus, alongside the final decision to build hidden Zero stations for the SDB, it was only in 1942, almost two years after its formation, that the Auxiliary Units system was finally completed. The invasion threat may have receded considerably and the USA was now in the war and beginning to send troops to the UK, but the Japanese were still advancing in the Far East, Rommel was a threat in the Western Desert, and the war on the Eastern Front wavered back and forth. With British troops hard-pressed in action all over the world, the Auxiliary Units still had some value as an insurance policy against invasion, but they were increasingly difficult to justify.

The final abdication of strategic direction by Auxiliary Units HQ to the army corps was perhaps inevitable given the lack of long-range communications available to the organisation. A similar devolution is also evident in the organisation of the SDB where the Coleshill/Hannington HQ had no control over the assessment or dissemination of any military intelligence gathered, because it was in the hands of Divisional or Corps Intelligence Officers. With the Auxiliary Units more directly subject to local army control, scrutiny intensified over their increasingly dubious anti-invasion role and they had to find a new purpose and direction that still made the most of the skills of the volunteers, but better fitted the immediate needs of the generals commanding the army corps.

The Operational Patrols were reinvented as well-armed reconnaissance teams to counter the anticipated threat of German commando and parachute landings (Fig. 10). In describing this new role, Oxenden displays some contemporary cynicism, describing the rumours of raids as ‘a gift to IOs’ and ‘a wonderful tonic for fading enthusiasm in the ranks’.

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