Bentley Patrol

Auxilier Gerald Sporle (in: The Book of Capel):

"When the war came, I became a member of a 202 group  … we had training by the Commandos, to use explosives and the arms we had and how to kill. … We were not told about other groups so that we couldn’t give anything away.  We were better armed than frontline soldiers.  I had a sub-machine gun, a Smith & Wesson revolver, and 12 grenades and 150 rounds of ammunition.  … My group had a dugout in the woods in Bentley.  … We had a field telephone in a different place … and in another place a half-ton of gelignite. … We used to go out at night for training … mostly our training was in sabotage, for which we had fuses and detonators and the explosives; and for testing security at military places.  … We ‘attacked’ the RAF at Martlesham. My group had Peter and Tony Hutton and Bill Ratford.”

Sergeant William “Bill” Sage Ratford (in: The Book of Capel):
 
“I was recruited when a man came to my door and said he wanted six men, ‘gamekeepers, poachers and burglars’, to form this group.  I dare say he came to me because I had been a gamekeeper.  We were given training by Commandos, and when we had to make our dugout it was camouflaged by experts, so that no one walking by would know it was there.  Ours was in the woods at Bentley. … We had wonderful arms, better than front line troops.  I had a Colt revolver and a rifle with telescopic sights and silencer.  Also grenades, with fuse and detonators; there was a ‘pencil’ detonator and pressure and time fuse.  Also an enormous magnet. … I went to Coleshill with Hammond Betts from Brook Farm, in his MG, for a course in explosives.  … I was to choose others in my group.  From the village came Tony and Peter Hutton and Gerald Sporle, he was very young but a very good shot. … We were the ones who dug the dugout for Wenham group, right under one of the rooms at Jermyn’s Farm. … We were used to test security at airfields.  At Wattisham we were to enter but must not go into the bomb store … Tony Hutton and I were the ones to enter … we found a pillbox, felt around but didn’t know where we were.  Tony reckoned no one would see a little light so he struck a match and there in front of us was this notice: “any bomb exceeding one tonne must not be lifted by adjacent hoist”.  So then we had to get out … but then we were arrested.  We couldn’t deny we had been in the bomb store – we had stuck our labels there: ‘HE’ for High Explosive, and ‘I’ for Incendiary’.  … We had traning on all sorts of things.  One part of our training was to spend 24 hours continuous in our dugout.  We would need food and Tony Hutton pointed out we had been told we would have to live off the country, so we nicked a pair of chickens … and when somebody brought some brussels sprouts we lit our primus to cook them. … If there had been an invasion we might have done something – but after one attack the Germans would have taken hostages, and so stopped us.  Perhaps we would have been heroes for a bit then.  But it would have been suicidal, I should think.”

The Suffolk group photos.