Find out more about Churchill’s Secret Army at Bletchley Park event this weekend

SWINDON, U.K. - May 23, 2013 - PRLog -- This weekend (25-26th May 2013) sees the Forties Family Festival at Bletchley Park where re-enactors and exhibitors will take visitors back to the 1940s with a number of displays and events. From re-enactments from a whole range of military groups to 1940s fashion shows and music it promises to be a trip back in time.

One of those at the event will be the Coleshill Auxiliary Research Team (CART), a group set up to research one of Britain’s most secret organisations during WWII, the British Resistance, or Auxiliary Units as they were known.

The Auxiliary Units were groups of civilian volunteers, who during this country’s darkest days in World War Two answered Churchill’s call and volunteered to ‘stay behind’ in the event of a German invasion. They were to disrupt and where possible destroy the enemy’s supply chain and reserve troops, ‘deal’ with collaborators and take out strategic targets within their local areas. Every member signed the Officials Secrets Act and never told families and friends about what they were up to – many taking their secret to the grave.

Auxiliary Units were highly trained, well equipped volunteers that would literally go underground in the event of an invasion and strike at targets from their operational bases, buried beneath the British countryside.  Such was the danger of their mission their life expectancy after an invasion had started was just two weeks.

At CART’s stand visitors will be able to find out more about the Auxiliary Units, view some of the specialist weapons and artefacts that the volunteers had at their disposal, and even whether their relatives might have involved. Some of CART’s researchers will be at the stand alongside Auxiliary re-enactors, Winston Churchill (aka re-enactor Alan Kempton) and CART founder Tom Sykes.

“Taking part in such fantastic events as the Bletchley Park Forties Family Festival is a great chance for us to get more information about the Aux Units out there and allow the public to get a glimpse into the world of Churchill secret army,” said Tom Sykes, founder of CART.

“After so many years with very little information known about them it is great to see the amount of interest and respect that the British public still has for these veterans. Hopefully our stand will allow visitors to learn more about them and the sacrifice they were willing to make. And with the information desk and researchers in place we might even be able to help identify visitor family members that were involved,” Sykes concluded.

Following a campaign by CART the Royal British Legion has recently granted permission for veterans of the Auxiliary Units to march past the Cenotaph during November’s Remembrance Sunday parade. This is the first time there has been any official recognition of the group. More can be found out about the parade here and from the CART stand.

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About CART & The British Resistance Archive.

The Coleshill Auxiliary Research Team (CART) publishes its findings on the British Resistance Archive (BRA) website.

CART also provides an internal network for serious and dedicated researchers who focus on the British Resistance and agree with CART's core value of making the research public.

• CART is made up of select volunteer historians and published writers known as County Information Officers (CIOS) and also public members.
• CART is not a business or an academic body of professional researchers.
• CART is non-profit making and has no financial support from any company or organisation. It is funded solely by donations and the revenue it makes from the sale of various items sold in the shop.
• Since CART's birth in June 2009 the website has seen over 110,000 unique visitors and has attracted TV, Radio and national press attention.

For further information about CART please go to this page http://www.coleshillhouse.com/about-us.php or call 0872 045 9940 or email hq@coleshillhouse.com