The 102nd Light Anti-Aircraft Regiment, Royal Artillery, (102nd LAA Rgt) was an air defence unit of the

British Army The British Army is the principal land warfare force of the United Kingdom, a part of the British Armed Forces along with the Royal Navy and the Royal Air Force. , the British Army comprises 79,380 regular full-time personnel, 4,090 Gurk ...

during

World War II World War II or the Second World War, often abbreviated as WWII or WW2, was a world war that lasted from 1939 to 1945. It involved the vast majority of the world's countries—including all of the great powers—forming two opposin ...

. Initially raised as an infantry battalion of the

Lincolnshire Regiment The Royal Lincolnshire Regiment was a line infantry regiment of the British Army raised on 20 June 1685 as the Earl of Bath's Regiment for its first Colonel, John Granville, 1st Earl of Bath. In 1751, it was numbered like most other Army regiments ...

in 1940, it transferred to the

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 t ...

in 1941. It served with

I Corps I Corps, 1st Corps, or First Corps may refer to: France * 1st Army Corps (France) * I Cavalry Corps (Grande Armée), a cavalry unit of the Imperial French Army during the Napoleonic Wars * I Corps (Grande Armée), a unit of the Imperial French A ...

in the campaign in North West Europe, at times acting as infantry or administrative troops when the threat of air attack had diminished. It was disbanded after the war. Lincolnshire Regiment Cap Badge

7th Battalion, Lincolnshire Regiment

The unit was originally formed in July 1940 at Tollerton Park, near

Nottingham Nottingham ( , East Midlands English, locally ) is a city status in the United Kingdom, city and Unitary authorities of England, unitary authority area in Nottinghamshire, East Midlands, England. It is located north-west of London, south-east ...

as 7th Battalion,

, as part of the rapid expansion of the Army with wartime conscripts.Frederick, p. 226. On 10 October, the battalion joined 205th Independent Infantry Brigade (Home), which was being organised by No 5 Infantry Training Group as a static defence formation. Initially it came under 1st Infantry Division, then North Midland Area, until

Lincolnshire County Division The Lincolnshire County Division was a short-lived formation of the British Army, formed in the Second World War. The headquarters were formed on 24 February 1941, becoming operational on 27 March. It ceased to function on 25 November and was di ...

was formed in March 1941 to defend the

Lincolnshire Lincolnshire (abbreviated Lincs.) is a county in the East Midlands of England, with a long coastline on the North Sea to the east. It borders Norfolk to the south-east, Cambridgeshire to the south, Rutland to the south-west, Leicestershire ...

coast.Joslen, pp. 113, 368.Collier, Map 20. Late in 1941, Lincolnshire County Division began to be broken up and a number of its units and formations were converted to other roles. While 205th Bde was converted into a tank brigade, 7th Lincolns was selected to be retrained in the light anti-aircraft (LAA) role equipped with

Bofors 40 mm gun Bofors 40 mm gun is a name or designation given to two models of 40 mm calibre anti-aircraft guns designed and developed by the Swedish company Bofors: *Bofors 40 mm L/60 gun - developed in the 1930s, widely used in World War II and into the 1990s ...

s. It left on 27 November 1941 and on 1 December it transferred to the

(RA) as 102nd LAA Regiment, comprising Regimental Headquarters and 336, 337 and 338 LAA

Batteries Battery most often refers to: * Electric battery, a device that provides electrical power * Battery (crime), a crime involving unlawful physical contact Battery may also refer to: Energy source *Automotive battery, a device to provide power t ...

.Farndale, Annex M.Frederick, pp. 805, 836.

102nd Light Anti-Aircraft Regiment, Royal Artillery

The_British_Army_in_the_United_Kingdom_1939-45_H16771

After initial training the regiment joined

Anti-Aircraft Command Anti-Aircraft Command (AA Command, or "Ack-Ack Command") was a British Army command of the Second World War that controlled the Territorial Army anti-aircraft artillery and searchlight formations and units defending the United Kingdom. Origin ...

, but left in February 1942 before it had been allocated to a brigade.Order of Battle of Non-Field Force Units in the United Kingdom, Part 27: AA Command, 2 December 1941, with amendments, The National Archives (TNA), Kew, file WO 212/80. At first it formed part of the

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 ...

Reserve, but by April it came under XI Corps District in

East Anglia East Anglia is an area in the East of England, often defined as including the counties of Norfolk, Suffolk and Cambridgeshire. The name derives from the Anglo-Saxon kingdom of the East Angles, a people whose name originated in Anglia, in ...

. In early October 1942 the regiment was joined by a

Royal Electrical and Mechanical Engineers The Corps of Royal Electrical and Mechanical Engineers (REME ) is a corps of the British Army that maintains the equipment that the Army uses. The corps is described as the "British Army's Professional Engineers". History Prior to REME's for ...

(REME) workshop sub-section for each battery, to be ready for mobile warfare. By mid-March 1943 the regiment left XI Corps District and joined

21st Army Group The 21st Army Group was a British headquarters formation formed during the Second World War. It controlled two field armies and other supporting units, consisting primarily of the British Second Army and the First Canadian Army. Established in ...

, preparing for the Allied invasion of Normandy (

Operation Overlord Operation Overlord was the codename for the Battle of Normandy, the Allies of World War II, Allied operation that launched the successful invasion of German-occupied Western Front (World War II), Western Europe during World War II. The operat ...

Normandy

I Corps was one of the assault formations on

D Day The Normandy landings were the landing operations and associated airborne operations on Tuesday, 6 June 1944 of the Allied invasion of Normandy in Operation Overlord during World War II. Codenamed Operation Neptune and often referred to as D ...

, landing two divisions, followed by the rest of the corps over succeeding days. The main role of a corps LAA regiment was to protect headquarters and gun areas from air attack. Attacks by formations of up to 20

Messerschmitt Bf 109 The Messerschmitt Bf 109 is a German World War II fighter aircraft that was, along with the Focke-Wulf Fw 190, the backbone of the Luftwaffe's fighter force. The Bf 109 first saw operational service in 1937 during the Spanish Civil War an ...

and

Focke-Wulf Fw 190 The Focke-Wulf Fw 190, nicknamed ''Würger'' (" Shrike") is a German single-seat, single-engine fighter aircraft designed by Kurt Tank at Focke-Wulf in the late 1930s and widely used during World War II. Along with its well-known counterpart, ...

fighter-bomber A fighter-bomber is a fighter aircraft that has been modified, or used primarily, as a light bomber or attack aircraft. It differs from bomber and attack aircraft primarily in its origins, as a fighter that has been adapted into other roles, wh ...

s began from D + 1, but initially were mainly directed at the shipping and beaches, or against the bridgeheads over the

River Orne The Orne () is a river in Normandy, within northwestern France. It is long. It discharges into the English Channel at the port of Ouistreham. Its source is in Aunou-sur-Orne, east of Sées. Its main tributaries are the Odon and the Rouvre. The ...

and

Caen Canal Caen (, ; nrf, Kaem) is a commune in northwestern France. It is the prefecture of the department of Calvados. The city proper has 105,512 inhabitants (), while its functional urban area has 470,000,Benouville, rather than the frontline formations. From D + 6 the ''

Luftwaffe The ''Luftwaffe'' () was the aerial-warfare branch of the German ''Wehrmacht'' before and during World War II. Germany's military air arms during World War I, the ''Luftstreitkräfte'' of the Imperial Army and the '' Marine-Fliegerabtei ...

'' 's objectives included positions in front of

Caen Caen (, ; nrf, Kaem) is a commune in northwestern France. It is the prefecture of the department of Calvados. The city proper has 105,512 inhabitants (), while its functional urban area has 470,000,Allied An alliance is a relationship among people, groups, or states that have joined together for mutual benefit or to achieve some common purpose, whether or not explicit agreement has been worked out among them. Members of an alliance are called ...

fighters gained air superiority, air attacks on the beachhead area diminished. 102nd LAA Regiment covered I Corps during Operation Epsom, and then in

Operation Charnwood Operation Charnwood was an Anglo-Canadian offensive that took place from 8 to 9 July 1944, during the Battle for Caen, part of the larger Operation Overlord (code-name for the Battle of Normandy) in the Second World War. The operation was int ...

, which finally succeeded in taking Caen on 9 July. Since the Allies had achieved air superiority over the beachhead, there was little call for AA defence, and AA units became increasingly used to supplement the artillery to support ground operations. LAA units fired

tracer Tracer may refer to: Science * Flow tracer, any fluid property used to track fluid motion * Fluorescent tracer, a substance such as 2-NBDG containing a fluorophore that is used for tracking purposes * Histochemical tracer, a substance used for tr ...

to guide night attacks onto their objectives, and the Bofors guns were much in demand for infantry support. They could give useful close-range fire to help infantry working from cover to cover in the bocage; the Bofors' rapid fire was good for suppressing enemy heavy weapons, the 40 mm round's sensitive percussion fuze providing an airburst effect among trees. It was also used for 'bunker-busting', though the lack of protection made the gun detachment vulnerable to return fire. LAA units also provided 'refuge strips' for Air Observation Post aircraft spotting for the field guns: a Bofors troop deployed with Local Warning radar and ground observers could alert the pilot to the presence of enemy aircraft and provide protection for him. On 23 July I Corps was placed under

First Canadian Army The First Canadian Army (french: 1reArmée canadienne) was a field army and a formation of the Canadian Army in World War II in which most Canadian elements serving in North-West Europe were assigned. It served on the Western Front from July 1944 ...

and as

II Canadian Corps II Canadian Corps was a corps-level formation that, along with I Corps (United Kingdom), I (British) Corps (August 1, 1944 to April 1, 1945) and I Canadian Corps (April 6, 1943 to November 1943, and April 1, 1945 until the end of hostilities), ...

began driving south towards

Falaise Falaise may refer to: Places * Falaise, Ardennes, France * Falaise, Calvados, France ** The Falaise pocket was the site of a battle in the Second World War * La Falaise, in the Yvelines ''département'', France * The Falaise escarpment in Quebec ...

Operation Totalize Operation Totalize (also spelled Operation Totalise in recent British sources) was an offensive launched by Allied troops in the First Canadian Army during the later stages of Operation Overlord, from 8 to 9 August 1944. The intention was to bre ...

on 8 August, I Corps extended the eastern flank. Once the breakout from the beachhead was achieved in mid August and II Canadian Corps closed off the Falaise Pocket, I Corps began advancing eastwards along the coast. On 30 August it crossed the

River Seine ) , mouth_location = Le Havre/Honfleur , mouth_coordinates = , mouth_elevation = , progression = , river_system = Seine basin , basin_size = , tributaries_left = Yonne, Loing, Eure, Risle , tributarie ...

. While Second Army drove quickly to

Brussels Brussels (french: Bruxelles or ; nl, Brussel ), officially the Brussels-Capital Region (All text and all but one graphic show the English name as Brussels-Capital Region.) (french: link=no, Région de Bruxelles-Capitale; nl, link=no, Bruss ...

and

Antwerp Antwerp (; nl, Antwerpen ; french: Anvers ; es, Amberes) is the largest city in Belgium by area at and the capital of Antwerp Province in the Flemish Region. With a population of 520,504,

, First Canadian Army swung north to clear the coast, with I Corps capturing

Le Havre Le Havre (, ; nrf, Lé Hâvre ) is a port city in the Seine-Maritime department in the Normandy region of northern France. It is situated on the right bank of the estuary of the river Seine on the Channel southwest of the Pays de Caux, very cl ...

in Operation Astonia (10–12 September). By now the ''Luftwaffe'' was almost absent, having lost heavily and been driven from its airfields.

Low Countries

The strategic requirement now was to clear the

Scheldt Estuary The Scheldt (french: Escaut ; nl, Schelde ) is a river that flows through northern France, western Belgium, and the southwestern part of the Netherlands, with its mouth at the North Sea. Its name is derived from an adjective corresponding to ...

and get the port of Antwerp into use as an Allied supply base. I Corps was moved to the east of the port to assist. By early October it was fighting its way towards Roosendaal in

Operation Pheasant Operation Pheasant, also known as the Liberation of North Brabant, was a major operation to clear German troops from the province of North Brabant in the Netherlands during the fighting on the Western Front in the Second World War. This offensiv ...

with a collection of British, Canadian, Polish and US divisions. For 17 days in October, while these operations were proceeding, a length of I Corps' front was held by 'Bobforce', led by 89th LAA Rgt of

49th (West Riding) Division The 49th (West Riding) Infantry Division was an infantry division of the British Army. The division fought in the First World War in the trenches of the Western Front, in the fields of France and Flanders. During the Second World War, the divis ...

with some armoured cars, anti-tank guns, two machine gun companies and a Belgian infantry battalion. The corps regiment, 102nd LAA, then joined Bobforce, acting as infantry. At the end of this spell, Bobforce advanced under covering fire from Bofors guns and drove the enemy rearguards back . After this fighting died down I Corps held the

River Maas The Meuse ( , , , ; wa, Moûze ) or Maas ( , ; li, Maos or ) is a major European river, rising in France and flowing through Belgium and the Netherlands before draining into the North Sea from the Rhine–Meuse–Scheldt delta. It has a t ...

front through the winter. Fears of a German incursion over the river in support of their

Ardennes Offensive The Battle of the Bulge, also known as the Ardennes Offensive, was the last major German offensive campaign on the Western Front during World War II. The battle lasted from 16 December 1944 to 28 January 1945, towards the end of the war in ...

came to nothing. At the end of January 1945 I Corps carried out an operation against a German bridgehead at Kapelsche Veer ( Operation Elephant) involving the whole of the corps artillery. By this stage of the campaign it was common for LAA guns together with mortars and anti-tank guns to join in 'Pepperpot' bombardments to saturate enemy positions before an infantry attack. I Corps continued its activities along the Maas in early 1945 to divert attention from First Canadian Army's main operations in the

Reichswald A or imperial forest was an area of historic woodland which existed in the Holy Roman Empire and was under direct imperial control, protection and usage. may refer to: * , a nature reserve near Nuremberg ** , a section of the Nuremberg , which ...

( Operation Veritable). After 21st Army Group had crossed the

Rhine ), Surselva, Graubünden, Switzerland , source1_coordinates= , source1_elevation = , source2 = Rein Posteriur/Hinterrhein , source2_location = Paradies Glacier, Graubünden, Switzerland , source2_coordinates= , so ...

, I Corps was replaced in First Canadian Army by a Canadian corps from Italy, and reverted to the command of Second Army on 2 April. However, it was given no role in the advance across Germany, remaining in the Netherlands where it became an administrative HQ, still with 102nd LAA Rgt under its command.Stacey, p. 545. After VE Day the regiment continued with occupation duties in NW Europe until it was disbanded on 4 February 1946.

Notes

References

Basil Collier John Basil Collier (1908–1983) was a British writer of books of military history, particularly military aviation, World War II and military and political strategy. Collier became a full-time professional writer in 1932. Before the war he was a ...

of the Second World War, United Kingdom Military Series: The Defence of the United Kingdom'', London: HM Stationery Office, 1957/Uckfield: Naval & Military, 2004
ISBN 978-1-84574-055-9. * Maj L.F. Ellis, ''History of the Second World War, United Kingdom Military Series: Victory in the West'', Vol I: ''The Battle of Normandy'', London: HM Stationery Office, 1962/Uckfield: Naval & Military, 2004, . * Maj L.F. Ellis, ''History of the Second World War, United Kingdom Military Series: Victory in the West'', Vol II: ''The Defeat of Germany'', London: HM Stationery Office, 1968/Uckfield: Naval & Military, 2004, . * Gen Sir

Martin Farndale General Sir Martin Baker Farndale, (6 January 1929 – 10 May 2000) was a British Army officer who reached high office in the 1980s. Military career Educated at Yorebridge Grammar School, Askrigg, and the Royal Military Academy Sandhurst, Farnda ...

, ''History of the Royal Regiment of Artillery: The Years of Defeat: Europe and North Africa, 1939–1941'', Woolwich: Royal Artillery Institution, 1988/London: Brasseys, 1996, . * J.B.M. Frederick, ''Lineage Book of British Land Forces 1660–1978'', Vol I, Wakefield: Microform Academic, 1984, . * J.B.M. Frederick, ''Lineage Book of British Land Forces 1660–1978'', Vol II, Wakefield: Microform Academic, 1984, . * * Brig N.W. Routledge, ''History of the Royal Regiment of Artillery: Anti-Aircraft Artillery 1914–55'', London: Royal Artillery Institution/Brassey's, 1994, {{ISBN, 1-85753-099-3. * Col

C.P. Stacey Colonel Charles Perry Stacey (30 July 1906 – 17 November 1989) was a Canadian historian and university professor. He served as the official historian of the Canadian Army in the Second World War and published extensively on military and pol ...

''Official History of the Canadian Army in the Second World War'', Vol III: ''The Victory Campaign – The Operations in North-West Europe 1944–1945'', Ottawa: Queen's Printer & Controller of Stationery, 1960.
Light anti-aircraft regiments of the Royal Artillery Military units and formations established in 1941 Military units and formations disestablished in 1946