Churchill's secret British resistance base at Coleshill to mark 70th anniversary (From The Oxford Times)

Churchill's secret British resistance base at Coleshill to mark 70th anniversary

7:00am Wednesday 2nd June 2010

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AN underground camp, where a British Resistance was trained to take on a Nazi invasion, has been given Lottery money to share its secret history.

When Britain stood alone against Germany, Coleshill was a training base for thousands of members of top-secret Auxiliary Units.

Volunteers learned how to use explosives, set booby-traps and assassinate Nazi officials and collaborators.

For decades, the secret went untold.

But there will be a 70th anniversary celebration at the estate on Sunday, July 4, and the Heritage Lottery Fund has given £28,000 to the National Trust for a display about Coleshill’s role.

Organiser Tom Sykes, from Highworth, said: “If we had been invaded, this place would be as important as Bletchley Park, where the Enigma code was cracked.”

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