Peter Kindred grew up in a Suffolk farmhouse that concealed an extraordinary secret. Tucked away among everyday rural life were weapons and explosives from the Second World War, alongside his father’s Home Guard uniform hanging in an upstairs wardrobe. As a child, he assumed they were relics of local defence duty – familiar echoes of “Dad’s Army”.
Only decades later did the family discover the truth: Percy Kindred had been part of a clandestine resistance force created to operate behind enemy lines if Nazi Germany invaded Britain – a mission with little expectation of survival.
The full scale of Percy’s role began to emerge when his granddaughter started a school project on his wartime experiences. Even then, he revealed very little. In 1940, Percy had signed the Official Secrets Act, committing himself to lifelong silence.
Alongside his brother Herman, Percy was recruited into an eight-man operational patrol based in the village of Stratford St Andrew, near the Suffolk coast. The unit formed part of what later became known as the Auxiliary Units – informally dubbed “Churchill’s Secret Army”.
These men were trained as “stay-behinds”. In the event of invasion, they would remain in occupied territory, continuing their normal daytime work while carrying out sabotage missions at night. Their targets would have included railways, supply routes and airfields, launched from concealed underground bunkers known as operational bases.
“These men were expected to hit hard and disappear,” said Chris Pratt, curator of the British Resistance Museum. “If they were captured, they would almost certainly have been executed. It was, in effect, a suicide mission.”
As farmers, Percy and Herman were in a reserved occupation and exempt from conventional military service – a status that made them ideal recruits. They knew the land intimately, could live off it if necessary, and were skilled marksmen. According to Peter Kindred, his father and uncle even supplemented their bunker supplies by quietly shooting pheasants from a neighbouring estate.
The Auxiliary Units were established in the summer of 1940, when Britain stood largely alone against Nazi Germany. While millions joined the Home Guard and defensive barriers were hastily built across the country, a parallel resistance force was organised in secret. Under the leadership of Major General Colin Gubbins, an expert in irregular warfare, Britain became the only occupied-threatened nation to prepare a resistance movement before invasion occurred.
Gubbins modelled the organisation on cellular resistance networks, ensuring that patrols operated independently and knew little about neighbouring units. Around 3,500 men were trained in guerrilla warfare, sabotage and close-quarters combat, many at a headquarters at Coleshill House in Wiltshire.
Alongside the operational patrols were “special duties” sections, made up of civilians such as doctors, clergy and nurses who would continue moving freely during an occupation. They were tasked with gathering intelligence and passing it through secret radio networks, often operated by women of the Auxiliary Territorial Service.
One such courier was Jill Monk, recruited as a schoolgirl in Norfolk. Barely a teenager, she was chosen because her constant riding across the countryside would arouse no suspicion. Elsewhere, wireless operators worked from hidden locations, relaying vital information to British forces.
As the threat of invasion faded, the Auxiliary Units were quietly disbanded by the end of 1944. But their secrecy endured. Percy Kindred brought weapons and explosives from his damp bunker back to the farmhouse, where they remained for years – unnoticed and unexplained.
So complete was the silence that the family only learned long after Percy’s death that another relative on a neighbouring farm had also served in the secret force. It was not until the 1990s, when former members were finally released from their obligations under the Official Secrets Act, that these stories began to surface.
Today, the British Resistance Museum near Stratford St Andrew preserves this hidden chapter of wartime history, including a replica of the Kindreds’ underground base. For Peter Kindred, it has brought clarity to a childhood mystery – and a deeper understanding of a father who prepared, in silence, for a fight he hoped would never come.
