The Shadows of War is a novel. Its village is real, but its characters are invented, and none of them stands for any of the real men and women named on this page. What follows is history, drawn from the book’s Afterword and from the research credited at the foot of the page.Check against final Afterword
The Auxiliary Units
The Auxiliary Units were formed in July 1940 as a secret stay-behind resistance force. Their Operational Patrols were small groups of local men.
Bodiam had an Operational Patrol, in Sussex Area 13, Group One. Area headquarters were at Tottington Manor, Small Dole.
The men
Its commander was Sergeant Sydney John Brabon of Udiam, a farm tractor driver. The men came from Udiam, Bodiam, Ewhurst and Hurst Green, and joined between the summer of 1940 and early 1942.
- Sydney John BrabonSergeant, of Udiam. Farm tractor driver
- Stanley George BarberHead gardener
- Arthur BrabonFarm labourer
- Wilfred Walter EnsumDairy farmer
- Ernest William Ades GoodsellCoal merchant and clerk
- Frank William JarvisFarm manager
- Louis OrsbournFarm tractor driver and mechanic
- Jack ShoobridgeFarm tractor driver
- William Charles SimmonsGeneral farm labourer
- Edward David SmithLorry driver and farm worker
Most of them worked for Guinness Hop Farms, part of Arthur Guinness Son & Co., which grew some 965 acres of hops around Bodiam and Udiam.
No woman is known to have served in an Operational Patrol in this part of Sussex. As far as current research goes, the Bodiam patrol appears to have been all male.
The base in the Round Wood
The patrol’s base was of corrugated iron and timber, dug into the side of a steep wooded gully known locally as the Round Wood. Jon Burgess saw its remains with his father in the mid-1960s. Its exact place is now lost.Add Jon Burgess quotation from Afterword
After the stand-down, Udiam Farm was used as a store for Auxiliary Units arms.
The women of Heathfield
The secret war around Bodiam was not only the patrols. The Special Duties Branch was a separate intelligence network of civilian observers, civilian wireless operators, and control (“Zero”) stations manned by the Royal Signals and the ATS.
The Operational Patrols
Small groups of local men, like the ten of the Bodiam patrol.
Special Duties
Observers, wireless operators and Zero stations. In Sussex, three stations, each worked by three ATS women.
The patrols and Special Duties were kept apart on purpose. The men of Bodiam and the women of Heathfield did not work side by side.
Sussex had three Zero stations: at Heathfield in East Sussex, and near Shipley and at Wakehurst Place in West Sussex. Each was worked by three ATS women, under Beatrice Temple, the senior ATS commander in the Auxiliary Units.
Beatrice Temple’s diary records “Heathfield went to Zero” on 4 September 1943, and a meeting with Subaltern Kitty Hills at Heathfield on 10 November 1943, as the station was closing. They cleared the hut together on the 12th.Author checking diary wording
The stand-down
The Auxiliary Units were stood down in November 1944. The men’s records show their service ending on 3 December 1944, when the Home Guard stood down.
What can still be seen
A pillbox was built beside Bodiam Castle in 1940 to cover Bodiam Bridge on the Rother stop line. It still stands.
Sources and thanks
This page draws on the work of others, with gratitude.
- The Coleshill Auxiliary Research Team (CART), whose research includes the Bodiam patrol’s nominal roll (The National Archives, WO 199/3391).Link once CART agrees
- The Battle & District Historical Society.Link once the Society agrees
- Stewart Angell, The Secret Sussex Resistance.
- Jon Burgess, for his memory of the base in the Round Wood.Permission to name
- Subterranea Britannica, for the Sussex Zero stations.
A note on names: the Historical Society’s paper prints “Louis Osborne”. The nominal roll gives Louis Orsbourn, which is used here.
If you have a memory, a photograph or a correction to offer, please get in touch through the contact form. Nothing will be published without your permission.