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11th Battalion, Buffs (Royal East Kent Regiment)
The 89th Light Anti-Aircraft Regiment, Royal Artillery, (89th LAA Rgt) was an air defence unit of the British Army during World War II. Initially raised as an infantry battalion of the Buffs in 1940, it transferred to the Royal Artillery in 1941. It served with 49th (West Riding) Infantry Division in Normandy (Operation Overlord) and through the campaign in North West Europe until VE Day. 11th Battalion, Buffs (Royal East Kent Regiment) The unit was originally formed in January 1940 as a company of 14th (Holding) Battalion at Tonbridge in Kent, as part of the rapid expansion of the Army with wartime conscripts. When 14th (H) Battalion was disbanded on 28 May 1940, the company was expanded into 50th Holding Battalion, Buffs (Royal East Kent Regiment), and converted to a normal infantry battalion on 9 October that year as 11th Battalion, Buffs.Frederick, p. 208. On 26 October it joined 219th Independent Infantry Brigade (Home) which was being organised as a static defence formati ...
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Royal Artillery
The Royal Regiment of Artillery, commonly referred to as the Royal Artillery (RA) and colloquially known as "The Gunners", is one of two regiments that make up the artillery arm of the British Army. The Royal Regiment of Artillery comprises thirteen Regular Army regiments, the King's Troop Royal Horse Artillery and five Army Reserve regiments. History Formation to 1799 Artillery was used by the English army as early as the Battle of Crécy in 1346, while Henry VIII established it as a semi-permanent function in the 16th century. Until the early 18th century, the majority of British regiments were raised for specific campaigns and disbanded on completion. An exception were gunners based at the Tower of London, Portsmouth and other forts around Britain, who were controlled by the Ordnance Office and stored and maintained equipment and provided personnel for field artillery 'traynes' that were organised as needed. These personnel, responsible in peacetime for maintaining the ...
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Tonbridge
Tonbridge ( ) is a market town in Kent, England, on the River Medway, north of Royal Tunbridge Wells, south west of Maidstone and south east of London. In the administrative borough of Tonbridge and Malling, it had an estimated population of 41,293 in 2018. History The town was recorded in the Domesday Book 1087 as ''Tonebrige'', which may indicate a bridge belonging to the estate or manor (from the Old English tun), or alternatively a bridge belonging to Tunna, a common Anglo-Saxons, Anglo-Saxon man's name. Another theory suggests that the name is a contraction of "town of bridges", due to the large number of streams the High Street originally crossed. Until 1870, the town's name was spelt ''Tunbridge'', as shown on old maps including the 1871 Ordnance Survey map and contemporary issues of the George Bradshaw, Bradshaw railway guide. In 1870, this was changed to ''Tonbridge'' by the General Post Office, GPO due to confusion with nearby Tunbridge Wells, despite Tonbridge ...
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War Office
The War Office was a department of the British Government responsible for the administration of the British Army between 1857 and 1964, when its functions were transferred to the new Ministry of Defence (MoD). This article contains text from this source, which is available under th Open Government Licence v3.0 © Crown copyright It was equivalent to the Admiralty, responsible for the Royal Navy (RN), and (much later) the Air Ministry, which oversaw the Royal Air Force (RAF). The name 'War Office' is also given to the former home of the department, located at the junction of Horse Guards Avenue and Whitehall in central London. The landmark building was sold on 1 March 2016 by HM Government for more than £350 million, on a 250 year lease for conversion into a luxury hotel and residential apartments. Prior to 1855, 'War Office' signified the office of the Secretary at War. In the 17th and 18th centuries, a number of independent offices and individuals were re ...
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2nd Division (United Kingdom)
The 2nd Infantry Division was an infantry division of the British Army that was formed and disestablished numerous times between 1809 and 2012. It was raised by Lieutenant-General Arthur Wellesley for service in the Peninsular War (part of the Coalition Wars of the Napoleonic Wars) as the 2nd Division. It was disestablished in 1814, but re-formed the following year for service in the War of the Seventh Coalition. The formation fought at the Battle of Waterloo and played an important role in defeating the final French attack of the day. It then marched into France and became part of the Army of Occupation, and was the only British force allowed to march through Paris. In December 1818, the division was disbanded once again. During the mid- to late-19th century, several formations bearing the name 2nd Division were formed. Only two such were considered part of the division's lineage by Everard Wyrall, who compiled its First World War history. The first was created in 1854 to ...
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Auxiliary Territorial Service
The Auxiliary Territorial Service (ATS; often pronounced as an acronym) was the women's branch of the British Army during the Second World War. It was formed on 9 September 1938, initially as a women's voluntary service, and existed until 1 February 1949, when it was merged into the Women's Royal Army Corps. The ATS had its roots in the Women's Auxiliary Army Corps (WAAC), which was formed in 1917 as a voluntary service. During the First World War its members served in a number of jobs including clerks, cooks, telephonists and waitresses. The WAAC was disbanded after four years in 1921. Prior to the Second World War, the government decided to establish a new Corps for women, and an advisory council, which included members of the Territorial Army (TA), a section of the Women's Transport Service (FANY) and the Women's Legion, was set up. The council decided that the ATS would be attached to the Territorial Army, and the women serving would receive two thirds the pay of male sold ...
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143rd (Mixed) Heavy Anti-Aircraft Regiment, Royal Artillery
143rd Heavy Anti-Aircraft Regiment was an air defence unit of Britain's Royal Artillery formed during World War II. It started out as a 'Mixed' regiment with around two-thirds of its personnel being women from the Auxiliary Territorial Service (ATS). The regiment defended the West of England from 1942 to the end of the war when it moved to South East England. The regiment continued (as an all-male unit) in the postwar British Army. Organisation By 1941, after two years of war Anti-Aircraft Command, tasked with defending the UK against air attack, was suffering a manpower shortage. In April its commander-in-chief, Lieutenant-General Sir Frederick 'Tim' Pile, proposed to overcome this by utilising the women of the Auxiliary Territorial Service (ATS). The ATS was by law a non-combatant service, but it was decided that Defence Regulations permitted the employment of women in anti-aircraft (AA) roles other than actually firing the guns. They worked the radar and plotting instruments, ...
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Oswestry
Oswestry ( ; ) is a market town, civil parish and historic railway town in Shropshire, England, close to the Welsh border. It is at the junction of the A5, A483 and A495 roads. The town was the administrative headquarters of the Borough of Oswestry until that was abolished in 2009. Oswestry is the third-largest town in Shropshire, following Telford and Shrewsbury. At the 2011 Census, the population was 17,105. The town is five miles (8 km) from the Welsh border and has a mixed English and Welsh heritage. Oswestry is the largest settlement within the Oswestry Uplands, a designated natural area and national character area. Toponym The name ''Oswestry'' is first attested in 1191, as ''Oswaldestroe''. This Middle English name transparently derives from the Old English personal name Ōswald and the word ''trēow'' ('tree'). Thus the name seems once to have meant 'tree of a man called Ōswald'.A. D. Mills, ''A Dictionary of English Place Names'' (Oxford: Oxford Universit ...
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Bofors 40 Mm Automatic Gun L/60
The Bofors 40 mm Automatic Gun L/60 (often referred to simply as the "Bofors 40 mm gun", the "Bofors gun" and the like, see name) is an anti-aircraft autocannon, designed in the 1930s by the Swedish arms manufacturer AB Bofors. The gun was designed as an intermediate anti-aircraft gun, filling the gap between fast firing close-range small calibre anti-aircraft guns and slower firing long-range high calibre anti-aircraft guns, a role which previously was filled by older outdated guns. The Bofors 40 mm L/60 was for its time perfectly suited for this role and outperformed competing designs in the years leading up to World War II in both effectiveness and reliability. It entered the export market around 1932 and was in service with 18 countries by 1939. Throughout World War II it became one of the most popular and widespread medium-weight anti-aircraft guns. It was used by the majority of the western Allies and some Axis powers such as Nazi Germany and Hungary. In the pos ...
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The British Army In The United Kingdom 1939-45 H16771
''The'' () is a grammatical article in English, denoting persons or things already mentioned, under discussion, implied or otherwise presumed familiar to listeners, readers, or speakers. It is the definite article in English. ''The'' is the most frequently used word in the English language; studies and analyses of texts have found it to account for seven percent of all printed English-language words. It is derived from gendered articles in Old English which combined in Middle English and now has a single form used with pronouns of any gender. The word can be used with both singular and plural nouns, and with a noun that starts with any letter. This is different from many other languages, which have different forms of the definite article for different genders or numbers. Pronunciation In most dialects, "the" is pronounced as (with the voiced dental fricative followed by a schwa) when followed by a consonant sound, and as (homophone of pronoun ''thee'') when followed by a v ...
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43rd (Wessex) Infantry Division
The 43rd (Wessex) Infantry Division was an infantry division of Britain's Territorial Army (TA). The division was first formed in 1908, as the Wessex Division. During the First World War, it was broken-up and never served as a complete formation. It was reformed in the TA in 1920, and then served in the campaign in North West Europe from June 1944 until May 1945, during the Second World War. The division suffered heavy casualties and gained an excellent reputation. After the Second World War, the division formed part of the postwar TA, and became the 43rd (Wessex) Division/District in 1961. It was finally disbanded in 1967. Formation The Territorial Force (TF) was formed on 1 April 1908 following the enactment of the Territorial and Reserve Forces Act 1907 (7 Edw.7, c.9) which combined and re-organised the old Volunteer Force, the Honourable Artillery Company and the Yeomanry. On formation, the TF contained 14 infantry divisions and 14 mounted yeomanry brigades. One of the ...
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44th (Home Counties) Division
The Home Counties Division was an infantry division of the Territorial Force, part of the British Army, that was raised in 1908. As the name suggests, the division recruited in the Home Counties, particularly Kent, Middlesex, Surrey and Sussex. At the outbreak of the First World War, it accepted liability for overseas service and was posted to India in 1914 to relieve Regular Army units for service on the Western Front. On arrival in India it was effectively broken up, so it did not see active service as a complete formation. However, most of its constituent units did serve in active theatres, notably Mesopotamia from 1915 and in the Third Anglo-Afghan War in 1919. Reformed in the Territorial Army (TA) in 1920 as the 44th (Home Counties) Division, the division saw active service in the Second World War in Belgium, France and North Africa (notably in the Battle of El Alamein) before again being disbanded in 1943. Once again, its component units continued to serve, in North Afric ...
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I Corps (United Kingdom)
I Corps ("First Corps") was an army corps in existence as an active formation in the British Army for most of the 80 years from its creation in the First World War until the end of the Cold War, longer than any other corps. It had a short-lived precursor during the Waterloo Campaign. Napoleonic precursor Assembling an army in Belgium to fight Napoleon's resurgent forces in the spring of 1815, the Duke of Wellington formed it into army corps, deliberately mixing units from the Anglo-Hanoverian, Dutch-Belgian and German contingents so that the weaker elements would be stiffened by more experienced or reliable troops. As he put it: 'It was necessary to organize these troops in brigades, divisions, and corps d’armee with those better disciplined and more accustomed to war'. He placed I Corps under the command of the Prince of Orange and it was this corps that was first contacted by the advancing French at Quatre Bras on 16 June 1815. However, Wellington did not employ the corps as ...
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