Mobilisation On the outbreak of war, TF units were invited to volunteer for Overseas Service and on 15 August 1914, the
War Office (WO) issued instructions to separate those men who had signed up for Home Service only, and form these into reserve units. On 31 August, the formation of a reserve or 2nd Line unit was authorised for each 1st Line unit where 60 per cent or more of the men had volunteered for Overseas Service. The titles of these 2nd Line units would be the same as the original, but distinguished by a '2/' prefix. In this way, duplicate brigades, companies and batteries were created, mirroring those TF formations being sent overseas. By the autumn of 1914, the campaign on the
Western Front was bogging down into
Trench warfare and there was an urgent need for batteries of heavy and siege artillery to be sent to France. The WO decided that the TF coastal gunners were well enough trained to take over many of the duties in the coastal defences, releasing Regular RGA gunners for service in the field, and 1st line TF RGA companies that had volunteered for overseas service had been authorised to increase their strength by 50 per cent. Although complete defended ports units never went overseas, they did supply trained gunners to RGA units serving overseas. They also provided
cadres to form complete units for front line service. The Durham RGA is known to have provided half the personnel of 41st Siege Bty and then to have raised 142nd Heavy Bty and provided personnel to 94th and 149th Siege Btys in 1915–16. As was normal practice, the gunners 'stood to' at 06.30 and so were ready for action when the German warships approached. The Germans planned to bombard the batteries for 15 minutes to suppress them before turning the attention to the town. The
Seydlitz opened fire at 08.10 and Lt-Col Robson rushed from his home to take up his post as Fire Commander and Battery Medical Officer at Heugh Battery. The first shell cut the Fire Commander's telephone lines, so the whole action was fought by the Battery Commanders on their own under standing orders. At ranges of 4000 to 5000 yards the German shells fell round the batteries without scoring a direct hit. Heugh Battery engaged first the
Seydlitz and then the
Moltke until they passed out of its arc of fire, and then concentrated on the stationary
Blucher which was firing at Lighthouse Battery. Lighthouse Battery scored a direct hit on ''Blucher's'' forebridge, disabling two guns of the
secondary armament, but suffered a number of misfires due to an electrical fault. The action ended at 08.52 when the batteries fired their last rounds at 9200 yards' range at the withdrawing warships. The Germans had fired 1150 shells, killing 112 and wounding over 200 civilians and doing extensive damage to the town and docks. The Durham RGA suffered two killed, and in firing a total of 123 rounds had inflicted at least seven direct hits, killing eight German seamen and wounding four. In 1920, all members of the Durham RGA in action that day were made eligible for the British War Medal, normally only awarded to those who saw active service overseas. The battery spent the early months of 1916 with
II Corps in the relatively quiet
Armentières sector. RGA brigades were redesignated Heavy Artillery Groups (HAGs) in April 1916, and the policy now was to move batteries between them as required. 41st Siege Bty transferred in June to 25th HAG on the Somme where it fought throughout the whole
Somme Offensive from July to November, sustaining heavy casualties from enemy shellfire in July. During 1917, the battery supported the attacks at the
Battle of Vimy Ridge, the
Battle of Messines (when it sustained more heavy casualties) and the
Third Battle of Ypres. The brigade was part of
XIX Corps in
Fifth Army when the German
Spring Offensive was launched on 21 March 1918. 41st Siege Bty's forward section of three guns was almost overrun as the German infantry broke through the line out of the mist, but the officer commanding, Maj Reginald Fillingham, was able to put the guns and ammunition out of action just in time. The remaining section fought throughout the 'Great Retreat' and supported the Australians at the
First Battle of Villers-Bretonneux where they decisively stopped the German advance on that front. 41st Siege Bty was in action when the
Allies launched their counter-offensive at the
Battle of Amiens on 8 August, and then followed the advance of
Fourth Army to the
Hindenburg Line. It supported the
Australian Corps and
II US Corps during the successful
Battle of the St Quentin Canal (29 September) and the following advance. It then fired in support of
XII Corps in the set-piece battles of the
Selle (17 October) and
Sambre (4 November). After that, the pursuit was too fast for the 6-inch howitzers to keep up, and the battery was in
billets when the
Armistice with Germany came into force on 11 November. Postwar, the battery briefly became
41st Battery, RGA, in the Regular Army, but was absorbed into another battery in January 1920.
142nd (Durham) Heavy Battery Authorised on 31 October 1915, this 4-gun battery was formed from 1/1st and 2/1st Heavy Batteries of the Durham RGA. On 31 July, the battery transferred to Fifth Army fighting the Battle of the Somme, where the
60-pounder guns of the heavy batteries were called upon for
counter-battery (CB) fire. On 5 October 1916, 142nd Heavy Bty was brought up to a strength of six guns when it was joined by a section from 176th Heavy Bty. The battery rejoined Fifth Army on 1 September in time for the
Battle of the Menin Road Ridge and subsequent battles of the
Flanders Offensive. By the final
Second Battle of Passchendaele, conditions for the British artillery were very bad: batteries were clearly observable and suffered badly from CB fire, while their own guns sank into the mud and became difficult to aim and fire. Having been moved from one HAG to another, 142nd Heavy Bty joined 79th HAG on 18 December 1917, shortly before it became 79th Bde, remaining with it until the end of the war. On 28 June 79th Bde supported
XI Corps in a limited counter-attack on La Becque, which was described as 'a model operation' for artillery cooperation. 79th Brigade joined Fourth Army on 18 August, soon after the beginning of the final Allied
Hundred Days Offensive. and continued with it at the Battle of the Selle on 17 October, when one German counter-attack was broken up when all available guns were turned onto it. 79th Brigade was part of IX Corps' artillery reserve for the advance to the
River Sambre on 23 October. As the regimental historian relates, 'The guns of Fourth Army demonstrated, on 23 October, the crushing effect of well co-ordinated massed artillery. they simply swept away the opposition'. IX Corps stormed across the canal on 4 November (the
Battle of the Sambre), after which the campaign became a pursuit of a beaten enemy, in which the slow-moving heavy guns could play little part. The war ended with the
Armistice with Germany on 11 November. On return to the UK, the battery was disbanded at
Sandling in
Kent on 11 October 1919. The Nominal Rolls of the battery show large numbers of men with home addresses in Hartlepool and the surrounding area. Commanded by
Major Daniel Sandford, 94th Siege Battery landed in France on 30 May 1916 equipped with four
BL 9.2-inch howitzers Mark I and immediately began preparing to support
Third Army's
Attack on the Gommecourt Salient on the
First day on the Somme. The bombardment programme was extended to seven days before Z day (1 July). On Z Day, 94th Siege Bty succeeded in firing 100 rounds per gun in the 65 minutes preceding the attack, a remarkable feat that caused significant damage to the howitzers' buffers and recuperators due to overheating. However, the attack was a failure. 94th Siege Bty then moved to Fifth Army for the later stages of the Somme offensive, which finally died down in November. The battery took part in minor
operations on the Ancre in early 1917, including CB fire for II Corps' attack on
Miraumont on 17 February. Shortly afterwards, the Germans began their planned withdrawal to the Hindenburg Line (
Operation Alberich). Following up was especially difficult for the heavy artillery, with all the roads forwards having been destroyed, and 94th Siege Bty had to haul its howitzers across the devastated countryside. The battery came back into action during the Arras offensive, supporting the
First attack on Bullecourt (11 April). It joined Second Army for the Battle of Messines, being involved in exchanges of CB fire with Germans batteries before the explosion of
huge mines launched the successful assault on 7 June. The battery then spent the summer with Fourth Army on the Flanders coast awaiting a breakthrough at Ypres that never came. However, the battery received its heaviest casualties of the war from CB fire. It was rested in late 1917. On 6 December, 94th Siege Bty joined 23rd Bde, remaining with it until the Armistice. It was increased to six guns when a section joined on 15 January from 190th Siege Bty. When the German Spring Offensive opened, 94th Siege Bty was supporting Fifth Army. After firing its SOS tasks in support of the infantry, the battery had to withdraw under fire. During the 'Great Retreat' the battery moved by road, prepared 13 positions, firing from nine of them, and had fired over 1500 rounds. Casualties had been light. In the summer of 1918, the battery supported Australian Corps' surprise attack on
Hamel on 4 July, then
III Corps at Amiens on 8 August. During the advance in late August 1918, the battery's forward observation officer, Capt R.A.E. Somerville, found two abandoned German
7.7 cm field guns near Marincourt. With the assistance of his telephonists, he turned one gun round and fired over 100 rounds at the retreating enemy, for which he was awarded a
Military Cross. The two guns were sent home as trophies, one to the Durham RGA and one to the town of Sunderland. The battery then took part in several of the set-piece battles of the Hundred Days Offensive including the Australian–US attack at the St Quentin Canal. However the 9.2-inch howitzers were too clumsy to be much use in the pursuit. The battery's last action was at the assault crossing of the Sambre on 4 November. 94th Siege Bty was intended to form 144th Bty, RGA, in the interim order of battle for the postwar army, but this was rescinded after the signing of the
Treaty of Versailles and it disbanded at
Dover on 24 June 1919. It went out to the Western Front on 21 August and joined 3rd HAG with Fourth Army on 28 August at the height of the Battle of the Somme. It transferred to 14th HAG on 16 October. Once the Somme offensive was over, 149th Siege Bty went back to 3rd HAG on 2 December. This group was now with Fifth Army but transferred to Fourth on 22 December. However, on 24 December149th Siege Bty was ordered to 35th HAG with Third Army, which it joined on 31 December. While Canadian Corps with
First Army attacked Vimy Ridge on 9 April 1917 (
see above),
VII Corps with Third Army simultaneously assaulted the Hindenburg Line south of
Arras. 39th Heavy Artillery Group, which 149th Siege Bty had joined on 11 February, supported this attack. Preliminary bombardment began on 4 April, with VII Corps assigning a range of tasks to its 6-inch howitzer batteries: cutting the barbed wire in the distant second and third German trench lines; targeting the trench systems themselves; and CB work. At night, the 6-inch howitzers might be called on to supplement the 60-pdrs for distant HF tasks, mainly to prevent the Germans from repairing the damage. Most of 8 April (which should have been the day of the attack) was devoted to CB fire to neutralise every known enemy gun position and observation post (OP), and to complete the wire-cutting. When the infantry divisions went over the top on 9 April, the 6-inch howitzers laid a standing barrage on the support line of the German front trench system, then, when the creeping barrage fired by field guns ahead of the infantry reached this line, the standing barrage was shifted onto the second objective. VII Corps' two right-hand divisions were held up in front of the Hindenburg Line, where the distant wire had not been cut, but the two on the left penetrated as much as into the German positions, with relatively light casualties, largely thanks to the artillery support. Bitter fighting, with progressively less success, went on along the Arras front for several more weeks before the offensive was called off in mid-May. 149th Siege Bty moved back to 35th HAG on 30 May, then to 58th HAG on 9 June, while minor operations continued against the Hindenburg Line, then it returned to 39th HAG on 16 June. There was then a quiet phase on Third Army's front while attention moved elsewhere.
Home defence After so many TF coast gunners had departed to units in the field, the remaining companies of the defended ports units were consolidated in April 1917. In the case of the Durham RGA, this meant reorganising the seven remaining companies (1/1, 1/2, 1/4, 2/1, 2/2, 2/3, 2/4) into Nos 1–3 Companies in the Tees and Hartlepool Garrison of
Northern Command. By April 1918, the Tees and Hartlepool guns were organised as follows: • No 17 Fire Control (Hartlepool) • Tees South Gare Battery – 2 ×
4.7-inch QF • Hartlepool Lighthouse Battery – 1 ×
6-inch Mk VII • Heugh Battery – 2 × 6-inch Mk VII • Old Pier Battery – 2 × 4.7-inch QF After the
Armistice with Germany, the TF was demobilised and the Durham RGA placed in suspended animation in 1919. ==Interwar==