The B.R.O

The Museum of the British Resistance Organisation (B.R.O.) provides an insight into 'Britain's Secret Army', with contemporary artefacts housed in the Nissen Huts and a unique replica secret underground bunker. The Museum aims to shed light on "Britain's best kept war secret".

During the Second World War, Britain had its own underground resistance network. Made up of local men, these Auxiliary Units were trained in underground resistance, should the country be invaded and occupied.

The Museum of the British Resistance Organisation (BRO) is dedicated to the men and women of the innocently named Auxiliary Units of World War Two and was established in August 1997. The Museum is housed in associated Quonset (Nissen) Huts adjacent to the 390th Bombardment Group Memorial Air Museum Control Tower. It is the only Museum in the United Kingdom dedicated to all the men and women who served in the various sections of this secret organisation and who would have become the British underground resistance should the threat of invasion have been realised.

There is also an replica underground bunker where visitors can experience what it would have been like to have been an Auxilier. The bunker is a reconstruction of an underground hideout used at nearby Stratford St Andrew, Suffolk. Whilst the reconstruction has been built closer to ground level for ease of access, the visitor can still appreciate the cramped and dismal conditions in which the Auxilier worked. Exhibits in the Bunker include beds, tables and memorabilia such as tinned food and explosives. The Nissen Huts house a collection of photographs, intelligence instruction dossiers, and original examples of the bomb-making equipment which they possessed.

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The members of the Auxiliary Units were the highly-trained and very determined 'stay behinds' who were to remain undetected in carefully constructed 'bunkers' (Operating Bases - OBs) as the invading German Army made its way through Britain. Officially known as 'operational bases', the word 'hideout', the officers who ran the Resistance soon decided, suggested a more passive purpose than that for which these bases had been constructed, and if overheard by the Germans or their friends, would not alert them to their intended use.

The museum secured grants from Awards For All and Suffolk County Council to aid with this project. Everyone connected with the museum would like to express their thanks for the support given for this project. 

Two viable, long term museums now exist registered as one charity, with the MLA & the British Aircraft Preservation Council are now operating successfully at Parham, entirely due to a common link through Percy & Herman Kindred. Percy's son Peter is now the President.