Secret lives in WW2

Bob grew up in Sussex and at age 16 joined The Royal Sussex Regiment. After 23 years in the Army, travelling the world, he settled down with his family in St Leonards. During the later years of his working life Bob worked for the DWP and spent much of his time working along side many of the local councils in our area.

He commented: “‘The Pheasant’ is the code name of the leader of the 203rd Battalion of the Home Guard. There are no official records of any members of the 201st, 202nd and 203rd Battalions. They were the cover for the men in the Auxiliary Units, the actual resistance fighters.

When the Auxiliary Units were set up it was realised that if the Germans took over Great Britain and the Government went into exile in America or Canada, they would have no effective control over the resistance units. As a result it was necessary to recruit three people to command each of these Battalions. The code names for these people were, ‘The Grouse’ (201st), ‘The Robin’ (202nd) and ‘The Pheasant’ for the 203rd.

The story starts when John Fintch is asked by his grandson Simon “What did you do in the war Granddad?” John had a problem in that he had signed The Official Secrets Act those many years ago when he took the code name ‘Pheasant’. Was he still bound by the Act? Was it time he told someone? This book recounts the story John told his grandson and the surprise discovery Simon made later about his grandfathers heroism.

For those of you who have read the first book in this series, ‘Three Days’, you will find an overlap between these stories. I must make a special thanks to Pam Malpass, of Bexhill, for her help in bringing this book to publication.”

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