During WW2 there was a serious threat of invasion to Great Britain by the German Army and to prepare for this Winston Churchill created a secret organisation of Auxillary Units to form a British resistence.
In early 1940 men and women around the country joined up and selected groups went on to be chosen for the secret mission. They also had to sign up to the Official Secrets Act, therefore they were not even able to tell their families what they were part of.
In Newton Poppleford and Southerton there were 8 such men
Sgt Percy Retter, Reginald Stone, George Cross, Jack Pyle,
Arthur Garnsworthy, Frank Haslam, Dan Pring and Arthur Rose
These men were trained to survive in the wild, use automatic weapons, explosives, knives and how to assassinate. So that should the Germans reach British shores the men would secretly and silently leave their lives and families and 'disappear' to their Operational Bases. This was an underground bunker that had been dug and prepared in a hidden copse at the back of Venn Ottery. This bunker overlooked the whole valley enabaling them to keep a lookout whilst remaining hidden. The men were all familiar with the local area and would wait for the right time to surface so that they could ambush enemy transport, dislocate communications and report troop movements. They were to cause as much mayhem to the infrastructure such as the main roads, bridges over the River Otter and railwaylines to restrict the Germans movement and to give our troops a chance to counter attack. They were prepared to assassinate germans and even local collaborators. They only had enough supplies for 2 weeks and then if they survived it was down to each man to survive off the land.
These men could never speak of their involvement with this brave patrol, it wasn't until more recently that the secrets could be told and the men named. Unfortunately many of these men had died and their families still were unaware of the commitment that these men had made for their country. One of the men, Dan Pring died from a shooting accident in 1952 and his family never knew about his involvement with the patrol unit until they inherited a pin badge passed down from him and recognised it after seeing a similar pin in a newspaper report about the secret army.
After the War the locals celebrated VE day at Harpford, entertaining some 50 children to tea and games on a field lent by no less than Mr Dan Pring and in a newspaper report that I found, there were all the names of the children from the families of the other men. They were all involved in the celebrations showing just how close they all must have been.
It could all have been very different for these families, thankfully though the invasion never came, but if the German Army had, the local men were ready for them. The Observational base is still there, hidden in a small copse at the back of Venn Ottery and Southerton, just a concrete shell from a past life.
I have heard a few rumours of some of the ex explosives being used to blow up a tree in the middle of a crop field nearby, with the hope of using the tree for firewood. With the tree being 'well stuffed' with explosives, the tree was blown to smithereens and not much firewood was left!
Due to the secrecy of these patrols the men could never support their patrols on marches during the War or since at Armastice Day parades, but thankfully this has recently been allowed, with supporters marching this year at the Cenotaph.
Thank you to Newton Poppleford Local History group for bringing in Andrew Chatterton from CART to give a very informative talk and thanks to the families for their feed back.
If you knew any of these families or have anything that you may like to add to this story then please let me know.
vennottery@hotmail.co.uk
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