Andrew Chatterton

No, it's much more.

Well, you know, a lot of these guys joined the SAS directly from the York's units later on in the war because it's much more that brutal sabotage guerrilla warfare type of thing.

plus doing their day jobs.

And their day jobs is like farmer or miner or quarry, like hard physical jobs.

And because they weren't in the Home Guard, but they were young, quite a lot of them got like white feathers, like you're a coward, because they weren't perceived to be doing their bit, but they couldn't tell anyone, actually, I'm doing this.

Because, you know, it was an official secret act.

I think they weren't designed for any kind of long-term resistance.

They would have been short, sharp, effective resistance.

Almost one-offs.

Yeah.

Yeah.

Oh, yeah, 100%.

They're completely expendable.

You spoke to that, Ken.

Yeah.

After Dunkirk in May 1940, where all the little ships went over and rescued the British Army off the beaches of France...

The Germans looks unstoppable.

So the French had the biggest army in the world, the most mechanized army in the world, the most modern army in the world.

And they'd just been like swept aside in like six weeks.

So suddenly you're like, you're here in Britain.