Hampshire Fortress Engineers In the early months of the war the unit was engaged in installing and testing anti-shipping and anti-aircraft searchlights, generating gear and general defensive works. Its average strength at this time was 27 officers and 440–460 other ranks. At the end of April 1940 the unit was ordered to hand over its responsibilities to units of the
Royal Artillery (RA) and reorganise as a corps engineer unit as follows:
Hampshire Corps Troops RE (CTRE) • 576th Corps Field Park Company • 577th Army Field Company • 578th Army Field Company •
579th Army Field Company (formed from the
Cinque Ports Fortress Royal Engineers based at
Dover. By the end of 1940, Hampshire CTRE had been redesignated as IV CTRE, assigned to
IV Corps. The Corps sailed for the Middle East in November 1941 and was established in Iraq by 1 February 1942. 579th Company was left in the UK and transferred to
VIII CTRE in December 1941. On arrival in Iraq, IV CTRE was detached from Corps HQ and sent to Egypt to join
Eighth Army (IV Corps later went on to
India).
XIII Corps Troops RE Western Desert In Egypt, the unit became
XIII CTRE, assigned to
XIII Corps in the
Western Desert. Rommel was successfully held at Alamein and on 23/24 October Eighth Army went over to the offensive under General
Montgomery at the
Second Battle of El Alamein. For this offensive 577th Company was temporarily attached to
44th (Home Counties) Division. After the battle, XIII Corps was given the job of securing prisoners and clearing the battlefield, where the engineers had 'the unenviable task of sorting out the maze of
minefields, lifting some and marking others'. XIII Corps was mainly left in the rear areas for the rest of the
North African Campaign.
Sicily and Calabria XIII was given an assault role in the
Allied invasion of Sicily (Operation Husky), sailing from Egypt and landing in the south east of the island on 10 July 1943. For this operation XIII CTRE was joined by 56th Field Company, a Regular RE unit that had been serving with
Tenth Army in Palestine; it remained with the unit for the rest of the war. The troops advanced steadily, supported by the engineers building numerous bridges and repairing damaged supply routes through rugged country, and the island was in Allied hands by 17 August. XIII was also entrusted with the assault landing in the 'toe' of mainland Italy on 2/3 September,
Operation Baytown. This was almost unopposed, but there was considerable work for the engineers in repairing the port of
Reggio and replacing the usual demolished bridges.
Operation Diadem Eighth Army steadily advanced up Italy until it was held at the Germans'
Winter Line and stalemate set it. The following Spring, XIII Corps participated in the fourth Battle of Monte Cassino (
Operation Diadem) with an assault crossing of the
Rapido River on the night of 11 May 1944. The subsequent advance was dependent upon bridges being quickly established across this river, and 577 Field Co was made responsible for building a Class 40
Bailey bridge codenamed 'London' at San Angelo on the front of
8th Indian Division. A camouflaged track (also codenamed 'London') was prepared to bring the bridging material close to the river by night. The bridging operation began after the Indian troops had seized their bridgehead, and went on under cover of a smokescreen, while 8th Indian Division cleared San Angelo. 'London' was completed by 577 Fd Co at 10.30 on 14 May, and two additional Class 40 bridges into 8th Indian Division's bridgehead ('Edenbridge' and 'Tonbridge') were completed by 56 Fd Co at 17.00 and 22.00 respectively.
78th Division, which had been waiting for 'London' to open, crossed the river on 14 May to join in the attack the following day. The
Official History gives much of the credit for the success of 'Diadem' to the British and Indian engineers. bridge blown up by the Germans. This success was followed by a breakthrough of the
Hitler Line, and an advance to
Florence, where the Germans had destroyed the historic bridges. By late August 8 Indian Division had the task of crossing the
River Arno where no peacetime road existed. During the nights of 25–27 August the divisional engineers constructed improvised crossings under fire, after which XIII CTRE completed a low-level Bailey bridge by the morning of 28 August. The advance then continued to the
Gothic Line.
Roadbuilding The autumn's fighting involved a huge amount of bridgebuilding and road improvement in rough terrain. Along Highway 67 from
Florence to
Forlì, a section from
Dicomano 'twisted and turned for six miles through a narrow cleft in the mountains, rising gently to San Godingo, whence it climbed nearly 3,000 feet in five miles to the Muraglione Pass'. The estimated time for re-opening this section was a month, but the sappers and gunners of
6th Armoured Division got it open in 13 days, after which XIII CTRE followed up and converted it into a two-way Class 40 road in 19 days. The most difficult sections were two demolitions of and respectively, which were widened, blasting away the rock face on one side and building up the other side on cribbing. The Corps engineers were assisted by 10th Mechanical Equipment Platoon, RE, a detachment of 1st Drilling Company,
Royal Canadian Engineers, an anti-tank battery of the
Royal Artillery, three-and-a-half companies of the
Pioneer Corps, three general transport (GT) companies and two tipper platoons of the
Royal Army Service Corps, and 70 Italian wood-cutters. Wood cut by the gunners and the Italians was turned into 'cribs' and 'dogs' by 576 Corps Field Park Co, which were then filled with rock quarried at Dicomano and rubble from ruined buildings. Once through the Gothic Line, XIII Corps took over part of the front from US forces, whose engineers had opened a track ('Ace') from San Pietro on Highway 65, over the
Apennine Mountains into the valley of the
Santerno. This involved steep diversions that caused great difficulties for British transport. On the evening of 4 October, 56 Fd Co was summoned from work on Highway 67 to eliminate one of these diversions by building a Bailey bridge over a demolished six-arch brick bridge at San Andrea. The company was given about 500 British and Italian Pioneers to assist. The accessible piers were rebuilt, those that were inaccessible were reached by cantilevering Bailey sections across to them. The tallest inaccessible pier had the top blown off by using
6-pounder and
17-pounder anti-tank guns. The whole procedure was delayed by heavy rain and some shelling, but the company completed the job by midday on 15 October. Maintaining routes such as 'Ace' during the winter months was a huge task, and XIII CTRE and 78th Division's RE had to be reinforced by US engineers when one section collapsed into mud.
Advance to the Po XIII Corps spent the late winter of 1944–45 in the mountains above
Bologna. Before the
Allied Spring Offensive began, it was moved down to prepare to cross the
River Po. 56 and 578 Field Companies were left behind to deal with the stocks of engineer equipment left in the mountains: they used it to build four Bailey bridges to repair the routes to bring stores down into the plain. They then rejoined XIII CTRE on 16 April. The whole weight of the corps' engineers was thrown into supporting the advance of
2nd New Zealand Division. XIII CTRE under its Commander, RE, (CRE) Lt-Col R.F. Hawker, was reinforced by two tipper platoons, two GT platoons and a composite platoon transporting rafts and assault boats, with three and a half Pioneer companies doing the loading and unloading. Two sets of Bailey equipment were delivered each day to 576 Fd Park Co, which kept two equipment dumps open, leapfrogging forward as the advance proceeded. The New Zealanders crossed the Sillaro on 14 April, and by dawn on 16 April three low-level Bailey bridges across it were completed. Between 16 and 20 April a number of canals were crossed, then on the night of 20/21st the New Zealanders made an assault crossing of the Idice. The following day XIII CTRE put over a high-level Bailey bridge, and the Po was reached on 23 April. Bridging the wide Po was a major operation, but XIII Corps had made such good progress that it was allotted material for its own pontoon Bailey bridge in a rushed operation. The site selected from aerial photographs was found to be unsuitable due to Allied bomb craters, and the alternative meant bridging a gap and all available Bailey material and transport had to be collected from other formations. 2nd New Zealand Division began its assault crossing on the night of 24/25 April, and the convoy of bridging equipment began to move forward at dawn, arriving on site at 17.00. The first lorries crossed by a light
Folding Boat Equipment (FBE) bridge erected by the New Zealand RE, heavier equipment going over by the New Zealanders' Class 40 ferry. This meant that both ends of the pontoon bridge could be started together and despite communication problems it was completed by 17.00 on 27 April. Two hours later it was damaged by an underwater explosion – whether by a
floating mine or sabotage by
frogmen was never ascertained – but was quickly repaired by dismantling and incorporating one of the New Zealanders' ferries. This was completed by 02.00 on 28 April - the longest floating Bailey bridge built in the longest Italian campaign. The Po crossing was followed by a rapid advance to the
Adige: bridging and supply were now the factors limiting the speed of advance. Engineer equipment was short but top priority was given to XIII Corps (the corps' chief engineer had a section of
Military Police to escort his equipment through the traffic jams). This enabled XIII CTRE to throw a pontoon Bailey bridge across the fast-flowing Adige at
Piacenza, which presented greater difficulties than the wide Po. Material arrived on site at 08.00 on 29 April and the bridge was completed by 22.00 on the same day, although work on the approaches prevented it being opened to traffic until next morning. XIII Corps now pursued the defeated Germans across the
Venetian Plain to the
Piave, which was reached on 29 April. The bridge had been wrecked by Allied bombers months before, but XIII CTRE arrived on 1 May with equipment to build a floating Bailey bridge. The German forces in Italy surrendered (the
Surrender of Caserta) the following day, but XIII Corps continued advancing to
Trieste as the war ended. XIII CTRE was disbanded after September 1945. In February 1939, the existing AA defences came under the control of a new
Anti-Aircraft Command. In June, a partial mobilisation of TA units 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 and searchlight positions. On 24 August, ahead of the declaration of war, AA Command was fully mobilised at its war stations. The AA Battalions of the RE were transferred to the
Royal Artillery (RA) on 1 August 1940, so the unit was redesignated
48th (Hampshire) Searchlight Regiment, RA,(TA). By the end of 1944, the German
Luftwaffe was suffering from such shortages of pilots, aircraft and fuel that serious aerial attacks on the UK could be discounted. At the same time
21st Army Group fighting in North West Europe was suffering a severe manpower shortage, particularly among the infantry. In January 1945 the War Office began to reorganise surplus anti-aircraft and coastal artillery regiments in the UK into infantry battalions, primarily for line of communication and occupation duties, thereby releasing trained infantry for frontline service. In January 1945, 48th S/L Regiment became
636 (Hampshire) Infantry Regiment, RA. After infantry training, the battalion landed on the Continent on 7 May 1945 (the day before
VE Day, and was assigned to Line of Communication duties with 21st Army Group. == Postwar ==