One of Curchill's secret soldiers!

[Moshemotom]

Hello there

What I'm showing you is quite a special collection belonging to a Auxiliary unit soldier, known by most as a member of Churchill secret army. These men (only 3500 total members in the UK out of the whopping 1.5 million home guard members) were secretly hand picked from a regions home guard (in this case, Herefordshire's 3rd Home guard) and put into 4-8 men units known as patrols. They would then attend special secret classes every Sunday at colehill house, teaching them the art of Demolition, Silent killing and many other skills which may be required by such a specialist force. During the week the men would then return to their Home Guard duties and no one was any the wiser.

Neither the home guards units these men were picked from or even their families knew of their new role as a form of preemptive 'British resistance' and the person in question here didn't ever tell his family of his true role in the war. It was only after his death just under two years ago that they got in touch with the war office and learned the truth. More info on the organisation in general can be found here - Auxiliary Units - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia - and here - Auxiliary Units | A comprehensive online resource | The Aux Units were Britain`s secret resistance organisation formed to fight behind the lines in the event of a Nazi invasion. .

This man in particular, John Ryan, was a member of the 'Caleb' Patrol, who's Operational Base (OB) was based on Dinedor Hill overlooking the Wye valley. Their targets, should the Germans ever successfully invade, were the railway and The Royal Ordnance factory at Rotherwas.

Caleb Patrol consisted of:
Sgt Angus Wilson
Cpl Dennis Howard-Smith
Pte John Cleland
Pte John Ryan
Pte Ernest Tisdale
Pte Leslie Hoddell
Pte C.H.Williams

In a strange turn of events, it is believed that this OB on Dinedor hill was actually abandoned mid war after an Army officer discovered it. Now you would expect an Army officer who discovered a secret hideout containing beds and rations to report it as possible German espionage wouldn't you? Well not this bloke, instead he began to use it for regular 'Romantic meetings' with some of his lady friends! Crafty bugger!

The medal and Home guard certificate obviously make no mention of his true role because they had no idea about it either but luckily, through some investigation by the family, we are able to unearth the truth about John Ryan's war.

Sorry for the wordiness of the post but without all of this background, its hard to appreciate this for what it really is. (You may need to click on the Article picture and click again to zoom in to be able to see the text properly, its well worth a read.)
I hope you find it as interesting as I do!

Let me know what you think
Tom

[SteveR]

Great award for special men.