RESISTANCE fighters who would have been the last line of defence against a Second World War German invasion are honoured in an art exhibition opening at Newport’s Riverfront.

Had the German army landed on the south coast of England in 1940 the canal system across the southern part of the country would have been the British Army’s defensive line.

But any German flanking movement would have come through Gwent and been confronted by locally recruited resistance fighters.

These men – nominally part of the Home Guard and referred to as ‘auxileers’ – are the subject of 60 paintings Dan Llywelyn Hall.

The exhibition’s opening conjoins with Monday’s premiere of the film Resistance, from the book by Owen Shears, which is to be attended by the Prince of Wales.

The film is set in an alternate history where the D-Day landings fail and Germany occupies Britain.

Mr Llywelyn Hall received royal patronage when his portrait of Harry Patch, Britain’s last survivor of the First World War trenches, and studies of Great War veteran Henry Allingham were bought for the Queen’s collection.

“As the film crews were making the film I was there as artist-in-residence to capture their actions” he said.

“It was disconcerting to walk onto a realistic set complete with German vehicles and men in the invaders’ uniforms here on Welsh soil.

“The real heroes are the men who had the Germans landed would have been presented with a suicidal task.

“I worked closely with local historian Richard Frame who has pointed out where the secret bunkers the resistance fighters occupied were situated.

“I worked quickly so as to capture the immediacy of the moment using my portable water-colour box. I got a very powerful sense of what these brave men were prepared to do.”

The auxileers wore Home Guard uniform but not even close family members knew their real purpose which would have been to go underground and pop up behind the German lines to harry the invasion force.

“For the most part they were farmers and gamekeepers, poachers and Rover Scouts who knew their way through the lanes and woods” Mr Frame from Langstone, who interviewed the Gwent auxileers all of whom have since died, said.

“Their secret underground bunkers are still there one of them virtually intact but the very fact that their work was secret means that the men have not had the attention they deserve.

The exhibition at The Riverfront will run from today until Saturday, November 26.