This post is part of the "Granddad's War Stories" series.
Chapter 1 - Home Service.
Part 7, The system.
This section of the Chapter is technical and is therefore optional reading! I’ve tried to put it all into one section and consequently you can if you wish turn now to section 8 without losing the thread.
A Light Anti-Aircraft Regiment consisted of a Regimental H.Q. and three Batteries, a section of R.E.M.E. (Royal Electrical and Mechanical Engineers) and a section of the Royal Corps of Signals. The Regiments were commanded by a Lieutenant Colonel assisted by an Adjutant (Captain) and a flock of technical types.
Each Battery consisted of a Battery H.Q. and three Troops and a detachment of the Royal Corps of Signals. A Radar section was attached “under command” when appropriate. The Battery was commanded by a Major, assisted by a Captain and a Lieutenant and each of the three Troops was commanded by a Captain and two Lieutenants. Each Troop had six guns and about 20 vehicles, and 70 gunners.
Rubbish diagram of Regimental structure (c) Rob Mosley 2008
When a Battery was on the move it occupied about 2 1/2 miles of road and a Regiment required about 8 miles.
When a Battery was fully deployed all its guns would be alone on their own sites, spread over about 5 square miles. But the fire of each gun could cross its neighbours and every possible air access to the place guarded was covered by at least one gun.
The choosing of gun sites and their camouflage and access thereto was a highly skilled job and usually had to be carried out within a short time scale and often under fire or enemy observation. Imagine the Battery fully deployed around a vital ammunition dump. Orders to move to protect a river crossing 50 miles away are received. The Battery Commander in a jeep and two despatch riders immediately sets off at high speed to the area concerned, gets a high spot and observes it through binoculars, and then closer if the tanks and infantry had won the day. It was a vulnerable and often dangerous exercise. Having got a grip on the topography, road conditions, state of battle and situation of minefields he retreats a short distance and meets the troop commanders at a pre-arranged map reference. He gives his plans to the Troop Commanders which includes all information known and the division of the area into three troop areas. The Troop Commanders then rush off and decide the exact spot for each of their six guns. He has with a him a guide for each gun team who examines every inch of the site. All this activity is reconnaissance and is known as the “Recce” for short.
While all the above has been going on, each gun guarding the ammunition dump has moved and gone into its laneway and joins other guns until all are moving together as a troop. The troop columns and Battery H.Q. column all join each other in the main access and move as one towards the bridge to be defended. As they arrive in the area, they slow down and each gun guide leaps on his own gun tractor without it stopping and guides it to the very spot in the field or wherever chosen by the Troop Commander.
Thus, from the moment a gun ceases to be in action in the old area to the time it is ready to fire in the new location, its wheels have never stopped turning. Obviously it does not always work. Vehicles break down, or bog down. The enemy gets nasty. The bridge area is not taken. The location of the place to be defended is changed in mid-stream. But the basic drill remains and overcomes all temporary upsets.
I have sketched only the bones of what is called the “deployment drill.” There are dozens of other actions within the drill not described. The gunner works to a drill far more than any other arm of the service and it all goes back to the gun itself. It is a beauty and a beast. It can kill the enemy, but it can kill you. Its firing pin can break, a shell can get stuck in the barrel, the mechanism can jam; any one of these factors can cause an explosion on the gun site instead of thousands of feet up in the air. Also, on a wet low-cloud day an aircraft suddenly breaks from the cloud. Ours or theirs?
Let us take this aircraft breaking from the cloud. Six gunners bark orders and responses in succession before the first round leaves the gun:-
“Enemy - right,” yells the Bombardier.
“Engage,” barks the Sergeant, thus taking all responsibility for the action.
“Held,” shouts the firer indicating that all is ready to fire.
“On,” bellow the layers as they get the enemy in their sights.
“Fire,” says the No. 1 and up goes a stream of 2lb shells at the rate of one per second, any one of which will explode if it touches even a hailstone.
The gun itself is the gunners life. He spends hours tending it. He never lets it fall into enemy hands as a gun. If he is ordered to retreat and cannot take his gun with him he blows it up.
The Royal Regiment of Artillery, unlike other regiments, has no Regimental Flag. The gun is its flag. Unlike other regiments it has no battle honours; every man in the regiment from the Master Gunner (a full General) to each greast gunner carries the word “ubioue” on his cap badge and collar flashes. No flag would be big enough to list the battle honours, so each and every man carries all of them himself, and takes unto himself the responsibility of guarding those honours.
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I've got a headache! First of all, let's work out where Granddad fitted into the structure of the regiment he outlines. In section 5, he gets made "second in command of a Battery with the immediate rank of Captain" - so, of the three positions a Captain can hold, I think that means he was assistant to a Major in command of a Battery (rather than being Adjutant to a Lieutenant Colonel in charge of the entire Regiment, or directly in command of a Troop!). (Armies like arranging things in threes. Three Batteries in a Regiment, three Troops in a Battery.)
In terms of his duties - its sounds like he'd have been in that jeep, peering through some binoculars trying to work out where best to put a massive gun. By the time I knew Granddad 40 years later, he still had a pair of binoculars from the war. (They were German and I forget how he got them - but I'm sure its an interesting tale and hopefully we'll find out soon!) He loved those old binoculars. I remember Mum and Dad once got him a flashy new pair, all sleek and black. On one of our walks around the Groomsport coastline he gave them to me to muck about with, while he stuck to his old grey-blue-chipped-paint pair to watch the birds he loved.
(Still, at least he kept the new ones . Not like when someone got him a "man bag" thing - a little leather bag for blokes like Cristiano Ronaldo has now - that was "accidentally" left on the roof of the car before driving off. Fortunately no valuables were inside.)
On the research side of things I've had a bit of progress. Think I've managed (with the help of the brilliant medals.org.uk and the lovely Megan, who runs it) to identify all Granddad's medals.
From left to right (which I think is descending from most impressive), they are:
- Order of the British Empire (OBE). This is the Civil version, so can't have been awarded for actions during the war.
- 1939-45 Star. Awarded for 6 months service between 3rd Sept 1939 and 15th August 1945 under operational command.
- France and Germany Star. Awarded for service in France, Belgium, Holland and Germany between 6 June 1944 and 8 May 1945.
- Defence Medal. Awarded for 3 years' service in the United Kingdom between 3 September 1939 and 2 September 1945, or 6 months overseas in a non-operational area subject to aerial attack. (This was the trickiest one to find - thanks Megan!)
- The War Medal. Awarded to all persons serving full-time in the Armed Forces for 28 days between 3 September 1939 and 2 September 1945.
Gives us a bit of a clue as to what to expect, which is nice!
This part is the most root of the story, you can already tell what's gonna happen.
Posted by: hcg weight loss | Jul 25, 2011 at 03:32 PM