How a secret unit was set as much as defend Fife from Hitler’s Nazis

A highly-secret navy unit was scrambled throughout World Conflict Two to hold out a last-ditch defence of Fife if Adolf Hitler’s Nazis invaded the UK.

The ten-man guerrilla warfare brigade had been set as much as take the struggle to Nazi Germany if Hitler’s Operation Sea Lion was ever given the inexperienced gentle.

The Fife department of Winston Churchill’s so-called secret military was made public many years after the weapons fell silent in a forgotten interview by R. E. Cathcart in 1970.

Cathcart was enrolled in St Monans because the chief of the auxiliary unit in 1940 and instructed his story to the Night Telegraph 30 years after signing the Official Secrets and techniques Act.

Cathcart stated: “Dunkirk was solely every week outdated and the British individuals knew that they had their backs to the wall as Hitler’s hordes ready to pour throughout the channel.

“Like some other outdated soldier of World Conflict One, I realised we had taken a licking and that even the magnificent spirit of Dunkirk couldn’t change armies misplaced in Belgium and France.

“These ideas had been in my thoughts that Wednesday morning as I went from St Monans to Anstruther to do some enterprise on the Nationwide Financial institution within the Excessive Road.

“As I left the constructing, I grew to become conscious that somebody was gazing me exhausting and thoughtfully.

“I gazed again at him with eager curiosity, for in Anstruther a stranger is definitely noticed.

“This man, within the uniform of the Argyll and Sutherland Highlanders, appeared as if he had stepped out of a store window.

“Then the immaculately clothed determine crossed the street in direction of me.

“He launched himself because the Captain Eustace Maxwell.

“Captain Maxwell then requested me if I had been within the First World Conflict.

“I instructed him I had been in France as a lad of 17 with the Royal Garrison Artillery and had been gassed twice.

“This stranger had appeal and character and I discovered him straightforward to speak to, however I puzzled suspiciously how he knew a lot about me.

“Then he got here abruptly to the purpose. He requested if I wish to do a particular obligation throughout the struggle.

“Everyone needs to do one thing particular. However I wished to know what he wished me to do.”

Churchill’s secret military

Captain Maxwell instructed him the work involved “a secret organisation simply in its infancy”.

Cathcart stated: “Only a few knew something about it.

“Within the occasion of the Germans over working the nation, and this appeared very seemingly that summer time day, the motion he was talking about would go to floor.”

This was, after all, an auxiliary unit, generally referred to as “Churchill’s secret military”.

The auxiliary items had been specially-trained, highly-secret quasi navy items created by the British authorities throughout the Second World Conflict.

They might act as a line of inside defence following the anticipated invasion of the UK by Nazi Germany which was given the codename of Operation Sea Lion.

Hitler believed that Operation Sea Lion would have led to the fast conclusion of the struggle after setting in movement preparations for a touchdown on July 16 1940.

Operation Sea Lion

He prefaced the order by stating: “The goal of this operation is to remove the English Motherland as a base from which the struggle towards Germany may be continued, and, if mandatory, to occupy the nation utterly.”

Hitler’s directive set 4 circumstances for the invasion to happen.

The RAF was to be “overwhelmed down in its morale and might not show any considerable aggressive pressure in opposition to the German crossing”.

The English Channel was to be swept of British mines on the crossing factors.

The Strait of Dover needed to be blocked at each ends by German mines and the coastal zone between occupied France and England “dominated by heavy artillery”.

Cathcart stated: “My thoughts was made up; I used to be in.”

From Anstruther, Cathcart and Captain Maxwell drove to a abandoned spot on the Cupar-Crail street and reached Airdrie woods.

Cathcart added: “There he confirmed me a detonator, a stick of gelignite and completely different sorts of makes use of for detonating the explosives.

“Then, within the lonely Fife wooden, I leaned towards a tree and signed the Official Secrets and techniques doc.

“I used to be now enrolled as a member of the Scottish resistance motion.”

Talking in 1970, Cathcart continued: “All of it appears cloak and dagger stuff now, virtually James Bond-ish – however again in 1940, it was grim actuality.

“Britain was preventing for time to regroup her forces and had there been an invasion, we’d have been in a determined plight.”

The haste with which the resistance motion was being organised speaks for itself.

Cathcart noticed Captain Maxwell on the Wednesday, and by the Thursday of the next week, he was on the British headquarters of the motion, at Coleshill Home, eight miles north-east of Swindon.

There, him and the remainder of the recruits, had been instructed in the usage of firearms and plastic explosives, in addition to extra conventional weapons.

Then he was instructed to return residence and arrange his secret unit.

Again to St Monans

Cathcart stated: “Again in St Monans, I approached completely different males I knew and put the proposition to them.

“With out hesitation they accepted, and we had our personal codename – Operation Cromwell.

“Inside days we had been constructing our underground base.

“All of the work needs to be achieved at night time or in our spare time on the weekends.

“It’s not straightforward in a spot the scale of St Monans, with a inhabitants of two,000, to maintain a secret like that.”

However he did.

Their first base was situated on Balcaskie Property in Pittenweem.

Close to an outdated chapel and 12-feet underground, a zigzag tunnel led into the bottom, which additionally had an emergency exit at a close-by barn.

The primary entry to the shelter was the foundation of an outdated beech tree which Cathcart and his males hinged up as a doorway.

Cathcart stated: “By this time I had the rank of Lieutenant, and my second in command was a Mr Pratt from West Finish, St Monans.

“Our different unit members included Lieutenant Crowe, from St Andrews, and Bob Wilson from St Monans.

“These males had been the nucleus of the ten man pressure I wanted to make the bottom operational.

“A grand bunch of males, and eager as mustard.

“No commanding officer might search for higher.”

Fearing discovery

Cathcart continued: “All these clandestine actions had been sure to intrigue our wives however none of them ever inquired as to what we had been even as much as.

“To all appearances, we had been members of the Dwelling Guard.

“The one time we feared discovery was when an outdated woman – who was housekeeper at Balcaskie Home and preferred to stroll within the woods each night time – grew to become fascinated about what we had been doing.

“I instructed her we had been instructed to dig the muse for an enormous gun, however as a builder, I knew the muse wasn’t robust sufficient and the bottom can be restored to his outdated look inside every week or two.

“She accepted this rationalization and went fortunately on her approach.”

They might have been left in peace, however the base’s issues had been simply starting.

“I instructed my males that throughout the day, particularly when going spherical farms, they need to maintain their eyes open for any materials that might go into the constructing.

“We needed to work this fashion as a result of as an auxiliary unit at this stage we had no organisation for indenting for the provides we required by means of regular navy channels.

“My males took me at my phrase.

“At night time, they crept in darkness into farm yards and stealthily eliminated corrugated iron sheeting.

“The farmers weren’t the one ones to endure.

Secret messages

“We had different civilians working for the organisation.

“Their job within the occasion of invasion was to go about their regular work as common, however to maintain their eyes and ears open as to actions and set up of enemy items.

“Something they heard of navy significance was to be handed on.

“A post-box was arrange underneath a pre-selected unfastened stone on a lonely stretch of street.

“The messages can be left there and we’d ship somebody every night time to gather the mail.”

This post-box association additionally helped Cathcart’s base communicate with different items.

Inside two weeks, the St Monans base was operational.

It was the primary of its type in Scotland and Cathcart stated it was “so properly camouflaged that nobody would have recognized we had labored there”.

He stated: “Many individuals handed our tree door entrance – however none noticed it.

“Now all we needed to do was wait.”

The ready sport began in earnest.

Cathcart stated: “In September, the sign we awaited got here by means of.

“The may of the German forces appeared to be on the transfer.”

The German Army and Navy had despatched a lot of river barges and transport ships to the Channel coast.

Cathcart added: “It solely wanted the ultimate phrase for what we all know now was termed Operation Sea Lion to swing into motion and the invasion of Britain to start.

“So the message was flushed to Scotland for all auxiliary items like my very own to go to floor.

“We sat in our hideout questioning not solely what the subsequent few hours however the subsequent few weeks would carry.

“We had iron rations for 4 weeks if mandatory.

“We performed playing cards however nobody’s coronary heart was within the sport.

“Time ticked by with margining small slowness.

“Then after hours of ready we obtained phrase that the alert was over.”

Hitler’s Operation Sea Lion relied on the British residence squadrons being broken or destroyed by air and torpedo assaults.

The Luftwaffe’s failure to realize air supremacy within the Battle of Britain compelled Hitler to postpone Operation Sea Lion indefinitely on September 17 1940.

Fortunately Fife’s ‘secret military’ resistance motion by no means noticed motion however their dogged dedication to defend the dominion in any respect prices stays vastly inspiring.