Mobilisation The TA's AA units were mobilised on 23 September 1938 during the
Munich Crisis, with units manning their emergency positions within 24 hours, even though many did not yet have their full complement of men or equipment. The emergency lasted three weeks, and they were stood down on 13 October. In February 1939 the existing AA defences came under the control of a new
Anti-Aircraft Command. In June, as the international situation worsened, a partial mobilisation of the TA was begun in a process known as 'couverture', whereby each AA unit did a month's tour of duty in rotation to man selected AA sites. On 24 August, ahead of the declaration of war, Anti-Aircraft Command was fully mobilised at its war stations, with LAA units distributed to defend Vulnerable Points (VPs) such as factories and airfields. 11th (CoLY) LAA Regiment mobilised under the command of Lt-Col M.B.P. Stedall and immediately moved to its war stations at a variety of VPs across
Middlesex,
Essex and
Kent, including
Bentley Priory,
RAF Fighter Command's HQ in
Stanmore,
Enfield Power Station,
Tilbury Docks, the
Thames Haven and
Coryton oil refineries,
Sheerness Dockyard and
Canewdon radar station. The regiment formed part of a new
56th Light Anti-Aircraft Brigade that was forming in
6th Anti-Aircraft Division, which was responsible for defending
South East England.
Phoney War Before the end of the day on 24 August, regimental headquarters (RHQ) had been established at the King's Head Hotel at
Stanford-le-Hope in Essex, where embodiment of TA soldiers and recruits and the attached women of the
Auxiliary Territorial Service (ATS) continued. General mobilisation was announced on 1 September and war was declared on 3 September. RHQ moved to the Collegiate School at Stanford-le-Hope on 10 September, and the regiment formally came under command of 56th LAA Brigade on 30 September. On 10 October the 1st
Bedford Company, ATS, was attached to the regiment. There had been a number of false air raid alarms soon after the declaration of war, but from late November occasional
Luftwaffe reconnaissance aircraft began passing over Stanford-le-Hope too high for the LAA to engage them. While it refitted in the UK, 101st LAA/AT Rgt was broken up on 1 November to form
76th (Royal Welch Fusiliers) A/T Rgt and a separate
61st LAA Rgt (including 43 (CoLY) Bty) in 1st Sp Gp. In the autumn of 1941 1st Armoured Division sailed for Egypt. It was committed to
Eighth Army's
Operation Crusader piecemeal before it had time to prepare for desert warfare, where LAA detachments were attached to mobile
Jock columns for 'snap' actions against aircraft and ground targets. After Crusader, Eighth Army took up defensive positions in the
Gazala Line, a series of fortified 'boxes' defended by a brigade group, usually including an LAA battery deployed in separate Troop positions. When Rommel attacked on 27 May 1942 (the
Battle of Gazala), D Trp of 43 (CoLY) LAA Bty under Lt Beachman distinguished itself in the defence of
1st Free French Brigade's box at
Bir Hakeim in the extreme south of the line, which held out until ordered to withdraw on 10 June. After the Battle of Gazala Eighth Army retreated to a fall-back position at
El Alamein. Here 61st LAA Rgt and its batteries came under the command of
7th Armoured Division. However, the regiment had been withdrawn from the front line by the time the
Second Battle of El Alamein was fought in October 1942. From January 1943, 43 (CoLY) LAA Bty was defending the army's bases in Egypt, which increasingly became a back area. 61st LAA Rgt was broken up in the Middle East on 1 August 1944 to provide infantry reinforcements for Eighth Army in Italy.
Battle of Britain On 1 May 1940, shortly before the Phoney War ended with the German invasion of Holland, 31 LAA Bty with its towed Bofors guns was sent to
Gillingham, Kent, and assigned to 'N' Mobile AA Bde operating south of the
Thames under the commander of
49 AA Bde, while another CoLY Troop was assigned as a mobile reserve north of the river equipped with Lewis guns. These reserves were envisaged as having an anti-parachutist role in addition to AA defence. 'N' Mobile Bde was transferred to HQ
2 AA Bde after it returned from Dunkirk, and was broken up at the end of June. In late May both RHQ at Stanford-le-Hope and 32 Bty HQ (BHQ) at Leigh-on-Sea moved to
Weald Hall, at
South Weald near
Brentwood, Essex, where the regiment established a camp. The rest of the regiment, its batteries, and even individual troops were split up and widely dispersed across southern England, mainly to defend airfields of Fighter Command: on 20 May 33 LAA Bty was ordered to move its Bofors detachments from Canewdon to
RAF Hornchurch and
RAF Martlesham Heath; in June 31 LAA Bty received additional Bofors, bringing it up to its establishment of 12 guns, but the three troops were scattered between
Gravesend Airport in Kent,
RAF Kenley in
Surrey and
RAF Tangmere in
Sussex; in July 32 LAA Bty sent a Troop to defend the
Hawker Aircraft factory at
Langley Airfield in
Buckinghamshire. RAF Kenley was attacked on 3 July by a single
Luftwaffe bomber flying too high for the regiment's Bofors to reply. However, these airfields were under constant attack once the
Battle of Britain really got under way in August. Left Troop of 31 LAA Bty was in action on 16 August when Tangmere was attacked by
Junkers Ju 87 Stukas; on 18 August another troop of the battery at Kenley shot down one bomber and claimed a second. On 23 August the battery handed over Tangmere, Kenley and Gravesend to 152 LAA Bty of
51st (Devon) LAA Rgt (re-equipped after Dunkirk) and concentrated at Weald Park as AA Command shuffled its resources to meet the threats. Hornchurch was badly bombed on 24 August, but the defending troop of 33 LAA Bty was unable to fire because the bombers were too high. On 26 August the troop at
RAF Rochford fired on a German bomber that was already force-landing after being attacked by a
Spitfire fighter. Rochford was bombed from high level two days later, narrowly missing some of the gun emplacements. There were also numerous night attacks over the area, to which the LAA guns could not reply. 32 LAA Battery took over defence of
RAF North Weald on 10 September and three days later 31 LAA Bty deployed its troops to
RAF Debden,
RAF Coltishall and
RAF Wittering (Left Trp). On 24 September the troop of 32 LAA Bty at Langley was redeployed to various sites around
Woolwich.
Blitz By now the daylight Battle of Britain had been won, and the
Luftwaffe switched to night bombing of London and other cities (
The Blitz), so the role of 56 LAA Bde's guns at the VPs was reduced. On 5 October 32 LAA Bty sent a detachment to man two Bofors guns guarding
Windsor Castle, and the rest of the battery was redeployed during the month to Hawker's aircraft factories at Langley and
Kingston-upon-Thames and briefly to ordnance factories at Woolwich and
Plumstead, with BHQ at
Staines. A second draft of 230 militiamen had been posted to the regiment in late September, but at the end of October it was ordered to adopt the official War Establishment, which meant that it could post out around 314 unwanted other ranks to
49th LAA Rgt. The following month 31 LAA Bty was redeployed with AALMGs to
RAF Benson (two trps) and
Walters Ash (one trp defending
RAF Bomber Command HQ); 33 LAA Bty with Bofors to Stanmore (two trps defending RAF Fighter Command HQ) and
Weybridge (one trp defending the
Vickers aircraft factory at
Brooklands). With the regiment's gunsites now all west of London, an advanced RHQ was established at Staines on 1 December, and the regiment was now part of 49 AA Bde in
1st AA Division defending London, with which it remained until after the end of the Blitz in May 1941. AA Command continued to expand and Maj John Anderson Armstrong, commanding 33 LAA Bty, was promoted from the regiment to command a new
73 LAA Rgt formed on 27 February 1941. The new unit's RHQ began assembling at 32 LAA Bty's BHQ at
Sunningdale before moving to
Stanwell, Middlesex, on 14 March. As the new batteries arrived from the training regiments they took over several of 11th (CoLY) LAA Rgt's VPs including Langley, (8 x Bofors) and
Surbiton,
Surrey (12 x Lewis). 49 AA Bde began training courses for the new regiment, with instructors provided by 11th (CoLY) LAA Rgt, and
Sir Charles Shuckburgh, Bt, was later transferred from the regiment as
adjutant of 73rd LAA Rgt. In January 1941 11th (CoLY) LAA Rgt was warned of a new mobile role in
Combined Operations, and Left Troop of 31 LAA Bty moved from Wittering to the
Combined Operations Training Centre at
Inverary in
Scotland. The regiment adopted the organisation for a mobile unit in March. The batteries and troops continued to be shuffled around VPs in the
Home counties and RHQ moved from South Weald and Staines to
Bracknell, Berkshire. On 1 May 33 LAA Bty was ordered to mobilise, leaving the regiment and joining the
War Office Reserve. To replace 33 LAA Bty the regiment was joined in June by a new 283 Bty formed within
16th LAA Rgt. It quickly embraced the CoLY identity, even though it left again in September 1941. Later it was converted into
1 (City of London Yeomanry) Airlanding LAA Battery (
see below).
Tunisia A year later the regiment was still in the UK, finally about to embark for North Africa (
Operation Torch) as part of
First Army with the following organisation: • RHQ 11th LAA Rgt • 31, 32, 33 LAA Btys • 11 LAA Rgt Signal Section,
Royal Corps of Signals (RCS) • 11 LAA Workshop Section,
Royal Electrical and Mechanical Engineers (REME) • 11 LAA Rgt Platoon,
Royal Army Service Corps (RASC) The Torch landings began on 8 November and the build-up of forces continued over succeeding weeks as
V Corps pushed eastwards towards
Tunis. It was halted short of the city by
Axis forces, and there was a pause while the build-up continued. By mid-January the 11th CoLY LAA Rgt had arrived and moved up to defend V Corps' assets in the forward area, where German and Italian
divebombing and 'tank-busting' attacks were frequent. However the concentration of British LAA guns drove the enemy aircraft to bomb from higher altitude. AA ammunition expenditure was high, and supply was erratic over the poor roads of Tunisia. V Corps and the air forces continued their build-up, and by mid-March one of 11th (CoLY) LAA Rgt's batteries had been detached under
22 AA Bde as part of the defences for
Souk-el-Khemis Airfield where the first Spitfires had been deployed and begun to win air superiority. First Army renewed its offensive at the end of March with massive air support and by the time of the
Fall of Tunis in May 1943, the whole regiment was assigned to airfield protection under 22 AA Bde.
Italy 11th (CoLY) LAA Regiment was not involved in the
Allied landings in Sicily (Operation Husky) or mainland Italy (
Operation Baytown), but joined 2 AA Bde as the
Italian Campaign developed. By July 1944 the brigade had reached
Ancona on the
Adriatic coast with V Corps, mainly deployed to protect airfields and field gun areas. After a short period of refitting and re-training at
Anzio in August, 2 AA Bde's units returned to the line between
Arezzo and
Florence in September, a journey across mountains that was unusually carried out as a single road convoy. Between September and December, as the Allied armies closed up to the
Gothic Line, its units were widely distributed, some supporting XIII Corps with
Fifth US Army, others with
X Corps and
II Polish Corps under Eighth Army; 11th (CoLY) LAA Rgt was mainly defending landing grounds. In late 1944 the
Luftwaffe was suffering from such shortages of pilots, aircraft and fuel that serious air attacks were rare. At the same time the British Army was suffering a severe manpower shortage. The result was that a number of AA units were deemed surplus and were disbanded to provide reinforcements to other arms of service. 11th (CoLY) LAA Regiment remained in service, but now retrained as infantry for defence duties. Some of its Bofors batteries re-equipped with
3-inch or
4.2-inch mortars and heavy machine guns for infantry support, as 2 AA Bde held a section of the line as an independent formation. From November to January 11 (CoLY) LAA Rgt supported
1st Division with one battery deployed in AA defence of bridges, the rest in a variety of roles, including
Provost duties, ammunition transport, and assisting the
Royal Engineers and
Pioneers in bridging and smoke making. In February 1945 the regiment was reduced from nine to six troops (54 to 36 guns). The battery transferred to
1st Airborne Division on 2 July 1942, being converted into
1st (City of London Yeomanry) Air Landing LAA Bty on 4 December. 1st Airborne Division's HQ and divisional troops left the UK on 13 April 1943 and went by sea to North Africa, where they arrived on 26 April at the end of the
Tunisian Campaign (though one of its brigades had been engaged for some months). Its brigades were dropped to seize river crossings during the
Allied invasion of Sicily (Operation Husky). However, none of 1st (CoLY) A/L LAA Bty seem to have flown in with the gliders of
1st Airlanding Bde in the disastrous attempt to seize the Ponte Grande (Operation Ladbroke) on 10 July. 1st Airborne Division was withdrawn from Sicily back to North Africa by 16 July. After the landings on the Italian mainland began on 3 September, 1st Airborne Division was sent to make a subsidiary seaborne landing from warships at
Taranto (
Operation Slapstick) on 9 September. The division quickly took over the port and airfield at Taranto and brought in its heavier equipment as the leading echelons set off in pursuit of the retreating German
1st Parachute Division. Shortly afterwards the division took the Adriatic ports of
Bari and
Brindisi and the important
Foggia Airfield Complex. It then settled to defend Foggia, where a large AA defence organisation was built up, initially by 2 AA Bde, which arrived by 30 September. 1st Airborne Division embarked from Italy on 22 November and on 10 December arrived back in the UK, where after refitting it spent the first part of 1944 training for the Allied invasion of Normandy (
Operation Overlord). However, 1st (CoLY) A/L LAA Bty left the division on 21 February 1944 and reverted to its former title of 283 LAA Bty for the rest of the war. It was placed in suspended animation on 4 February 1946. ==Postwar==