Sam Biles on War

This is the Auxiliary Units. So in the Second World War, Churchill set up a very secret organisation called the Auxiliary Units and they were on the Island, run by a chap called Colonel Blishen who lived in a house as you drive up from Arreton Cross up to Robin Hill and he was in overall charge and Richard Fisk from Chiltern Farm, his father Jim Fisk was the Commander of the West Wight lot and my grandfather Harold was involved and it was made up of farmers and Hunt people and Gamekeepers, people who knew the countryside and could move around at night and they were basically saboteurs.

And so they had what they were called ‘OB’s’ Operational Bases which would have been buried Nissan huts probably about 20 feet by 12 feet in which if the Germans had invaded, they would have disappeared into these Bases, there was probably about 12 over the Island and then when the Germans had swept over the Island, they would have then popped up and they would have first of all killed the Chief Constable because  he was the only one who knew all their names.

They would have killed any likely collaborators, assassinated them, and then they would have assassinated German Officers and sabotaged railway lines, bridges, and everything, just causing as much havoc as they could to delay the German advance.

And this is probably at the end of the War, they probably had a photograph before they all stood down. But it’s a very interesting period of history and I don’t think people really realise what a front line situation the Isle of Wight was in.