London Gazette

TRumb. 38149 5973

Of TUESDAY, the i6th of DECEMBER, 1947

byRegistered as a newspaper

THURSDAY, 18 DECEMBER, 1947

The War Office,December, 1947.

THE ANTI-AIRCRAFT DEFENCE OF THE UNITED KINGDOM.FROM 28TH JULY, 1939, TO I5TH APRIL, 1945.

The following despatch was submitted to theSecretary of State for War on- the 2istOctober, 1946, by GENERAL SIRFREDERICK A. PILE, Bt., G.C.B.,D.S.O., M.C., General Officer Commanding-in-Chief, Anti-Aircraft Command.

PART I.PREAMBLE.

1. I have been commanded by the ArmyCouncil to submit a report on the Anti-Aircraftdefence of the United Kingdom during the warand have the honour to -present my despatchherewith.-

2. For convenience the report has beendivided into two parts and in this first partI propose to deal with events from the outbreakof war until May, 1941.

SECTION I—GENERAL.3. In September, 1939, the Anti-Aircraft

•defences of the country were organised' in aCommand Headquarters, seven -DivisionalHeadquarters, a varying number of Brigades in«ach Division and a number of gun and search-light units in each Brigade.

4. Anti-Aircraft Command Headquarters wassituated at Stanmore, adjacent to the Head-quarters of Fighter Command, R.A.F., andwith them was jointly responsible for the AirDefence of Great Britain, the A.O.C.-in-C.Fighter Command being in operational com-mand.' •

A system of responsibility such as this ob-viously entailed the closest liaison and willing•co-operation on both sides. I wish to put onrecord that the relations between my Head-quarters and Fighter Command Headquarterswere always most cordial.

5. The areas allotted to each of the sevenDivisions were as follows: —

T.st̂ -The Metropolitan area of London.

2nd—Northern East Anglia, the EastMidlands and Humber.

3rd—Scotland and Northern Ireland.4th—North-west England, the West Mid-

lands and North Wales.5th—South Wales, south-west and southern

England.6th—South-east England and southern

East Anglia.7th—North-east England.

An additional organisation, .directly con-trolled for operations from my Headquarters,was responsible for the defence of the Orkneysand Shetlands. It is essential to emphasisethat A.A. Divisions were in no way comparableto Divisions in the Field Army, being of nofixed size and at times being up to four timesas large and covering many thousand squaremiles of country.

6. The failure of our first overseas campaignin Norway confirmed my opinion of the para-mount importance of the Anti-Air craft defences;if we could obtain, mastery in the air, therewould be no invasion; if we could not, no ex-peditionary force could be launched from theUnited Kingdom. I therefore pressed for andsecured a large expansion of our Anti-Aircraftdefences during 1940.

7. At the end of 1940 I felt it essential topropose a considerable re-organisation in.orderto relieve, the burden on the existing Commandand Divisions and also to achieve closer co-ordination of boundaries with Fighter Com-mand. Five new Divisions were created a.f,follows: —

• 8th—covering the south coast as-far east asBournemouth.

9th—South Wales.1 ioth—Humber.nth—the West Midlands and central

Wales.I2th—Clyde and Northern Ireland.

5974 SUPPLEMENT TO THE LONDON GAZETTE, 18 DECEMBER, 1947

In addition, to ease the supervision^ of thisorganisation, three AA Corps were created:

1 AA Corps in the South (i, 5, 6, 8 and9 Divisions) corresponding with 'io and nGroups R.A.F.

2 AA Corps in the Midlands (2, 4, 10 andii Divisions) corresponding with 9 and 12Groups R.A.F.

3 AA Corps in the North (3, 7, and 12Divisions) corresponding with 13 and 14Groups R.A.F.

8. When I was appointed to the command ofthe Anti-Aircraft defences on 28th July, 1939,I was faced with the most grave shortage ofequipment. At the outbreak of war the totalnumber of Heavy Anti-Aircraft guns under mycommand was 695, many of which were of oldand obsolescent types and a number of whichwere only on loan from the Royal Navy. Theapproved and recommended total at this timewas 2,232.

The position with Light Anti-Aircraft gunswas even worse, there being only 253 out ofan approved total of 1,200, some of whichagain had been borrowed from the Royal Navy.Of tiie best Light Anti-Aircraft gun-, the 40-mm.Bofors, there were only 76.

Searchlights were in a somewhat better posi-tion, as there were 2,700 equipments out of anapproved total of 4,128 and a recommendedtotal of 4,700.

9. The increase in equipments throughoutthe period under review, may conveniently .benoted here.

At the end of 1939 there were 850 Heavyguns, 510 Light guns and 3,361 Searchlights.

At the beginning of July, 1940, when airattacks on the United Kingdom began inearnest, there were 1,200 Heavy guns, 549Light guns and 3,932 Searchlights.

By May, 1941, there were 1,691 Heavy guns,940 Light guns, and Searchlights had reacheda total of 4,532 early- in 1941 but owing toshortage of manpower the number of equip-ments in action had to be reduced before May,1941.

10. The Anti-Aircraft defences at the out-break of war were entirely manned by unitsof the Territorial Army. Their total strengthat the time they were mobilised was 106,690.

While the training of a Territorial Army inpeace time bristles with difficulties, the Terri-torial system has many advantages which faroutweigh the disadvantages.

The Territorial Army has always attractedmen anxious to fit themselves to defend theircountry. These men were the cream of themanhood of the country. In the1 Commandit is no exaggeration to say that the successwhich it achieved was due in great part to theexcellence of the personnel and without somesimilar voluntary organisation in the future Ido not see how the Anti-Aircraft defences ofthis country can be adequately manned exceptat prohibitive cost.

11. As a result of the introduction of con-scription early in 1939 it was intended to allot20;ooo militia every three months to help manthe defences. In actual- fact, war began threemonths before the arrival of' the first allotment.By July, 1940, the total manpower in Anti-Aircraft Command was 157,319 and in May,1941, just over 300,000:

12. It very soon became evident that the' quality of the conscripts allotted to the Com-

mand was. inferior and that I was not receiv-ing such a good selection of the Army intakeas other arms. This was due to restrictionsas to age and medical fitness on the men to beposted to Arms liable to serve overseas, andI later had occasion to protest against a pro-cess of allocation of manpower which involvedthe posting of the best type of recruits to otherArms at the expense of A.A. Command. .

13. Throughout the period covered by thispart of my despatch, and indeed throughout thewar, I was constantly faced with manpowerproblems. The shortage of manpower and thelarge demands made on the Command to sup-ply personnel and units for the Field Army(in all 170 gun or searchlight regiments wentoverseas) led first of all to the introduction ofMixed Units and later to the Home Guard man-ning anti-aircraft equipment. It led also todrastic reductions in the number of searchlightunits.

14. The deployment of the anti-aircraft de-fences at the outbreak of a war is a very delicatematter. The possibility of an immediate andparalysing attack from the air means that theymust be ready at a very early stage, before thenormal process of mobilization has been de-veloped. They have a big responsibility at thattime for the protection of the national economyupon which the whole war effort must depend.

15. The^various means by which the troopsmight be called up before official mobilizationtook place in such a way as not to damagefurther any strained international relations wereinvestigated. .The B.B.C. was obviously outof the question and might in any case be offthe air at the time it was needed; the telephpne

. service would undoubtedly be overloaded;letters or telegrams provided no confirmationof delivery of the message and I -finally con-cluded that messages by hand to key men,through whom the order would be spread down-ward to all who were involved, provided theonly satisfactory solution. It so happened thatwhen mobilization was required the defenceswere already manned in part a-nd had been asa precaution since*28th April, 1939, with theresult that the problem in the end was notfully presented.

16. When war began without any major airattack the first task was to improve the stan-dard of training throughout Anti-Aircraft Com-mand. Training in an anti-aircraft r61xe requiresprogressive development. First, the individualhas to be trained for his particular task * onthe equipment; next, the detachment has to betrained to work as a team and finally, thevarious detachments have to learn to co-ordi-nate their efforts as a tactical whole.

. 17. While I have already placed on recordthe splendid service which the Territorial unitsrendered in the early months of the war, theirtraining, limited as it had been both by lackof equipment and the little time they had beenable to spend on it, fell far short of that re-quired for war. Some units, forcibly convertedto a searchlight r61e, were found to contain,some men unsuitable for the work and otherswho preferred their original rdle. The targetswith which they had had to practise had beenvery slow and had taken no evasive action.Attempts to secure more, up-to-date' aircraft

SUPPLEMENT TO THE LONDON GAZETTE, 18 DECEMBER, 1947 5975

from the Air Ministry were largely nullifiedbecause of the R.A.F.'s own shortage of planes.Practice by night was handicapped by the factthat all planes were ordered to fly with naviga-tion lights, thus making exercises (unrealistic.It is my opinion, an opinion not necessarilyendorsed by the other military or air autho-rities, that it is essential that the Army shouldbe independent of other services in the matterof providing for air co-operation in the train-ing of Anti-Aircraft units.

18. The state of training of the Militia whenthey arrived was considerably lower than thatof the Territorial Army.

19. The only training establishment at theoutbreak of war was the School of Anti-Air-craft Defence, which proved totally inadequatefor training more than a limited number ofofficers and N.C.Os. as instructors. To supple-ment this, Divisional Schools were formed in

. each of the seven areas into which the countrywas then divided. Many Brigades and evenRegiments founded unofficial schools of theirown, where equipment and methods had to beimprovised. Owing to the wide dispersal ofAnti-Aircraft detachments 'throughout thecountry these schools were able to fulfil a needwhich could not otherwise have been met.

20. The flow of Mdlitia into the Commandcontinued after the battle had been joined andin the first three months of the battle no lessthan 70,000 recruits received 'their first train-ing in an anti-aircraft rdle on gunsites whichwere for the most part in constant action againstthe enemy.

21. While it was clear that our'training waswoefully deficient it was also obvious that thesuccessful engagement of enemy planes requiredthe highest technical excellence in equipment.

I was most fortunate in having the help ofProfessor A. V. Hill who obtained for the Com-mand some of the finest scientists in the land.These scientists were indefatigable in theirefforts to improve our equipment and training.They were recruited from all over the BritishEmpire; and even before America came into thewar many of her scientists had volunteered towork on our gun sites. No tribute could be toohigh to pay to all these distinguished men.Although we had many hundreds eventuallyserving in the Command we never had enough;but I believe it is true to say that thanks totheir efforts Anti-Aircraft Command became themost technical and scientific Command in ourown or any other army.

22: The problem of scientific training becameacute with the introduction of radio-location—or radar as it was later called. A radio schoolwas formed at Petersham at which selectedspecialist officers and civilian scientists weretrained on the equipment. It was arrangedthat they would subsequently live and workon gunsites and .give the Artillery officers theassistance and advice of which they must other-wise inevitably have been deprived. The workof these young men, many straight from theuniversities, was invaluable.

23. Mention must also be made of the for-mation of the Operational Research Group ofAnti-Aircraft Command; an invaluable organi-zation consisting of scientists and militaryliaison officers, whose study of operational prob-lems was of -such value that their activities were

As

later extended to embrace all forms of militarywarfare. This body was then re-named ArmyOperational Research Group.

24. For the greater part of the period underreview the administration of many of the ancil-lary services rested with Home Commands, whowere, responsible for the Anti-Aircraft serviceswithin their respective areas. On many occa-sions I had to protest most strongly against thisdivision pf control, since I was hampered inmy attempts to obtain full efficiency as long asI had no control over, many aspects of the lifeof the troops under my command. In addition,difficulties arose because Home Commandboundaries differed from those of Anti-AircraftCorps and Divisions. In the early part of 1941full control of most services was vested in me!This decision greatly eased our difficulties.

25. Before I proceed to the details of thebattle against the Luftwaffe it is necessary tooutline briefly the plans for the disposition ofthe various forms of defence.

26. It was envisaged that the enemy's main,objectives would include aircraft factories, cities,,and particularly London and the main purposeof the defences was to prevent their reachingthese objectives. The area around the citiesand between them and the coast was, therefore,made an Air Fighting Zone in which outfighter aircraft would operate, assisted at nightby searchlights. To this end there was a con-tinuous searchlight belt 30 miles deep whichstretched from the Solent, east of London,north to the Humber and then north-west to-the Tyne-Tees area.' A further belt ran betweenthe Forth and the Clyde.

To deal with aircraft which neverthelesspenetrated this defence, the important citieswere made Gun Defended Areas, with search-lights to enable the Heavy guns to fire by night.

For the protection of isolated points of im-portance, such as factories and airfields, Lightguns were deployed against low level precisionbombing.

As more equipment became available morecities were defended and the defences of othersincreased. Searchlight cover was extended tothe greater part of the country.

Each Gun Defended Area had its Gun Opera-tions Room, which was a nerve-centre of thedefences and could be used either to pass in-formation to the guns or actually to control thefire.

In each R.A.F. Sector in the Air Fighting.Zone the Sector Operations Room was fittedfor transmission of information or orders to thesearchlights.

27. I felt it necessary to express alarm at thecomparative immobility of, our defences andparticularly of Heavy guns, but since staticguns were much more rapidly produced thanmobile guns, I was forced to accept them.Consequently I was handicapped whenever itbecame necessary to move guns from one areato another.

It was not possible to have sufficient equip-ment or manpower to defend every town- which,might be attacked nor could even the mostmobile defences be moved sufficiently fast to beat any given point as quickly as the enemy air-craft. The value of mobile defences lies in thefact that the air battle, like any other battle, hasa pattern which the enemy tries to carry out.


When such a pattern is evident (e.g.. the attackson our ports; " Baedeker " raids etc.) ^defencescan >be organised rapidly to meet it,

SECTION II,—THE DAY RAIDER.28. Afl the equipment available during the

first year of war had been designed for shootingat seen targets. Except in cloudy weather itwas, therefore, generally suitable for dealingwith attacks by day and it was by day that thefirst attacks were made.

The principle used was the following: a pre-dictor fitted with telescopes was laid on andfollowed the target, a height calculated by aheightfinder was set into it and the predictormechanism automatically calculated where the'target would .be at the time the shell burst inthe sky and 'by means of electric pointers en-abled the gun to be aimed at that point.

There were, however, limitations to thisequipment. Predictors .were not designed toaccept heights over 25,000 feet and as theenemy developed his tactics he flew more fre-quently at greater heights; further, there wasa limit to the speed at which the predictorcould traverse so that close targets often movedacross the sky too fast to be followed. Exceptin very clear weather the '•' pick up " was toolate to ensure adequate time to bring effectivefire to bear.

29. Reference has already been made to theshortage of equipment in the early part of thewar. The responsibility for allocating whatequipment there was rested primarily with theA.O.C.-in-C. Fighter Command, who invari-ably consulted me in the matter. The demandsfor defence were, however, so various and theinterests involved so powerful that we werecontinually faced with fresh agitations for de-fences. In order to deal with these requests asub-committee of the Chiefs of Staff Committeeknown as, the C.O.S. AA Committee wasformed.. The three services were representedon this committee and the Minister of HomeSecurity was also on it.

30. Another effect of the shortage was thatnone of the units was fully equipped with theweapons it was intended they should have andthough other types of weapons were broughtin to fill the gap, complications arose becauseunits frequently had to operate, two, three ormore types of equipment simultaneously.

31. The Heavy guns included the 4.5-inchof which I had 355 by June, 1940, when dayraiders began to be serious. Secondly, therewas the 3.7-inch on either a mobile or a staticmounting, and this gun became the mainstay ofheavy anti-aircraft armament throughout thewar and in my opinion was the finest all pur-poses gun produced by any country during thewar. Unfortunately it was never mounted ina tank. In June, 1940, I had 306 mobile and313 static 3.7-inch guns -and finally I had 226obsolescent 3-inch guns.

Light anti-aircraft guns at the same date com-prised the following:—273 40-mm Bofors,which was the chief Light weapon; 136 obso-lescent 3-inch guns adapted for .low levelshooting; 140 miscellaneous types of 2-pounder.guns on loan from the Royal Navy; and 3820-mm Hispano cannons.

32. The first raids were made in October,11939, upon the Forth and upon Scapa Flow.

Though the gunswere successful in destroyingsome of the raiders, it was at once apparentthat peacetime training and the existing equip-ment was insufficient to deaL entirely success-fully with wartime targets, which continuallydived and turned and flew at comparativelyhigh speeds. Steps were taken to have altera-tions designed and made to meet the needsof the situation, but nearly two years elapsedbefore these were actually produced.

Until June, 1940, enemy activity consistedmainly of sporadic minelaying or reconnais-.sance flights, often by single planes, and ofsmall scale attacks upon convoys and thenorthern bases of the Home Fleet.

33. I do not propose to discuss on whatexact date the Battle of Britain began, butwhat is certain is that in the second half ofJune, 1940, there was a marked increase inactivity by the German air forces over andaround the United Kingdom.

34. With the limited resources at my]disposalit was impossible to give the country the de-gree of protection required at this time and themain weight of the attacks during the daylightBattle of Britain was borne by Fighter Com-mand. Nevertheless it is only right to drawattention to the important part played by theguns during this battle, a part which the R.A.F.have never minimised; and inded of the largedaily totals of enemy aircraft destroyed in thebattle, at times twenty, and on one occasionthirty, fell to the guns.

When the enemy began to come over inlarge formations the Heavy guns frequently laidthe foundation of the Fighter successes by(breaking up the formations with their fire,thereby rendering them vulnerable, while the *presence of small groups of enemy aircraft orindividual planes, which might otherwise haveescaped the attention of fighter pilots, was in-dicated to them by bursts of anti-aircraft fire inthe sky.. Light giuns filled a role for which there could

be no alternative weapon, particularly in the.defence of airfields. Experience abroad hadalready demonstrated, and future experiencewas to confirm, that airfields lacking anti-air-

icraft defence were unable to continue in actionagainst a sustained attack. Only guns, and lotsof them, can defend an aircraft during thevulnerable moments when if is taking-off orlanding.

35. The Battle of Britain may convenientlybe divided into four phases although thesesometimes overlapped. During the second halfof the battle there were attacks by night as wellas by day, but I propose -toMefer discussionof the night raids -until later in this despatch.• The first phase of the battle consisted largelyof attacks on convoys in the Channel and onsouth coast ports. The heaviest engagementsoccurred between Harwich and Lyme Bay,although places as far on either flank as theOrkneys and Cardiff received some attention.So long as the enemy confined his attacks toshipping, the guns of A.A. Command couldtake no part in the battle and it fell to FighterCommand, who were able by their radar toobserve concentrations of aircraft in the Calaisregion, to endeavour to deal with them. Whenports were attacked the guns were-in action: andat Portsmouth, Portland and in particular

SUPPLEMENT TO THE LONDON GAZETTE, 18 DECEMBER, 1947 5977Dover, heavy engagements were frequent andseveral enemy aircraft were destroyed. It wasat this time that Dover began to be " Hell-fireCorner " for German pilots.

36. The second phase opened on August I2th,1940, when the enemy began to attack thecoastal airfields. Reference has already beenmade to the importance of anti-aircraft defencefor airfields and, though many raiders wereshot down in these attacks, considerable damageto the airfields was in fact done and manywere temporarily put out of . commission.Especially in the early attacks of this phasethe standard of training in the Light anti-aircraft gun detachments was insufficientlyhigh and later, when frequent practice had ledto improvement,, the limited number of gunsproved a handicap. The damage however,to the airfields would generally have beenstill more serious and of more permanent acharacter without the presence of the fewguns which could be spared.

37. -The policy of filling the gaps in theheavier equipment with Lewis light machine-guns was' amply justified during this second

' phase. On i8th August, 1940, ten aircraftwere destroyed by these weapons alone, and itwas a fortunate chance of war that Germanaircraft were lightly armoured at the time whenequipment was short and that heavier armourwas only fitted when the defences had moreweapons capable of penetrating it.

38.- The third. phase of the battle, directedagainst inland airfields, opened on 24th August,1940. The Light anti-aircraft defences con-tinued to show improved results and, becausemany of the attacks were delivered againstthe outskirts of the London area, the heavyguns in the Thames Estuary were able to takepart in the battle. This was the densest con-centration of Heavy guns which the Germanshad so far encountered and, though only alimited number of planes was destroyed,formations were consistently broken up beforethey reached their objectives.

39. On 7th September, 1940, the fourth phaseof the battle began with a heavy raid onLondon. During the preceding phases we hadreceived constant demands for guns to defendother places, not only on the south coast butin industrial areas which were beginning tofeel the weight of night attacks. We had,therefore, reluctantly drained London of itsdefences until no more than 92 Heavy gunsremained. As soon as it became apparent thatLondon was to be the target, I had to drawback into .the capital as many guns as I couldreasonably manage and within 48 hours thetotal had increased to 203.

40. The attack on London was made bothby night and by day, and of the initial ineffi-cacy of the night defences I shall have some-thing to say later. By day, though it wasimpossible for the R.A.F. to prevent theGermans reaching the capital and though'whenthey were there it was too late to preventthem bombing the city, the guns destroyed aconsiderable number in many of the formations.It was significant too that the most spectacularsuccess which the enemy achieved by day,namely the firing of the dock area onyth September, 1940, occurred when the gundefences were numerically at their lowest ebb.The increase in the number of guns at once

reduced the amount of damage which theenemy was able to inflict; his formations weremore effectively broken and the successes of thefighter aircraft continued to mount. On.I5th September, 1940, due largely to theR.A.F., the enemy effort was so decisivelybeaten that though attacks continued by dayuntil 30th September, 1940, it was .undoubtedlythen that the turning-point of the battle againstthe day raider had been reached.

41. I -have dealt only briefly with this battlebecause it was primarily a battle between airforces.

From loth July, 1940, the day which mostauthorities have accepted as the opening dayof the battle, until 30th September, 1940, theguns of Anti-Aircraft Command destroyed byday 296 enemy aircraft and damaged orprobably destroyed a further 74.

42. During October, 1940, the enemy re-served his bombers almost exclusively for nightoperations but he continued for a time to attack

Othe country by day with fighter-bombers. Forthe most part these attacks did not penetratefar inland and were often delivered on un-protected coastal towns. Militarily the attackshad little significance, except in so far as theywere designed to wear down our fighter forcesand with the existing resources it was impos^sible'to provide gun defences for these coastaltowns without denuding vital factories' ofprotection.

• SECTION III.—THE NIGHT RAIDER.43. I come now to that form of air attack

which, in the early days, before a successfulnight fighter technique had been developed,was essentially a gun battle; I refer to thenight raids. 'I have already mentioned thatpractically all equipment had been designed forvisual shooting at seen targets, and this appliedto shooting by night as well as to shooting byday.

44. The equipment which was available inthe first year of the war had been designedsome years previously at a time when thepossibility of targets taking violent evasiveaction at high speeds had been insufficientlyrealised. It had been hoped that if raidingtook place at night the searchlights would beable by means of sound-locators to find theirtargets, illuminate them and continue theillumination without difficulty. This wouldenable the guns to use their normal visualmethods of engagement and the fighters out-side the Gun Defended Areas to make theirinterceptions and attacks.

45. Even before the war it was obvioushowever that the likelihood of night raidinghad been increased by the improvement innavigational methods and the greater reli-ability of aircraft engines and also that, evenwithout evasive action by the enemy, cloudwould seriously handicap all forms of nightdefence.' Visually controlled searchlightsappeared to be of doubtful value to the guns.

46. There appeared to be no satisfactorysolution to this problem until the invention ofradar and, as the delivery of the first radarsets for guns was not due until 1940, somealternative means of dealing with unseentargets had to be found. The only availableequipment was the sound-locator.


Pre-war experience had shown that undergood conditions and within certain0' rangessound-locators could pick up and follow singleslow-flying targets and that, by making dueallowance for the fact that sound travels com-paratively slowly, searchlights could be-directedat the actual position of the target.

47. The use of sound-locators with the gunsinvolved the additional.complication that theguns had to be directed not at the actual posi-tion but at that position where the aircraftmight be expected to be by the time the shellburst in the sky. What had to be done, there-fore, was to track the target by sound-locatorfor some time in order to establish its course,then to pass information to the guns on whicha future position could be calculated, take thenecessary steps to aim the guns and set thefuzes. In all, this meant allowing an intervalof anything up to a full minute between thecalculation of the target's future position by asound-locator and the, arrival of the shell atits destination. During this interval the air-,craft might be expected to fly between four andsix miles.

Moreover, in calculating the future position,it had to be assumed that the aircraft wouldcontinue to fly on a constant course at a con-stant height and at a constant speed, the likeli-hood of which was small after the first signs ofinterference by the ground defences.

48. The plan which was evolved for the de-fence of London was known as the FixedAzimuth System. Two lines of sound-locatorsspaced at 2-inile internals were sited at right-' angles to the Thames Estuary on the easternflanks of London and another similar systemwas laid out on the western side.' .

''Each sound-locator was directly linked to theLondon Gun Operations Room and it was ex-pected that the two nearest locators in the outerline would on the approach of an enemy air-craft be able almost simultaneously to report abearing and an angle of sight from which theOperations Room could determine the positionand height of the plane by calculating the inter-section. Similar information from two locatorsin the inner line would supply direction andspeed.

The Operations Room could then fix a" future position " at which the target wouldbe engaged. This position would be passedin code back to the guns who would make thenecessary adjustments to suit their own situationand fire on a given order.

49. In the cities of the provinces the problemwas. less acute because the smaller 'size of thetarget limited the area in the sky in which theenemy could operate successfully. Con-sequently in many .places it was possible towork out geographical barrages which couldbe fired on an order from the local GunOperations Room and guns were sited accord-ingly.

50. Sporadic night raids against this countrybegan during the Summer of 1940. In earlyAugust they began to intensify and on 8th/gthAugust provincial cities were attacked byraiders endeavouring to make precision attackson certain factories. The emphasis was on theMidlands and the West, but the enemy's effort

was scattered and no real test of the defencesoccurred; a few planes were shot down andothers- damaged in widely divergent areas.

51. Between 25th/26th August, 1940, and6th/7th September, 1940, there was noticeablea somewhat greater degree of concentration inthe enemy's attacks, though it was still in theMidlands and the West that the •main attackfell, over 100 planes attacking Liverpool on fournights in succession.

Forty-eight planes were destroyed by gunfireduring this period.

A few aircraft had flown over London bynight during this period, but it was on thenight of 7th/8th September, 1940, followingthe first heavy raid by day, that London wasfirst singled out. as a major objective and onewhich was thereafter to be continuouslyattacked.

52. The Fixed Azimuth System broke downcompletely. The enemy was now operating atgreater heights and sound-locators could notalways detect the aircraft; at other times morethan one plane was operating, between twolocators and there was no certainty that bothequipments were tracking the same aircraft; theassumption that the main approach to theCapital would be up the Estuary was not alwaysfulfilled (probably owing to the new Germannavigational aids) and many planes passed out-side the flanks of the sound-locator layout;finally, faults developed in the communicationsystem and large sections of the front were putout of action for long periods. In consequence,few of the 92 available guns received data onwhich they could fire.

53. 1 realised that the mere introduction ofmore guns would not alone solve the problem,although within 48 hours the number had beenincreased to 203. I therefore decided, onnth September, 1940, that guns which wereunable to fire on the Fixed Azimuth Systemshould be given a free hand to use any methodof control they liked.

54. The volume of fire which resulted, andwhich was publicized as a " barrage "/ was infact largely wild and uncontrolled shooting.^There were, however, two valuable, results fromit: the volume of fire had a deterrent effectupon at least some of the German aircrews, sothat, though it cannot be proved by records,I have every reason to believe that one thirdfailed to reach their objective; there was alsoa marked improvement in civilian morale.Against this there was an expenditure of

•ammunition which, besides being far greaterthan was justified by the results achieved, couldnot be maintained indefinitely without seriouslydepleting the ammunition reserves.

55. There was a strong suspicion at this timethat the German raiders were using two pro-minent landmarks—the Isle of Dogs and HydePark—rover which they turned to their variousobjectives. Two geographical barrages, de-signed to explode over these two points, were,therefore, worked out and were fired for thefirst time on the night 26th/27th September,1940. There was no marked improvement inthe number of raiders destroyed but the planhad the advantage of controlling the ammu-nition expenditure.


56. It was on ist October, 1940, that radarwas first used to control anti-aircraft gunfire.The first sets had actually been received atthe end of 1939 but a delay in applying themto anti-aircraft work had been caused by theircomplete inability to give any indication of theheight of the aircraft and the interveningmonths had been spent in trying to overcomethis handicap. In this work I must especiallymention the untiring and valuable help givenby Major-General M. F. Grove-White, C.B.,D.S.O-., O.B.E., at that time G.O.C.2 AADivision. The only use to which it had beenpossible to put the few available sets wasdirection-finding, but, as the heights still had tobe found visibly by a height-finder, there wasonly a very small improvement on the oldsystem, in that targets could be picked up alittle earlier.

57. The first important attempt to providean improved height-finding apparatus, whichwould operate against unseen targets, for usewith, radar arose from the invention of VisualIndicating Equipment. This was an elaboratesound-locator, the findings of which were con-verted electrically into a visual image on acathode ray tube.

In practice, the equipment failed to give theresults hoped for, since, apart from some diffi-culty in following the target and suspectibilityto bad weather, it suffered from the same limita-tions as the sound-locators in the Fixed AzimuthSystem. Its range was limited, it was upset byextraneous noises such as gunfire and the pre-sence of a number of targets at once was con-fusing.. 58. The first real promise of a solution wasfound in the application of the radar principleto elevation as well as to bearing. Much ofthis work was achieved by Mr. Bedford, ChiefDesigner to A. C.' Cossor Limited. The existingradar sets -were modified as soon as possible bythe fitting of this Elevation Finding attachment,and they went into action on ist October, 1940.The chief limitation of this equipment was thatwhen the angle of sight increased to more than45 degrees the sets lost all accuracy in bearing.

To test the value of the new equipment orderswere given that even against seen targets byday, provided they were over 10,000 feet up,the new unseen methods should be used andthe results analysed. The results convinced methat the only real success being obtained waswith this radar equipment and that the entire •future of anti-aircraft shooting must beassociated with it.

59. An entirely new system of unseenbarrages was now developed. However greatthe improvement of the new equipment over theold, it was still far from attaining the requiredaccuracy. In order to increase the chance ofdestroying the target we considered that it mustbe used to produce a volume of fire from manyguns at once. Guns were, therefore, re-sitedin groups, generally of eight and a master site,equipped with the new radar, was selected tocontrol them. The master site plotted the targetand informed the other sites of its position,height and direction. As soon as the enemyentered the barrage belt all guns opened fireindependently.

This system was continued until 20thJanuary, 1941, when I came to the reluctantconclusion that it could not be made to producethe success for which I had hoped. Since

ist October, 1940, the anti-aircraft defences hadshot down over 70 planes by night andprobably destroyed or damaged 53. I shallbe referring a little later to our night fighterdefences, but it is of interest to mention herethat these successes were about four times thenumber scored by the R.A.F. in the sameperiod.

The chief reason for ordering -a change ofmethod in January, 1941, was the limitationsof the latest radar methods at angles of sightover 45 degrees. As long as guns, whetherindividually or in groups, were left to plottargets for themselves, there was in effect avery large blind zone right over the guns them-selves and for some distance around them inwhich they could not operate. If control werevested once more in the Gun Operations Room,the combined information from all sites shouldeliminate these0 blind zones.

Consequently sites were ordered to pass theirplots to the Gun Operations Room, where pre-dictions were worked out and from whichorders to fire would in future emanate. Inother words, the plotting on the gunsite wasdivorced from the shooting and the greater partof the responsibility for the successful conductof the battle was transferred from the GunPosition Officer to the Commander in theOperations Room.

60. Meanwhile, similar troubles had beenexperienced with searchlights. Their sound-locators had been subject to the same dis-advantages as those used with guns and illumi-nations ha'd consequently been erratic. In thesame way as I had found them insufficientfor use with the guns and had had to developmethods of unseen fire, so the R.A.F. hadfound them insufficient for successful co-opera-tion with night fighters.

A further difficulty which arose when search-lights were used with sound-locators was thatthere was a tendency to over-estimate the speedof sound and to assume that the 'target wasbehind its actual position. Consequently,fighters following up an enemy raider frequentlyfound themselves illuminated and an easytarget for the enemy rear-gunners. '

In order to give the night fighters moreopportunity of engaging the enemy, a newtechnique was introduced known as " FighterNights ". The theory was that the most likelyplace foi; a fighter to intercept the enemy wasover the target area and that once contact wasmade the night fighter would have a very goodchance of destroying the bomber.

The disadvantage of the scheme was that inorder to safeguard the fighter our guns couldnot fire or, alternatively, had to be restrictedto heights below that at which the fighter hadinstructions to operate.

Although some results were achieved onmoonlight nights, the scheme was not popular.The lack of gunfire incensed the civilian popu-lation who thought .the gunners were beingnegligent, and this resulted in a great loss ofcivilian morale. The enemy bombers, free fromall anxiety over anti-aircraft fire, flew straightto their targets and bombed them accurately;nor was this compensated for by a larger num-ber of bombers destroyed by fighters for, inpractice, it was extremely difficult for our pilotsto see the enemy and even after a " visual "had been made the bomber nearly always shookoff the fighter.


The system was tried again during the" Baedeker ". raids of 1942 and, after con-siderable ^protests on my part, was finallyabandoned.

61. Of necessity priority in the provision of'radar equipment was given to the guns; but Iarranged for the provision at the earliestpossible moment of similar equipment forsearchlights also and the first sets were deployedtowards the end of 1940. These were of thesame type as was being employed with .theguns; shortly afterwards, a type specially de-signed for searchlight control, known as S.L.C.,which had been delayed in production, be-came available.

62. Throughout the first three months of1941 there was an increasing amount of radarequipment coming into service, and a -moreadvanced type for gunlaying, the G.L.II, alsobegan to come from production. These weredeployed in and around London in March,1941.

63. The problems associated with radar werenot all confined purely to theoretical matters.Sets deployed in the field .produced curiousresults, and 'though some of these could betraced, to bad drill or technical faults othersappeared to be occurring without any goodreason. One of the greatest problems was theappearance on the signal tube of spuriousbreaks, among which the break caused by thetarget was apt to disappear. It was not atfirst clear why these appeared; they might ormight not appear whether t"he set was placedon high or low ground, close to or clear ofbuildings.

What was finally established was that thecontours of the ground around the set had apronounced effect upon it and it was suggestedthat, by pegging out a mat of wire mesh forsome 150 feet round the receiver, an artificiallevel could be obtained which would largelyeradicate the trouble. Experiments with a trialmat were a complete success and the principlewas adopted universally. What I had' notrealised was that the project would involveusing the whole of the country's stocks of wirenet on the first ,300 mats.

.The project also involved the re-siting of agreat number of the sets, as it.was npt alwayspossible to find sufficient clear space for a matnear to the guns. Some sets were moved overa quarter of a mile from their guns and carefulcalculations had then to be made to.co-ordinatethe two positions, as the radar and the gunswould see targets from quite a different aspect.

64. It was at .this stage, when the equipmentposition at last began to look easier, that thepressure of manpower problems became severe.I was asked to economise in manpower to theutmost, and -the A.O.C.-in-C. Fighter Commandand I felt that any cuts which might have to•be made must be in the searchlight and not inthe gun units.

65. The tactical layout of searchlights had forsome time been under discussion with FighterCommand with a view to finding some bettermeans of using, them with night fighters.Together we evolved a system by which thelights would be sited in clusters instead ofsingly. Night fighter pilots had represented thata single beam did not give them enough illumi-nation to see and engage the enemy. Verycomprehensive trials of clusters versus singlelights were carried out and the majority of

the pilots gave, their opinion in favour of-thecluster of 3 lights. Looking back I think the 'idea was not sound but it had the advantagethat we were able to dispense with some ofthe administrative troops owing to the greaterconcentration of detachments. Consequentlythe actual cut in the searchlight units was keptto a minimum.

66. Technical inventions and improvementscame in a flood early in 1941. Among themwas the Semi-Automatic Plotter, early versionsof which supplied. a continuous track • of atarget and later versions also incorporated ameans of deriving future gunnery data. Otherdevices are too numerous to mention in-dividually but the sum total was such as torenew the hope that fire control might be re-stored once again to the Gun Position Officer.The control from the Gun Operations Room,moreover, had proved no better than the oldsystems.

67. One of the prime movers in the restora-tion of fire control to gunsites was Major-General R. F. E. Whittaker, C.B., C.B.E.,T.D:, who.had throughout been opposed tomy decision to put control in the hands of theOperations Rooms. He carried out experimentswith the various new equipments and therebyprovided the most valuable contribution to datein the investigation of unseen methods of fire.These new methods of fire control convincedme that we should revert to the plan by whicheach gun site was responsible for obtaining itsown gunnery data.

68. Having now outlined the stages in thedevelopment of our methods to combat theraider, I must describe briefly the course of thenight battle. Essentially it was one battlethroughout but it was possible to detect in itchanges in • the German policy, each changeinitiating in some degree a new phase; I mustpoint o'ttt, however, that the phases merge oneinto another to a greater degree even than inthe Battle of Britain. No good purpose wouldbe served in a despatch of .this nature in detail-ing all the attacks, since those details did notgenerally .affect the policy of the defences.

69. After the preliminary raids on the iWestand Midlands, which have already beenDescribed, the first phase opened on 7th /8thSeptember, 1940; in this phase the. main targetwas almost exclusively London-, which was con-

, tinuously raided night after night. Supple-mentary and diversionary raids of smaller sizewere from time to time scattered across thewhole country, so that it was -never possible towithdraw into the Capital all the guns I wanted.On I4th/I5th November, 1940, a. second phaseopened in which the main weight of attack wasshifted from London -to industrial centres andports, although London continued to receivea succession of smaller raids. The concentra-tion of industry and other objectives in thesesmaller cities and towns was far greater thanin London, and the dropping of a similar weightof bombs could, therefore, cause far greaterdamage and dislocation than had been achievedin most of the London raids. Coventry wasthe first town ,to be singled out and otherswhich in 'the course of this phase received par-ticular attention were Liverpool, Bristol,Plymouth, Cardiff and Portsmouth. The gunsdefending London were at once reduced from239 to 192, and another .36 were taken fromthe Thames Estuary. . In the later part of

SUPPLEMENT TO THE LONDON GAZETTE, 18 DECEMBER, 1947

January and during the first half of Februaryraiding was hindered 'by bad weather.

On igth/20th February, 1941, a third phasebegan in which, though the objectives remainedthe same, a more determined attempt was madeto put them completely out of action by raids

. on successive nights, which would takeadvantage of the dislocation caused the nightbefore. Swansea was the first town so'attacked,'and other cities, and especially Liverpool,suffered from these methods. In this phase ofthe battle there was an emphasis on the Westalthough other areas were frequently visited.This emphasis had a very high strategic signi-ficance, which caused us to draw 58 guns fromthe Midlands for the protection of western ports.

The east and much of the south coast hadalready been largely denied to our shipping;an. attack of alarming proportions on ourAtlantic sea routes had also developed.A vigorous attack on our western portsmight well inflict such damage that thecountry would, to all intents and pur-poses', be isolated from 'the outside world, andevery risk had to be taken to prevent thishappening.

70. I have already mentioned that a certainamount of the equipment I -had at the beginningof the war was on loan from the Royal Navy.Now I was asked for, and agreed to, the 'returnof this equipment. As early as the beginningof 1940 I had agreed to supply Lewis gunsand crews for merchant ships. In addition tothe return of borrowed equipment, I was askedin turn to lend a large amount of my ownequipment in the form of 300 Bofors guns forthe protection of shipping, together with themen to man them and 1,000 rounds of ammuni-tion per gun. Thus the Light anti-aircraft de-fences, which already stood at only 22 per cent,of requirements,- were cut to 15 per cent. TheMaritime Royal Artillery, thus formed, passedeventually out of -my control altogether, butbefore it left it had given such excellent serviceas to ensure its continuance.

I was at the same time informed that theR.A.F. would soon be requiring the 20-mm.cannons which I had on loan. My hope thatthe deficiency might 'be made good by theemployment of Rocket defences was nullifiedby a decision to give the Admiralty an absolutepriority for these weapons.

71. I thus had to meet the last stages of theBattle impoverished in my Light anti-aircraftresources but with renewed hope that thetechnical Advances of the spring would improvethe results of Heavy anti-aircraft shooting.

72. The battle virtually came -to an end onI2th May, 1941, after a heavy raid on London.As in every other aspect of the war,-so in theair war the Germans changed their tactics assoon as it became evident that we had gainedthe upper hand. So, while the preparationsthey 'had to make for. the .Russian campaignno doubt influenced the decision, there is nodou'bt the German General Staff had by May,1941, come to .the conclusion that the war wasnot to be won by aerial attacks on this countryand that the cost of such attacks was heavy.Between ist April and I2th May, 1941, the suc-cesses scored by the guns mounted steadily.During this month and a half 72 planes weredestroyed by night by the guns and 82 prob-ably destroyed or damaged.. The fighters toowere now showing tremendous improvement.

73. At this point I propose to conclude thisfirst part of my despatch. It covers a periodin which success in battle was achieved with'great difficulty and in which developments intechnique were very considerable. At the be-ginning of the battle our method of defence wasstill the same as that of three years 'before; atthe end I felt we had begun to make realprogress; certainly the. foundation of later suc-cesses had been laid. What had especially beenachieved was the conversion of a large 'bodyof troops from ordinary soldiers into skilledtechnical operators, and this was an essentialpre-requisite- for .successful anti-aircraftgunnery. ,

I have referred chiefly to the gun and search-light units, but without the help of the ancillary•services, Signals, Medical, Ordnance' andSupply, progress could never have been madenor the battle continued. While full creditmust be given to the,,troops of all kinds, andindeed their conduct under very hazardous andtrying conditions was beyond all praise, thefoundations of success, however, was laid bythe scientist, both civilian and in uniform. TheOperational Research Group has already beenreferred to. Its work was brilliant. The•technical staff at Command Headquarters, underthe leadership of Brigadier Krohn, C.Q3.E.,M.C., T.D., was and remained throughout thewar a vital factor in every scientific advance,and not least must I pay a tribute to thoseyoung American scientists who volunteered to•help us and who played their part in all ourBlitzes. That these gentlemen became avail-able and for many other helpful and friendlyacts our thanks are due to Brigadier ClaudeThiele, U.S.A., who was one of [the firsltAmerican officer observers to reach this countryafter the outbreak of war and whose wisdomand help I continually sought throughout thewhole course of the war.

PART II.

PREAMBLE. :

1. In the -first part of my despatch I de-scribed the problems and progress of the anti-aircraft defences during the opening phases ofthe war and during the first period of sustainedattack by the German air forces which lastedfrom July, 1940, to May, 1941.

2. In this second part I propose to carry thereport on from that date to the time I relin-quished command in April, 1945. Thoughthis was a few weeks before the final Germancapitulation there was no air attack of anykind upon the United Kingdom after that dateand therefore this part of my despatch is ineffect a report upon the whole of the remainingperiod of hostilities.

SECTION I.—GENERAL.3. I mentioned in the first part of my des-

patch how the early months of 1941 saw ahincrease in- the problems of manpower andhow various innovations had to be made andsome reduction- in the searchlight defences hadtaken place.

Mixed Batteries.4. The problem was met by the introduction

of mixed units and it must at once :be saidthat, while-there were many doubters "in theearly days, the mixed units proved a triumphantsuccess. In these units the proportion of


women to men was roughly 2 to I. Womencarried out every job except those involvingheavy manual labour such as loading andmanning the gun itself.

The problem, had been considered before theoutbreak of war when I asked for the adviceof Miss Caroline Haslett, CJB.E., who, afterspending days and nights in the field examiningthe various duties, told me she had no ..doubtthat women were capable of doing all but theheaviest tasks.

It was on 25th April, 1941, that regulationswere put into force making women eligible foroperational duties. In May, 1941, the firstmixed battery began its training and it becameoperational on 2ist August, 1941.

5. Two projects were formulated. The firstwas that all Heavy Batteries coming forwardfrom Training Regiments would in future beMixed Batteries and the second was that, as thenumber of trained women increased, some of theexisting male batteries should be converted toMixed Batteries. The Mixed units would onlyhave static and not mobile guns. It was hopedthat by the end. of 1941 there would be pro-vided • just under 40 batteries through eachproject, but this proved an over-optimistic fore-cast; Nevertheless, it was now clear that wecould expect both to remedy existing deficienciesand to continue the expansion of the anti-air-craft defences. I was promised that of theexpected total of 220,000 A.T.S. at the end of1942, I could anticipate having 170,000. In-actual fact,.this estimated figure proved over-optimistic as other Army demands on the avail-able women power limited tife number ofA.T.S. in Anti-Aircraft Command to a maxi-mum, at any time, to just over 74,000.

6. The welfare of these women was one of theconsiderations which was uppermost in all ourminds and this had a considerable effect uponthe areas in which they were deployed. Iwished to be quite certain that their accommo-dation would be suitable, and it was alsonecessary to ensure that they would not findthemselves in- the probable path of an invadingarmy. A high.standard of accommodation wasset, but the general labour shortage throughoutthe country resulted in the programme of build-ing falling behind schedule and it was notalways possible to supply the full standard.

7. The possibility of invasion caused addi-tional complications. Plans to counter anyinvasion, adapted to our increasing resources,were steadily improved. The summer of 1941found an elaborate and detailed plan prepared,in which the anti-aircraft guns had to be readyfor rapid moves in order to fit into the needsof the situation should it arise.

8. Some time previously I had' reluctantlyaccepted a large and expanding programme ofstatic 3.7-inch guns rather than mobile gunsbecause the former were so much more rapidly.produced. The task of shifting a static gunwas very considerable and a great deal ofpreparation was necessary before it could beemplaced on a new site. As soon as the Chiefsof Staff advised me which defences must re-main and which must be moved in the event ofinvasion, an interchange of 244 mobile andstatic guns was ordered so that the number ofmoves to be made if invasion took place wouldbe cut to a minimum.

9. -This interchange had repercussions uponthe deployment of Mixed batteries. Some siteswhere accommodation' had been provided forthem were now equipped with mobile guns onwhich-women could not be deployed, so thatsome mixed -units had perforce to be put inquarters which were below the desired standard.

- 10. The original projects had in fact beenbased upon- a degree of immobility in the anti-aircraft' defences which could never exist. Ifthe enemy chose to change his objectives, as helater did, units had to be moved in accordance

• with operational needs rather than with sometheoretical accommodation problems of our own.Consequently, as time went on and the de-ployment of guns changed, the general standardof accommodation for Mixed batteries becamefurther removed from that originally set. Solong as reasonable recreational facilities duringperiods of inaction- and satisfactory ablutionsat all times were available for them, the moraleof women in an operational r61e was alwayshigh, and subsequent events proved their-.greatcourage. I cannot praise too highly thevaluable work these women performed or thesplendid spirit which they brought to it.

ii. In the emergency deployments 'of Heavyguns later in the war, women had to be accom-modated in emergency conditions .if the de-fences were to remain operative, and they notonly accepted those conditions but even chose toremain at their posts when offered an oppor-tunity to leave.

During the temporary concentration of de-fences on the south coast to protect ourinvasion forces and later in the emergency de-ployments to counter the flying bomb, theywere accommodated under canvas with all theaccompanying inconveniences and finally someunits were withdrawn from my command toserve in the anti-aircraft defence of Antwerpand Brussels during a winter campaign, adecision which was the finest possible tributeto the work of the Mixed batteries as a whole.

12'. Although generally women were employedon Heavy guns where units were concentrated,the serious loss of manpower in searchlightunits -led me to consider whether it might notbe possible to employ them in this role also.Owing to the impossibility of mixing the sexesin small detachments, any such units had toconsist wholly of women and though one search-light regiment was created in this form andgave a good account of itself, I was dissuadedfrom extending the experiment for two, reasons.First, it was not possible to find a sufficientnumber of women officers capable of assumingtactical as well as administrative responsibilityand secondly, searchlight sites were normallyprovided with Light Machine-Guns for localair and ground 'defence, and women; howeverwilling to do so, were not allowed to handleguns of any kind.

Home Guard. '.13. However, further demands for economies

in manpower were already upon us. In October,1941, a cut of 50,000 men for the Field Forcewas ordered. In order to man the equipmentwhich was now reaching the Command in largequantities,, the employment of Home Guards foranti-aircraft defence was once more considered.-Home Guard personnel could not, however, docontinuous manning and it was not easy -to


arrange a scheme which could use part timesoldiers effectively.

• Their terms of service provided that theyshould not perform more than 48 hours oftraining and duty in 28 days and in the eventof raids taking place they could only volunteerfor extra duty with the permission of theircivil employers. It was impracticable to permitany of the major defences of the country tobe manned on those terms, even if, as lateroccurred, the terms were somewhat modified.

14. It was at this time that we had been.planning an extension of the anti-aircraftdefences by the widespread introduction ofRocket Batteries; the supply of rocket weaponshad now increased to the extent-that demandsfor shipping had been met and a surplus wasrapidly 'becoming available for home defence.Unlike other forms of defence the principleinvolved was simple and required no long andcomplex training. Rocket weapons appeared tobe eminently suitable for operation by theHome. Guard and I accordingly proposed theintroduction of Home Guard Rocket Batteries.The proposal was approved and units begantraining immediately.

15. It was agreed that each man should becalled upon one night in eight, so that where178 men were required to keep a site inaction on any one night, a total of 1,424 werenecessary in order to permit full and continuousmanning of the site. These figures will givesome idea of the dimensions of the new project,but this was far from being the only difficulty.It was decided that a call for volunteers wouldbe unsatisfactory because many would prob-ably be young men who would shortly be lostunder conscription. The responsibility forproviding men therefore devolved upon theMinistry of Labour and they selected those whowere not otherwise employed on any form ofNational Service.

16. Disciplinary control over.members of theHome Guard was virtually impossible and itwas an easy matter for those who were soinclined to evade all duty. It was due entirelyto the service'given by the unselfish that theRocket Batteries became and remained a forcewhich the German aircrews treated with theutmost respect. "*

17. Within a year the Ministry of Labour wasshowing signs of being unable to fulfil demandsand men were transferred from Home Guardinfantry battalions. The Home Guard infantrybattalions, formed when invasion was an ever-present threat, contained all the keenest andmost enthusiastic elements and whole unitsmight have transferred to an anti-aircraft r61e.But, when called upon to give up men whileretaining an infantry role, it was natural thatthey should allow only their least efficient mem-bers to transfer to the Rocket Batteries.

- Arrangements were made whereby one ormore Home Guard General Service Batterieswere affiliated to the local AA Battery fromwhich the latter could draw recruits. Those un-suitable for AA duty, due either to medicalreasons or change of civilian employment, weredrafted back to the Home Guard Battalionconcerned.! i

18. In 1942 manpower pressure increasedfurther. In July, 1942, the ad hoc sub-com-mittee, charged with relating the requirements

and availability of equipments with the avail-ability of manpower for anti-aircraft purposesthroughout the world, allotted to Anti-AircraftCommand a ceiling, of 264,000; in October,1942, a reduction to 180,000 was suggested.By introducing what was termed " over.-gunning " the ratio of men to guns in HeavyAnti-Aircraft units was further reduced. Inplaces where guns were concentrated, batteriesbecame responsible for more than the normaleight guns and the Home Guard were alsointroduced to Heavy anti-aircraft gunnery,taking over one or more guns under supervisionof the local unit.

Where .guns.were scattered no over-gunningwas possible. The effect in saving thereforebecame more pronounced as the defences in-creased and as more guns could be concentrated,rising from about 6 per cent, with 1,500 gunsto 15 per cent, with 2,500. By this means thenumber of Heavy equipments in action was notreduced. Nor was it found necessary toreduce the number of Light guns in action, for

•the Home Guard took over the defences ofcertain factories and railways with theseweapons and it was agreed that the R.A.F.Regiment should take over the defence of air-fields.

19. Anti-Aircraft Command was at the sametime largely absolved from the responsibilityof holding and draft-finding, which had beensuch a. burden hitherto, so that ultimately this1942 cut was limited to 'ten searchlightbatteries.-

Cuts in Man-Power.20. The size of this cut. was, however, only

kept within these limits by reducing the num-ber (if male Heavy anti-aircraft batteries from92 to 64, that is, by replacing men with womenin 28 batteries. I regarded 64 as the absoluteminimum number of male batteries I shouldhave, since there were certain commitmentswhich I hoped not to have to ask mixed unitsto undertake. I still envisaged using malebatteries only for emergency deployments andI had to retain some male batteries for train-ing and holding purposes. -Fortunately thethreat of invasion had receded and I wasnow able to move mixed units into those southand south-eastern areas from which they hadbeen previously excluded.

21. In September, 1943, the question, nowa regular annual one, recurred again. Anassessment of German air strength at this timeled to the conclusion that certain risks mightlegitimately be taken in the way of considerablyreducing the defences in some of the northernand western areas and cuts were 'made in allforms of defence, the manpower in Anti-Aircraft Command being reduced by 13,700.

22. In June, 1944, further cuts were sug.gested which had to be postponed because ofthe attacks by flying bombs; but in August,1944, it was proposed to regard large areasof the country as probably immune from furtherattack and during September, 1944, I lost allSmoke Defences and 28 Searchlight batteries,followed in November, 1944, by n male and101 Mixed Heavy batteries, 34 Light batteriesand 14 more Searchlight batteries. Finally inJanuary,' 1945, I lost 6 male Heavy batteries,35 Light batteries, 33 Searchlight batteries andat the same time 'the Home Guard Rocket


batteries, which had been allowed to becomenon-operational in November, 1944, werefinally disbanded.

*.23. This bald statement of the progressive

reduction in the country's anti-aircraft defencesgives no idea of the intensity of the problemwhich it presented. The men suitable.for aninfantry or an R.A.S.C. role were to be foundin every unit under my command and thesehad to be extracted to meet the urgent require-ments of the field force and had to be re-placed by less fit men from disbanding units insuch a way as to minimise the effect upon thebatteries which were at the time heavilyengaged in the flying bomb battle.

24. Nor were reductions in the defences theonly manpower problems of those difficultyears. I have already mentioned that thegeneral labour shortage caused the building ofA.T.S. accommodation to fall behind scheduleand as the number of mixed batteries increasedand redeployments of Heavy guns becamemore necessary, so the acuteness of the diffi--culty increased. Finally, we concluded that wemust -have within Anti-Aircraft Command alabour force which could be applied exclu-sively to our own needs and early in 1943certain batteries were withdrawn from theiroperational r&le for this purpose.

These were reconstituted as ConstructionBatteries and 1,800 men were finally employedin this manner. In this unspectacular r61ethe Construction Batteries made a most valu-able contribution to the defence of thecountry.

Supplemented by 7,500 unskilled workersfrom disbanding Light Batteries, they werelargely responsible for the success of a vastbuilding operation during the flying bombbattle -to which I shall refer later.

New Equipment.25. Concurrently the equipment problem be-

came easier. The 3.7-inch gun on a staticm'ounting remained the standard Heavy equip-ment with a number of similar guns on mobilemountings as a supplement. A special 3.7-inchbarrel was designed for the 4.5-inch gunsand the conversion of these weapons began atthe end of October, 1943; the work was stillproceeding at the end of the war but all the.72 4.5-inch guns in the London area weremodified by the end of November, 1943; thisgun, which was known as the 3.7-inch Mark 6,was remarkable for its high muzzle velocity.A still more effective Heavy gun of 5.25-inchcalibre also began to come from productionduring this period. The first guns of this calibreto go into action were of naval design with twinbarrels and these operated from April, 1942.A model with a single barrel, designedespecially for anti-aircraft work, began toappear in May, 1943..

The chief Light anti-aircraft weapon con-tinued to be the 40-mm Bofors but it wassupplemented by increasing numbers of 20-mmequipment, largely Oerlikon or Polsten guns,and from the beginning of 1944 by an increas-ing number of twin 0.5 inch 'Brownings inpower-operated turrets.

There was also a- steady flow of new radardesigns intended to give greater accuracy thanthe earlier models. These later designs wereable to work successfully at high angles ofsight. Auto-following.was introduced by which

the sets were kept on the target, once it had.been located, by an automatic electric control;this auto-follow system first operated in actionon the American SCR 584. sets during the flyingbomb battle.

Though the numbers of the various equip-ments in action were, until the closing stagesof the war, always below the totals regardedas necessary, there was generally a steady andprogressive improvement throughout the periodcovered by this part of my despatch. The onlyserious setback occurred .when war broke outin the Far East. Anti-Aircraft Command gaveup 66 Heavy and 216 Light guns'for the newtheatres of war and for six months afterwardsreceived practically no fresh equipments fromproduction.

26. At the outbreak of war with Japan inDecember, 1941, the Heavy guns which wereavailable to me totalled 1,960, made of up 935static and 465 mobile 3.7-inch guns, 416 4.5-inch guns and 144 of the obsolete 3-inch guns.

At the end of .1942 the total was 2,100, -madeup of 3 twin 5.25-inch guns, 1,200 static and475 mobile 3.7-inch, 406 4.5-inch guns and 163-inch guns.

In June, 1944, at the beginning of the flyingbomb battle, I had 2,635 guns, made up of 3twin 5.25-inch and 25 single 5.25-inch guns,1,672 static, 527 mobile and 149 Mark 6 3.7-inch guns and 259 still .unconverted 4.5-inchguns.

The o position with the Light anti-aircraftweapons when Japan entered the war was thatI had a total of 1,197, made up of 1,056 40-mmBofors, 8 obsolete 3-inch guns, 71 miscellaneoustypes of 2-pounders and 62 20-mm Hispanos.

At the end of 1942 the total had increased to1,814, of which 1,717 were 4O-mm Bofors, 63-inch guns, 5 2-pounders and'86 2O-mm His-pano and Oerlikon guns.

In June, 1944, the total had risen sharply to4,589, made up. of 2,681 40-mm Bofors, 1,25720-mm Hispanos and Oerlikons and 651 twino.5-inch Brownings.

Rocket projectors in action numbered 4,481at the end of 1942 and 6,372 at the end of1943.

In addition to the increase in the numbersof equipments and to the introduction of new-types, certain important inventions were madefor use with the older types. The first im-portant one appeared in 1943 and was theAutomatic Fuze-Setter for the 3.7-inch gun;the earliest designs had the effect of increasingthe rate of fire of those guns to which it wasfitted by about 50 per cent, while later designsincreased it by over 250 per cent, and greatlyimproved the accuracy of the fuze-setting.

The second invention was the proximity fuzewhich did away with the need for fuze-settingaltogether and was extensively used in theflying bomb battle. With these fuzes the ex-plosion was controlled automatically by theirproximity to the flying body; the. rapid load-ing by means of Automatic Fuze-setters wascontinued with the new fuzes.

Tactical Employment.,27! The tactical plans for the employment of

guns in Gun Defended Areas did not changeduring this period but considerable changeswere made in the tactical employment ofsearchlights. ' , .

The scheme for using searchlights in clusterswhich had been introduced in the autumn of

ii13


1940 had not proved as successful as had beenhoped; the spacing of lights proved too greatfor continuous engagement so that night fightersstill failed to intercept with searchlightassistance; low-flying raiders were often ableto slip through unobserved and the anticipated

.increase in the range of beams was notnoticeable.

• In September, 1941, therefore, lights were re-deployed on single sites.' The basis of the•redeployment was a mathematical conceptionknown as the Fighter Box; this was the area.within which a night fighter with nothing toaid him except his own eyes and the visual in-dication of searchlight beams could intercept a•bomber which entered that area. After trialshad been carried out the size of the box wasestablished as being 44 by 14 miles. The Boxsystem remained the basis of searchlight de-ployment for the rest of the war.

The country was divided into a completesystem of boxes around the various GunDefended Areas. In the centre of each* Boxwas * a stationary vertical searchlight beamaround which a night fighter circled until hereceived an indication that a bomber wasentering the Box. At the ends of each Boxsearchlights were spaced at about 6 miles in-tervals and in the middle the spacing was about3^ miles. A series of boxes placed side by side.thus created a continuous belt in which lightswere thin at the edges, where they constitutedan Indicator Zone and dense in the centrewhich was the Killer Zone.

Later, ,when enemy penetrations became so/shallow that they often failed to reach theKiller Zone altogether the Indicator Zone spac-ing was thickened and the orbit beam wasmoved forward if it was thought to benecessary.

28. Just as in March, 1941, the responsibilityfor fire control had largely passed from GunOperations Rooms to the gun sites themselves,so now the responsibility for searchlight con-trol tended to shift from Sector OperationsRooms to the searchlight sites. The old formof control had done much to destroy initiativeand it was only by degrees that it was possibleto instil into the junior officers the sense ofresponsibility necessary for the successful opera-tion of the new system. In addition there wasat the outset a shortage of S.L.C. Radar equip-ment.

Consequently there developed a distrust ofsearchlight-assisted interceptions among R.A.F.night fighter crews and Commanders .who pre-'ferred interceptions ordered on the findings oftheir own G.C.I, radar. It was towards thesuccessful co-ordination of the two methods of

. interception that all our energies were nowbent, and co-operation became steadily closerand more satisfactory as time went on.

29. Though the main use to. which search-lights were put was naturally the illuminationof night raiders, they were also employed fora number of other special purposes through-out the war, in an anti-minelaying r61e, toilluminate balloons for our bombers and tomake meteorological observations of cloud basesat night. Especially worthy of mention was thesystem of homing beacons for friendly aircraftwhich operated from the end of 1939; figureswere only kept for a period between September,1942, and August, 1943, but in that time 525aircraft were saved from imminent disaster,

600 were homed to alternative airfields and 184were helped to base.Re-organisation.

30. The organisation of Anti-Aircraft Com-mand into three Corps and twelve Divisionsremained until October, 1942, when a further re-organisation took place. This was prompted bya number of reasons; the desire to economise inmanpower, the need for fewer intermediateformations between Command Headquartersand units allowing a quicker dissemination oforders, the need for still closer co-ordinationwith R.A.F. Groups and the desire to achievea better balance of responsibility since theshifting of the. emphasis in defence southwardshad over-loaded ist Anti-Aircraft Corps.

Corps and Divisions were therefore abolishedaltogether and were replaced by seven Anti-Aircraft Groups. There were three grades ac-cording to the operational commitments in theGroup area and establishments appropriate toeach grade were worked out. The system wasextremely flexible since the grade of any oneGroup could be changed to meet current needs.

31. The seven groups were situated asfollows: —

ist. . London.2nd: The Solent, south-east England and

southern East Anglia (these two Groupscoincided with n Group R.A.F.).

3rd. South-west England and southWales (coinciding with 10 Group R.A.F.).

4th. North Wales and north - westEngland (coinciding with 9 Group R.A.F.).

5th. Northern East Anglia and 'the EastCoast as far as Scarborough (coinciding with12 Group R.A.F.).

'6th. North-east England and Scotland(coinciding with 13 Group R.A.F. (exceptNorthern Ireland) and 14 Group R.A.F.).

7th. Northern Ireland.The defences of the Orkneys and Shetlands

remained a separate organisatidn, responsiblein operational anti-aircraft matters direct toAnti-Aircraft Command Headquarters.

In the later stages of the war there wereat times concentrations of defences in certainareas quite beyond anything visualised inOctober, 1942, and the local Group Head-quarters was not sufficient to deal with thetremendous increase of work. In these circum-stances, group boundaries were altered to per-mit the insertion of an extra Group in theaffected area.

Thus, 6th Anti-Aircraft Group took over theSolent area during the preparations for invasion,Scotland becoming the responsibility of a new8th Group. 6th Anti-Aircraft Group was dis-banded when its responsibilities in the Southhad ended.

The progressive reduction of defences in theNorth and West in 1944 enabled me to disbandthe 3rd, 4th and 7th Anti-Aircraft Groups andto extend the responsibilities of the 2nd and5th Groups westwards into their areas.

A gth Anti-Aircraft Group was especiallycreated in southern East Anglia when, therewas a heavy concentration of equipment therein the later stages of the flying bomb battle.

SECTION II.Attacks by piloted aircraft. j

32. In the first part of my despatch I je-ferred to the cessation of heavy night raid ig

5g86 SUPPLEMENT TO THE LONDON GAZETTE, 18 DECEMBER, 1947

in May, 1941, when the greater partjipf theGerman air forces were transferred to theRussian front. After May there were a fewmajor raids (e.g., on Birmingham on 4~5thJune, Southampton on 2ii22nd June, and Hullon i7-i8th July). The scale of attack, how-ever, gradually decreased, and for the ',-rest ofthe year, apaVt from occasional attacks on othertargets, the remaining German forces in theWest were thrown mainly into the Battle ofthe Atlantic by attacks on ports and shippingand by heavy minelaying. The position in theAtlantic was still most precarious . and the

; attacks made were designed to increase ourshipping difficulties.

33. Attacks on convoys continued, andactivity was most intense on the East Coast,Hull being frequently subjected to attacks byaircraft which were either on navigational andoperational training or which failed to locatethe shipping they had come to attack. TheThames Estuary, St. George's Channel and theMersey were also continually mined.

34. The fact that much of this activity nevercame overland and that the defences were nottherefore able to do much to hinder it causedus much concern and I therefore proposed thatanti-aircraft forts might be situated out in thevarious estuaries to hamper these attacks.

35. Mr. G. A. Maunsell, a well-known con-sulting engineer, produced a design for aspider-like tower which, in its fully developedform, would carry 4 3.7-inch guns, 2 4O-mm.Bofors, i searchlight and a radar set. Workbegan on these towers at once but the % firstwas not ready until October, 1942, when muchof the minelayihg effort had subsided.

Although it had originally been intended toplace them in a number of different estuaries,tidal and other difficulties finally caused theproject to be limited to the Thames and theMersey. In the former, in particular, theMaunsell Forts covered an approach which hadalways been a serious gap in the defence systemand they played an important partîn the de-fence of London when heavier raiding b'eganagain- later.

36. -Overland night raiding began again sud-denly in April, 1942, and was apparently stimu-lated largely by a desire for revenge for BomberCommand's attacks on German cities. Themain stream of German raiders kept clear ofGun Defended Areas and in these so-called" Baedeker " raids attacked open towns an-dcathedral cities; where any of the raidersstrayed into range of the gun. and rocket de-fences of a Gun Defended Area, the defenceswent into action with success. Exeter wasparticularly a target for the enemy in the firstphase-of these attacks.

Within 72 hours the defence of 28 townsfrom Penzance to York which had hithertobeen undefended was put in hand. A totalof 252 guns were withdrawn chiefly from GunDefended Areas in the North and West. Suc-cess was almost immediate and in the lasttwo raids of the April full moon period thedefences destroyed 4 enemy aircraft arid prob-ably destroyed or damaged 4 more. With theMay full moon raiding began again andCanterbury was subjected to severe attacks,but this form of attack also petered out in thefollowing months.

:. ,37.. A less1 spectacular move, of 120 Heavyguns, was made. at the same time as the" Baedeker " deployment to augment the de-fences of ten South Coast anchorages in whichwas assembling a fleet for the invasion of NorthAfrica in the late Autumn. I was still muchconcerned, at this time with the shortage ofequipment, for almost all new production wasbeing diverted to the,Far East and the defencesof trie west coast ports were dangerously weak.As large American forces were at the time dis-embarking there, an attack on that area mighthave " had serious consequences. Moreover,there was a distinct possibility that we wouldhave to yield a large .number of guns to thefield forces under a plan, which did not actually'mature, for- the invasion of North Europe in1943- . . •

38. Meanwhile on 27th March, 1942, a daybattle had begun. This was in answer to our ownfighter sweeps across the channel and consistedof tip-and-run low level raids on coastal townsby fast fighter-bombers. There appeared1.-tobe no military significance in these attacks norwere they on a scale to do much harm. .

It would appear that one of the most strikinglessons from these raids was the very greatvalue of A.A. guns and balloons in minimisingcivilian casualties and damage, quite apart from.the infliction of casualties on the attacking' air-craft. Objectives with no balloons and fewguns (e.g., Exeter) suffered badly in these raids,whereas those with adequate static defencescame off comparatively lightly.

39. The weapon with which to counter the low-flying raider was the Light gun but the supply'of these was seriously limitecf. Not only hadI yielded up some for the Far East but newproduction was also fully absorbed by thattheatre of war. When 189 guns were needed tohelp defend the anchorages on the south coastI was able only to provide 76, and many ofthose were withdrawn from the defence of vitalindustrial plants. Further, no less than 57 dif-ferent coastal towns between St. Ives andAldeburgh had been attacked by September,1942, and the problem of defending all of theseand also others which might be subject to attackwould have required a number of guns far in-'excess of those available. As it was, in June,'"I9'42, when guns from production began tocome forward- once more, we allotted 104 ofthese to what were termed the Fringe Targettowns.

40. Towards .the end of September, 1942, itwas clear that the attacks,, however unimpor- 'tant from a military point of view, must bestopped and it was at that time that the equip-ment situation had eased sufficiently to allowsteps to be taken. Production had improvedand Anti-Aircraft Command was receiving agreater share of it; inland industrial targets hadhad their defences replaced and these couldbe denuded once again, and the Admiralty weresteadily returning the guns lent them a yearpreviously. My intention was now to join thebattle with all the forces I. could muster with aview to inflicting such losses on the enemy thathe would have to give up this form of attack.No half-measures could be successful. By theend of September, 1942, 267 40-mm. Boforsguns had been deployed on the. coast, anotherno. eould be withdrawn from factories and Iwas informed that I could expect 142 fromproduction in October, 1942.


41. As was always the case, however, themere deployment of guns was not in itself suffi-cient. The raiders approached at heights ofless than 100 feet, having found that by thismeans they, could almost always escape radardetection; consequently it was impossible eitherto warn the anti-aircraft defences in time forthe guns to be manned or to scramble fighteraircraft into the air to make an interception. Towatchers on the shore the enemy planes couldonly be seen at the last minute and they usedevery device which would help them to makean unobserved approach such as sneaking inup undefended valleys and hedge-hopping alongthe coast.

42. Orders were therefore issued -that everyLight anti-aircraft gun within five miles of thecoast from the North Foreland to Land's Endwould be constantly manned during daylighthours, but even so it was difficult to secure thenecessary degree of alertness when a town mightgo unattacked for months at a time, while thecold of the approaching winter did not help.

43. To secure freedom of action for the gunswe arranged that no R.A.F. plane should crossthe coast at less than 1,000 feet except withundercarriage lowered, so that all low-flyingsingle-engined aircraft could be assumed to behostile without the necessity for prior identifi-cation.

44. In December, 1942, the defences werefurther reinforced by the addition of large num-bers of 20-mm. guns, and other 20-mm. equip-ments were manned by the R.A.F. Regiment;batteries of 40-mm. Bofors were loaned by HomeForces and the Canadian Forces. By March,1943, the Fringe defences had increased to917 4O-mm. guns, 192 20-mm. (with another232 expected shortly to be available) and 674light machine-guns of various kinds. .

4$. The winter successes were limited andthe pattern of attack remained similar, thoughthe average number of planes in each attackshowed a slight tendency to increase.

46. There were, however, two attacks of anexceptional size and aimed at targets furtherinland. On 3ist October, 1942, a sweep of60 raiders made a sharp attack on Canterburyand this was followed by two bomber raids „the following night. On 20th January ,'• 1943) >a similar number, aided by diversionary raidselsewhere, made an attack on London. We

'•thereupon deployed a small number of 40-mm.guns on Heavy gun sites and had a simplifieddrill worked out for the Heavy anti-aircraftgunners.

47. Meanwhile, the winter had been spent inimproving'and elaborating the warning system.Use was made of certain R.A.F. stations on-thecoast and new marks of radar were deployed.Radio links between these and Light Anti-Air-craft Troop Headquarters were established andthe signals organization, besides installing andmaintaining these radio sets at the receiving end,also laid a network of land lines foj every TroopHeadquarters to the guns they controlled. Itwas now possible to warn guns when an attackwas imminent and in April, 1943, an improve-ment was beginning to be observed in the resultswhen the attacks suddenly ceased.

48. On 7th May, 1943, the German attackswere renewed with much stronger forces andbetween that date and 6th June, 1943, 15attacks by about 300 aircraft were made.. The ^

guns destroyed 25 and probably destroyed ordamaged 13, the R.A.F. destroyed 17. andprobably destroyed or damaged 4. Thus thebattle w,as brought finally to a successful con-clusion. Altogether 94 different towns had beenattacked, of which the heaviest sufferers wereprobably Eastbourne and Hastings. ThoughLight anti-aircraft shooting was not as much ascience as Heavy anti-aircraft shooting, thereis no doubt that it was largely the result of theapplication of scientific assistance to the Lightguns which in the end achieved .success.Smoke Defences.

49. I must now digress in order to refer tothe Smoke Defences, the responsibility for whichhad on ist April, 1943, been transferred fromthe Ministry of Home Security to Anti-AircraftCommand. The. smoke screens were mannedby the Pioneer Corps and once again we wereto experience all the disadvantages of a dividedcontrol. It was only with the greatest difficultythat sufficient control was obtained to enable usto secure even the most limited efficiency.

50. After the successful attack by Bomber•Command upon German dams in May, 1943, itwas feared that there might be retaliations inkind and the Chiefs of Staff placed a very highpriority upon the defence of our own reservoirsthroughout the country. For a short time thesewere defended by Light anti-aircraft' guns andsearchlights withdrawn from aerodromes and" Baedeker " towns. rSince April, 1943, how-ever, very considerable- technical strides hadbeen made in smoke production; chemical, asopposed to oil, smokes were rapidly developedon the basis of earlier work by the Ministry ofHome Security and entirely new methods ofrapid multiple ignitions were evolved. Trainingof the Pioneer troops, which had previouslybeen much neglected, was improved and longoverdue steps for the improvement of theirwelfare and health services were taken.

51. 'Consequently, I was able to suggest thatthe defence of our dams might more economic-ally be provided by smoke screens, since whathad to be feared was a precision type of attack.For six dams this proposal was accepted and itis worthy of note that this was the only occasionthroughout the war when smoke alone wasaccepted as a sufficient defence.

52. For thirteen other dams, however, thesmoke defences were to be supplemented bycatenary defences and no guns or searchlightswere to be withdrawn until the chains were inplace. The task of producing and erecting thenecessary masts and chains proved much slowerthan had been anticipated and as a result, forthe greater part of the following winter(1943-44), two conflicting forms of defence werein operation at these'dams. Apart from the factthat mis was uneconomical, it aggravated thealready difficult problem of providing accom-modation. The troops were generally placed inremote hills where. weather, conditions werenotoriously bad and it was fortunate that thewinter proved to be .unusually mild and dry.

53. No attack on the dams actually tookplace, but the defences remained operationaluntil the disbandment of the Smoke Companiesin the autumn of 1944. Other Smoke Com-panies took part in the defence of southern'ports from Great Yarmouth to South Walesduring the preparations for the invasion ofNorthern Europe.

5Q88 SUPPLEMENT. TO THE'LONDON GAZETTE, 18 DECEMBER, 1947

Resumption of Night Attacks. '54. Apart from mine-laying, with the con-

current attacks on -coastal towns, the" Baedeker" raids and a few other .sporadicattacks, the United Kingdom-had been com-paratively free of attacks toy 'night ever since

' May, 1941, but in the autumn of 1943 theGerman air forces once more 'began.' to applythemselves to this form of raiding.

55. The fast fighter-bombers now began tocome over- at night and they were later accom-panied by new fast bombers. At first the raidswere comparatively small and of shallow pene-tration but from October, 1943, they began toincrease in size and to aim again at London.

56. I have already mentioned that nightfighters might be put. on to a bomber either bysearchlights controlled from the Sector Opera-tions Rooms or by the R.A.F. Controllers usingtheir G.CH. radars from G.C.I, stations. " Theunpredictable behaviour and speed of the pre-sent targets sometimes meant that a night fighterfailed to secure an interception because it waslimited to one or other of the two forms of con-trol. It was only at this stage that successful-co-ordination of tiie two forms of control beganto be achieved, the chief step towards whichwas the shifting of -the control of the searchlightsfrom the Sector Operations Rooms to the G.C.I.station. After this it was" possible to changefrom one method of control to another and backagain and so to exploit -the advantages of eachwith perfect flexibility. It was also possible touse without friction both methods in order tomaintain the maximum number of night fightersin operation. This series of attacks may be saidto mark the peak of searchlight performance,for hoj: only ware they used to the best ad-vantage in co-ordination with fighters but theirown performance' in illumination exceededeverything that had been achieved before.

57. The guns on the other hand were some-what disappointing and I.looked for consider-able improvements as soon as experience withnew equipment had increased. At this time theAutomatic Fuze-setter was just coming in, sowere new marks of radar, the 4.5-inch gunswere about to be converted into 3.7-inch Mark 6and 5.25-indh guns were also beginning to bedeployed. '. 58. The new radar sets were very sensitive tointerference and on 7th/8th October, 1943,the Germans began to drop strips of metallisedpaper similar to those which our own bombershad for some time been using over Germany.These had the effect of producing spuriousbreaks in radar cathode ray tubes which couldeither be mistaken for aircraft or else appearedin such profusion that an aircraft break couldnot be identified and. followed. It was a^movewhich had ' been anticipated but to which nosatisfactory answer had been found.

59. At first no great trouble was caused be-cause of the limited amount of paper droppedand lack of .tactical application in its use. Animproved and increased use of it soon followed,however, with very serious effects. Earlywarning radar equipments were unable to giveany accurate estimate of numbers of aircraftapproaching nor of the heights at which theywere flying nor even where they might be ex-pected to make landfall. Similarly, inland setsfound themselves largely unable to track in-dividual aircraft and in places sets were rendered

absolutely useless. While, in October, 1943,only the leading aircraft used to drop the paper,by February, 1944, every raider was doing soand sometimes areas 50 miles long and 25 mileswide were completely infected.

60. Searchlights were the most seriouslyaffected and frequently had to resort to the oldand ineffective control by sound-locators. Manygun control radars were affected but a few typeswere able to continue in service.

61. There was every reason to anticipate arenewal of heavy attacks on London, for theGerman air forces had for some time been ex-perimenting with -pathfinder technique! Thequality of their navigation had greatly deterio-rated and it was common for many raidersto lose their way completely during this.periodand if pathfinder flares had been wrongly placedover open country to have no hesitation inbombing there.

, 62. The anticipated heavy raids began on2ist/22nd January, 1944, with 200 aircraft inthe first raid; the improvement in gunnery wasconsiderable, eight raiders being destroyed,.while searchlights contributed to half of theR.A.F.'s eight successes. Other raids followedand the attacks culminated in a week of inten-sive raiding beginning on- iSth/igth February,1944. In March, 1944, raiding became muchmore sporadic though still .heavy on individualnights.

63. At the same time Heavy and Light guns,searchlights and smoke screens were movingsouthward for the protection of the invasionports. Some experience on a more limitedscale had been obtained in July and- August,1943, when there had been a large increase incoastal defences in.the South for a large scaleexercise known as " Harlequin ".On that occa-sion the area affected had stretched from Doverto the Solent and the defences there, whichalready consisted of 266 Heavy guns, 319Bofors and 171 searchlights, were increased by348 Heavy guns, 432 Bofors and 93 search-lights. After the exercise in September, 1943,the additional defences had dispersed.

64.. Now, during the spring of 1944, we beganto build once more the defences all round thecoast from Great Yarmouth to South Wales.I was responsible not only for equipment inAnti-Aircraft Command but also -for a largenumber of Heavy and Light guns which wereloaned to me by the Field Army, at any rate1

until the invasion had been launched and theywere wanted overseas; I also received assistanceboth in Heavy and Light guns from the U.S.Army forces on the same terms. These loanedequipments had to be most carefully woveninto the fabric of defence so that their earlywithdrawal would not disturb tjie balance ofdefence remaining.

65. I have already referred to the valuablescientific help given me by the Americans inthe early stages of the war; this help was con- •tinued right tiirough. There was the closestliaison between us at all times and in the secondhalf of 1943 a specially selected DemonstrationBattery from Anti-Aircfaft Command hadconducted a most successful six months'tourin the United.States with a consequent valuableexchange of views. In December, 1943, U.S.anti-aircraft units had become operational inthe United Kingdom, some batteries being de-ployed for the defence- of llondon while their


main responsibility was the protection of U.S.Army and Air Force installations.

The largest number of .U.S. anti-aircrafttroops so deployed at any one time had beenjust over 10,000. During the summer of 1944English and American Light Anti-Aircraft unitsexchanged parties of all ranks, each party tak-ing a fully operational r61e with their hostsand this exchange similarly provided a valuableexchange of ideas and did much to foster good-will. The1 U.S. forces were naturally anxiousto participate in all our major activities.

66. Before any additional defences were in-troduced for the protection of invasion ports,the equipments between Great Yarmouth andSouth Wales consisted of 842 Heavy and 332Light guns and 4 smoke screens. These weresupplemented from A.A. Command resourceswith 252 Heavy and 244 Light guns- and 13smoke screens. In addition we were to receivefrom our field forces 248 Heavy and 360 Lightguns and from the U.S. forces 32 Heavy and184 Light guns. The total defences of thevarious ports would therefore amount to 1,374Heavy and 1,120 Light guns and 17 smokescreens. In addition the Balloon defences wereto be increased from 342 to 535. As it turnedout these figures had to be reduced by 56 Heavyand 188 Light guns in order to provide a reserveagainst the possibility of a simultaneous attackby flying bombs which had for some time beenfeared and to which I shall refer again later.

67. So important in its effect on the wholecourse of the war was the plan now unfoldingand so well known to the German Intelligencethat considerable interference from the Germanair forces was anticipated. In the event, how-ever, raiding of invasion ports was not seriousand in most cases the deterioration in Germannavigation enabled even those few places whichwere attacked to escape without serious damage.

68. Apart from some desultory intruderactivity in March and April, 1945, these werethe last attacks by piloted German aircraft onthis country. There were, however, fears to-"wards the end of. March, 1945, that a desperatelow flying suicide* attack on London might belaunched and plans were made to increase theLight anti-aircraft defences of the capital from36 to 412, Anti-Aircraft Command providing236 of the guns and the R.A.F. Regiment theremaining 140. Whether the attack would everhave taken place or not, had the Germans re-tained control of the airfields in north-westGermany, it is impossible to say but in theend this deployment never took place.

SECTION III.

Attacks by Robot Weapons.69. The first official intimation that attacks

might be made by pilotless aircraft upon thecountry were received on 7th December, 1943.The estimated scale of attack at that time was200 missiles an hour and targets were expectedto be London, the Solent and Bristol.

70. Plans were at once made to meet thethreat. London was to be protected by abelt of about 1,000 Heavy guns, sited on aline south o'f Redhill and Maidstone to thesouthern 'bank of the Estuary. There was tobe a '-belt of searchlights in front for co-opera-tion'with,fighters and a belt of balloons behind.A similar plan was irude for the defence ofBristol, with a gun belt to the north and a

searchlight belt to the south of Shaftesbury anda balloon belt south of Shepton Mallet. Littlecould be done for the Solent beyond a readjust-ment of the Isle of Wight defences.

The decision to deploy well inland was takenin order to reduce enemy jamming of radarequipment;- to allow fighter aircraft the maxi-mum area for manoeuvre and to leave the coastdefences free to engage attacks by* piloted air-craft. It was not intended to use either staticguns or mixed units in these plans.

The constant attacks., by Bomber Commandon the launching sites on the French Coastcaused the threat-to recede, and with the in-creasing need for a large deployment to protectthe invasion ports the plans were at first .aban-doned and then revived in a very modifiedform so as to interfere as little as possible withthat deployment.

Had the enemy begun his flying bomb attacksbefore or even at the, time the invasion waslaunched, the strain upon our -resources wouldhave been- extremely serious, but fortunately atthe time • the attacks began it was alreadyapparent that no serious scale ,of attack wasto be expected against the ports.

71. On the night of I2th/i3th June, 1944,the first missiles, known by the1 code name" QIVER", arrived.

72? It was believed that .these were only testsand no special deployment was ordered untilsustained attacks began on I5th/i6th June,1944. The original plan for the :defence ofLondon was then put into operation in themodified form it had had to kssume to permitthe simultaneous /protection of the invasionports, although certain withdrawals from .thosedefences were made.

Three hundred and seventy-six Heavy* and592 Light guns were deployed'and in additionthe R.A.F. Regiment on the south coast wasoperating 560 Light equipments,' consisting of192 40-mm. Bofors and 368 20-mm. guns.. Toachieve these figures' without seriously affectingthe defences elsewhere, units of the Royal Navy(including D.E.M.S.* personnel) and theRoyal Marines, from the Field Army, fromtraining camps and others were employed. Ithad been- estimated that 18 days, would benecessary to complete this deployment but itwas actually completed in a -week and wasquickly in action since Anti-Aircraft CommandSignals 'had, ever since the first warning inDecember 1943, been laying the necessary linesfor intercommunication all over the area. TheSignals under command of Brigadier G. C.Wickins, C.B., C.B.E., T.D., were outstand-ingly efficient throughout the. whole war. Thepersonnel was drawn largely from the G.P.O.

For three nights the guns in London fired atthose targets which had penetrated the -primarydefences, but after that they. were restrictedsince it was clear that it was better to allowthe flying bombs a chance of passing the moredensely populated parts of the Capital ratherthan to shoot them down into'it.

73. Reference has been made in.the first partof my despatch -to the peculiar, difficulties ofHeavy Anti-Aircraft gunnery,. the - chief ofwhich was that an assumption had to be madeas to the behaviour of -the target between, theinitial plotting and the burst of the shell inthe sky. -Any form of-evasive .action, howeverslight, could' seriously affect" the accuracy of

*-Defensively Equipped Merchant-Ships.

599© SUPPLEMENT TO THE, LONDON GAZETTE,. 18 DECEMBER,. 1947

!the. shooting. Now/.for-the first time in the war,•the guns were presented, with a target whichdid riot-.take e.vasive action and which obeyedall the assumptions, upon which Anti-Aircraftgunnery had been based. It might have beenexpected that exceptional.results would at oncebe. obtained but "this was not the case andsuccesses were less than 10 per cent. •":74: The. whole question had been carefullyexamined as far back as February, 1944,- andit was believed that the' targets could satis-factorily be 'dealt with, especially if certain newAmerican equipments could be acquired inlarge numbers,' provided—and this wasespecially emphasised—that good results werenot expected at heights between 2,000 and 3,000feeti where the target would be too high forlight -guns and too low for heavy guns andwhere the effectiveness of Anti-Aircraft fire waslikely to be small.. I was therefore perturbed tofind that it was exactly in this i,'ooo feet bandthat -the targets" were almost invariably flying.• Arrangements were made immediately for apersonal representative to fly to America tospeed up, if possible, the delivery of the newAmerican equipment, and General Marshall,who interviewed him, promised to send at once165 of'.their'latest radar sets, the SCR-584,together with all the necessary :ancillaries in-cluding the No. .10 Predictor. This promise wasfulfilled. " . . .

75. There were many other difficulties. Thespheres'-of influence of guns and fighters over-lapped, and a most awkward system of limitingone" or the, other according to meteorologicalconditions' was worked out. The radar sets,which -had-been sited in hollows to avoid-enemyjamming, were cluttered--up with spuriousbreak's caused by contour's of the ground. Theballoon barrage was extended and many guns

'had to be re-sited, with resulting- difficultiesover the radar-:

.'"76. Above all, the low height at' which thetargets flew required a higher rate of traverseby the guns than the mobile 3.7-inch was cap-a'ble of giving. The static 3.7-inch gun, onthe other hand, though capable of traversingsufficiently quickly, required an inordinatelength of time for its emplacement on concrete.It was at this point that Brigadier J. A. E.Burls, C.B.E., and the R.E.M.E. Staff pro-duced a platform on which the static.- 3.7-inchguns could be emplaced quickly, which wasportable, and which in the. end proved to beone of the keys to success. It consisted 'of a.lattice work of steel rails and sleepers filled withballast.

I must here pay a sincere tribute to the workof R.E.M.E. from the day the Corps, was firstformed. .Under Brigadier Burls' inspiredleadership there was no job they did not tackle.. 77. We - decided to'replace all the-mobile3.7-inch guns with the static version, and thefirst 32 had been emplaced and were showingimproved results; when the whole policy of the

; co-ordination of guns and fighters was changed.• Neither: fighters nor guns were being givenfull scope', for the guns^ had to ensure that thebreak on their 'radar tube was not .a friendlyplane before opening' fire, while the fighters inpursuit of a V.i often had to give up the chasewhen approaching the gun zone. Lieut.-Colonel H. J. R. J. Radcliffe, M.B.E.; at thattime my Technical Staff Officer, suggested thatwe should.re-examine the plan1 of locating the

guns on the'coast. This plan had always seemedto us to have great advantages from the. gunpoint of view, but there were difficulties fromthe fighters' point of view in that their scopewas thereby limited by having to break off anengagement on approaching the coast and startit again if the target got through the gun zone.

It .was, however, now very clear that .withoutsome very radical re-arrangement, two-thirdsof the V.is would continue to get through toLondon. The fighters were still having only alimited, success, though that success was muchbetter than the guns were experiencing.

Fighter Command were evidently thinking onthe-same lines, for at a meeting called on theafternoon of lyh July, at their H.Q.,. alter alengthy discussion the C.-in-C. Fighter Com-mand decided that the guns should be movedto the coast, and orders to that effect weregiven.

1 78. The new belt was to extend from Cuck-mere Haven to St. Margaret's Bay, and the firstguns began to move on 14th July, 1044."Apart from the move of all the equipments inthe existing belt to the coast, there was'a siniul:

taneous move of 312 static guns coming in toreplace the mobile guns and a further move of208 Heavy, 146 40-mm Bofors and over 40020-mm guns in a deployment on the ThamesEstuary to which I shall refer later. The movesinvolved 23,000 men and women, for with theintroduction of the static 3.7-inch .gun camethe Mixed Batteries and 30,000 tons of ammuni-tion and a similar weight of stores; 3,000 milesof cable were laid for inter-battery lines alone.

"In four days the move to the coast had be.ericompleted.

79. There were various advantages in thisnew coastal belt. First, radar sets were freedfrom the clutter of inland interferences and,since the enemy was not using active jammingmethods, they were able to be put to the'bestpossible use; secondly, there was a good chance•that many bombs destroyed by theguns mightnow fall in the sea instead of on land; thirdly,the existing defences on the'"South coast, -in-cluding those of the R.A.F. Regiment, couldnow be incorporated in one scheme, aiidfourthly, the unsatisfactory and alternatinglimitations on guns and fighters, introducedbecause of mutual interference arising from thefighters' inability to identify the position of aninland belt, could now be dispensed with, sincethe line of the coast would clearly reveal the

"position of the belt to aircraft. The move tothe coast was the second of the keys to success.

80. Almost immediately after this the newAmerican equipment, which we were soanxiously awaiting, began to arrive, and assoon as troops could be trained in its operationit was deployed along the belt. Not only wasthe SCR-584 the most suitable of all the radarequipments available, but its use, in conjunc-tion with the No. 10 Predictor, directed firewith a degree of accuracy hitherto unattained.At the same time the problem of exploding theshells at the-correct .height was solved by theintroduction -of the proximity fuze. This equip-ment provided the third of the keys to success.

81. As soon as the coastal deployment wasin..action results, began to improve, but. al-though I have emphasised three points whichin my opinion did more than anything else to


contribute to success, there were also innumer-able other smaller matters which each in itsown way played its part. No less than 200modifications, for example, were made to theHeavy guns by my R.E.M.E. Services, whilean almost equal number of adjustments had tobe made to the American equipments beforethey could finally be put into action.

82. General Eisenhower himself took thegreatest personal interest in the battle, main-taining that London was as much a base forAmerican troops as for British ones; he in-sisted on being allowed to increase the defencesby the welcome addition of 20 American Anti-Aircraft Batteries equipped with go-mm Heavyguns. The total of Heavy guns in the belt roseto nearly 600.

83. My ultimate object was to provide analmost robot defence t|o a rjobot attack; Ivisualised the battle as the culmination of thescientific development and training of morethan four years and the final proof, if suchproof were needed, that the troops of Anti-Air-craft Command, though they must be soldiersfirst, must become far more than mere soldiers;they must be scientists and technical operatorsof the highest quality,

8*4. For tine moment training was still atremendous problem, and there was much moreto be done than simply .to train Heavy Anti-Aircraft on the new equipment, itself a seriousenough problem in the middle of a major battle.Besides lowering the normal base of HeavyAnti-Aircraft fire in order to cover the unpro-tected height band in which the bombs wereflying, we endeavoured to raise the normalceiling of Light Anti-Aircraft fire. For this pur-pose arrangements were made to use radar forthe first time to control light guns, and light•anti-aircraft troops had therefore to be in-structed in methods of unseen fire, hitherto aclosed book to them.

85. The flying bombs also presented an un-paralleled opportunity for trying out equipmentsstill in the experimental stage. It providedall the difficulties of an operational target flyingat great speed with the security that no reportsof our counter-action would become availableto enemy sources. Interspersed with morenormal equipment along the belt were anti-aircraft tanks, experimental versions of thePolsten gun, Ministry of Aircraft Productionexperimental quadruple 2o-mm guns, other20-mm guns with gyro sights, Bofors gunslinked to No. 7, No. 9 and No. 10 predictors,Petroleum Warfare Department Q-inch mortars,2-inch Naval rockets and others. More waslearnt about the potentialities of anti-aircraftwork in 80 days than had been learned in theprevious 30 years.

In addition one Searchlight Regiment wasconverted to a Rocket r61e and manned 4 twinRocket Batteries, 512 barrels in all.

86. The original inland searchlight belt didnot move to the coast with the guns and it wasonly at this stage tihat it began to give fullvalue. There were now two fighter areas, oneout to sea and one behind the gun belt. Withthe latter the Searchlights co-operated at night.Although the flame from the propulsion unitof the flying bomb made it self-illuminating atnight, fighters were not usually able to judgeits distance* or course without the assistance of

C

a searchlight intersection, especially whilemaking a fast dive and turn towards it. Owingto the low flying height of the bomb a rapidtraverse was required and this called for skilfuloperation, especially since it was essential notto dazzle the fighter, which, at such low heightsand high speeds, would then have been inimminent danger of crashing. Of the targetswhich penetrated the coastal belt at night,searchlights assisted fighters in the destructionof 142, or something over 30 per cent. •

87. The continuous nature of the attack,the simultaneous need for training and theconstant building of sites (and re-building asthey were moved to admit new equipment)caused a very severe strain .on the men andwomen in the tattle line. Guns were some-times manned for 100 per cent, of the 24 hoursand often for between 80 per cent, and 90 percent. Relief forces had to be drawn in fromunits in other parts of the country.

88. On iQth August, 1944, the easlKvardadvance of the armies hi France rendered thewestward end of the belt largely superfluous,and the portion between Cuckmere Haven andEast Hastings was closed down and the unitsused either to reinforce the remainder or toextend it from St. Margaret's Bay to Sandwich.At the same time units from 2ist Army Groupand from Training Establishments were largelywithdrawn so that the burden of the battledevolved more upon the units of Anti-AircraftCommand itself. This had the advantage thata greater degree of uniformity- in fire controldiscipline could be secured, and much ratherwild shooting was now eliminated.

89. The re-adjusted belt continued to showimproved results until activity ended on 5thSeptember, 1944, with the capture by the armiesin France and Belgium of the remaininglaunching sites. The degree of improvementsince the period of the inland belt, when the suc-cesses were under 10 per cent., is shown in thepercentages of flying bombs destroyed in thefollowing successive weeks; these were, in thefirst phase of the coastal belt, 17 per cent.,24 per cent., 27 per cent., 40 per cent, and55 per cent., and, in the second phase of thecoastal belt, 60 per cent, and 74 per cent.

90. It had been established early in July,1944, -that the Germans were not onlylaunching their flying bombs from 'ground siteson the French coast, but were also launchinga few from specially adapted aircraft. Someof these flew westwards down the Channel,aimed either at Southampton or Bristol, otherscame in from the North Sea towards London.The latter threat was the more serious, and adeployment was ordered along the coast fromthe River Blackwater to Whitstable, knownas the " Diver Box ". The -Maunsell Forts inthe Thames Estuary proved an invaluableaddition to this defence scheme.

91. On i6th September, 1944, attacks wererenewed, but many of the bombs came downupon London from the north-east, therebyoutflanking the Diver Box to the north. Oni8th September, 1944, therefore, 16 HeawBatteries and 9 Light Batteries began to moveto the area between the River Blackwater andHarwich. • The attackers moved further northand the outflanking continued. On 2ist Septem-ber, 1944, it was decided to create a new belt

SUPPLEMENT'TO THE LONDON GAZETTE, 18 DECEMBER, 1947

as far north as Great Yarmouth; initially in-tended to consist only of male batteries, itlater included" mixed batteries as well. Stepswere taken to protect Bomber Command air-craft and U.S. Air Force bombers whichregularly crossed this strip of coast.

92. On 22nd September/ 1944, orders forthe deployment of the " -Diver Strip ", as it wascalled, were given.

For a .variety of causes, many beyond ourrontrol, the deployment was not completed tillI3th October, 1944. Even this date wouldnot have been achieved but for the excellentwork of the R.A.S.C. drivers who drove boththemselves and some of their transport to astandstill in their effort' to meet the conflicting'demands made upon them.

93. Generally, the deployment in the DiverStrip followed the lines which had proved sosuccessful in the Diver Belt. 34 HeavyBatteries were deployed and 36 LightBatteries; the rdle of the latter, however, waschanged from that previously used in anattempt to produce an intermediate effectbetween Heavy and Light anti-aircraft fire.Of the 36 Batteries only 15 were equippednormally, the remaining 21 had 2 static 3.7-inchHeavy guns in place of 4 .of their 40-mm.Bofors/ these were controlled in 15 instancesby No. 10 predictors and in 6 instances byNo. 3 predictors modified for range-finding byradar" means. Thus there were in all 5163.7-inch guns and 503 40-mm. guns. Withina month it was clear that the Light Anti-Aircraft units, even when modified for an inter-mediate rdle, were not providing a satisfactorycontribution and they were withdrawn. Thetotal of Heavy guns was.increased to 542.

For initial intercommunication "200 wirelessreceivers were distributed, but these were re-placed as soon as land .lines could be provided.In the marshy districts of the deployment,where the country was everywhere intersectedby considerable streams, this was a considerabletask, involving 2,000 miles of cable, much ofwhich had to be carried on poles. Once moreour Signals showed their quality.

94. In this new phaseof flying bombactivity the average height of the missilesdropped to 1,000 feet. Guns firing proximityfuzes could still deal with them though theyhad to be most carefully sited if they wereto do so successfully; the radar sets in par-ticular provided a problem since the need todetect the bombs at long range and the needto. eliminate clutter at low angles of sight weremutually 'antagonistic; searchlights were mostaffected because the lower the height of -thetarget the more difficult was continuousillumination.

.95. The need for constant alertness producedthat same degree of strain which had beenevident for a time on the South coast, but Ihad not now available, owing to manpowercuts, the same reserves on which to draw forreliefs. •

96. For some time we had been representingto the War Office that the war establishmentsof Anti-Aircraft Command units were anoma-lous, based as they were on the assumption thatA.A. units were similar to units in a field armywhich had spells out of the line however con-tinuous'the fighting. In a spell of continuousair activity, no unit of Anti-Aircraft Commandcould anticipate any period of rest, and to base

its war establishment on the assumption thatair activity would be sporadic was a fallacy.It was agreed therefore that; if a spell of -con-tinuous air activity threatened or occurred, aspecial increment could be made to the estab-lishment. This is not altogether a satisfactorysolution owing to the consequent lack of teamtraining. ' •' .

In the present instance it was possible toallow units to rest by day because', attackswere almost always made at night, and radarinformation from sets in both the Low Coun-tries and. in England gave detailed advanceinformation of impending attacks.

97. This series of air-launched flying bombattacks continued until I4th January, 1945, butof a total of 1,012 plotted only*495 bombs camewithin range of the guns, for. in spite of theextension of the Strip to Great Yarmouth manystill outflanked it to the north and many wereinaccurately aimed and flew elsewhere than toLondon. Of the 495 targets only 66 gotthrough and reached London.1 98. On I4th- October, 1944, that is as soonas the deployment was complete, a decisionwas taken about providing winter quarters inthe area. Events at the approaches to Germanyhad shown that the war was likely to continuethrough the winter; and the extreme wetnessof the. autumn weather made living conditionsin the already marshy land extremely uncom-fortable. The Mixed batteries were offered theopportunity of leaving the. Strip for betterquarters inland but unanimously they askedto remain.

The project was a considerable one, involvingthe building of 60 miles .of road, 3,500 huts .and the laying of 150,000 tons of rubble andhardcore in the mud as foundation for guns aswell as buildings. The cost of the project,which was equivalent to the building of atown the size of Windsor, was £2,000,000 andthe building trade estimated the work wouldtake 6 months to complete. .It was carried outby- the Construction Batteries, reinforced by7,500 men of AntiÂircraft Command, the latterbeing responsible for the collection, loadingûnloading and distribution of materials and forproviding unskilled labour. The work was .completed in 2\ months. ; •

99. On 24th December, 1944, a. further de-'ployment was ordered when 40 flying bombswere launched across the' -Yorkshire andLincolnshire coasts towards the industrial -areasof Lancashire. In spite of heavy snow andfog the deployment was completed in -5 days,for all the necessary preliminary reconnaissancehad been carried out some months previously.These defences, known as the '- Diver Fringe ",extended from Flamborough Head to • Skegnessand remained in position until the end of hos-tilities although no further attacks on the Northwere made. 152 Heavy guns were involved inthis area.

100. During February, 1945, informationwas received that land-launched attacks withbombs of longer range might be resumed" .fromthe Dutch coast, and on the 2nd/3rd March,1945 attacks began and-lasted until 29th March,'1945.' Out of 157-bombs 'plotted, ...107 camewithin range of the guns who destroyed 8i..;On eight days 100 per cent, successes -wereobtained. Only 13 bombs reached London.


: Perhaps the most remarkable tribute to thet results being obtained -by the guns lies in" the'fact that the A.O.C.-in-C. some weeks beforethe end of. the. attack withdrew all hissquadrons, except two, for service overseas.

< The defence in these last weeks rested almostentirely on the guns.

101. Although this was in effect the end ofthe operational activities of Anti-Aircraft Com-mand there was one more development withwhich I must deal. I refer to the attacks bylong-range rockets, the first of which had fallenupon London on 8th September, 1944.

I had already been advised of the possibilityof such attacks and twelve radar sets had been

• deployed on the south and south-east coaststo endeavour to track any rockets -that werefired.

When the attacks were found to approachLondon from the east, the sets were re-sited onthe east coast and though nine were sub-sequently withdrawn for use on the Continent,others were brought in to take their place.

It was established that the range was about200. miles, the maximum height something over50 miles, the maximum speed more than 3,000m.p.h. and the landing speed about 1,800m.p.h. In effect it was a high velocity shell ofalarming explosive power, the flight of whichwas long enough to permit calculations to bemade as to where it might land. These calcula-tions were not always accurate but at the sametime not widely inaccurate. It was, however,not possible to. secure satisfactory plots ofevery rocket that was fired.

102. I felt convinced that this was thebeginning of one of the great problems of thefuture and I considered whether I could takeany steps to deal with it. On i2th December,1944, I proposed that I should be allowed to tryshooting at the rockets with a view to destroyingthem in'the air. The idea of shooting at a shellwas admittedly revolutionary, but there seemedto me to be no reason why it should not beanything more than a further development ofthe present unseen firing methods. My proposalwas rejected as it was not considered that ithad a theoretical background of success suffi-'cient to 'justify the danger to the civil popula- 'tion beneath the barrage.

I argued that operational shooting was anessential corollary of scientific theory and thatonly by experience could scientific theory ad-vance; moreover, it was necessary to attemptto make progress before a more powerful rocketcame into operation and finally, that war ex-perience was essential for post-war planning. Iwas asked to prove that there was so much asone chance in a hundred of success and myproposals might go forward.

Experiments both in the matter of plotting,for which special radar sets were now developedby my R.E.M.E. staff, and of gun. control in-struments were pressed on with.

103. Radar sets situated north and south ofthe rocket's.flight and another set forward inHolland tracked the parabola of flight. DuringMarch, 1945, -there was an increase in thenumber of missiles plotted from 44^ per cent,to 48 per cent. The accuracy of the plottingshowed a greater improvement. London wasdivided into areas 2t miles square; the numberwhich were predicted as falling into the correct

square rose from n per.cent, to 31 per cent.,and there 'was also an increase in. the numberwhich were only one square out from 44 percent, to 50 per cent., and an overall improve-ment from 55 per cent, to 81 per cent, of thosethat were plotted at all.

104. I applied again for permission to fire.•If I aimed at one of every two rockets descend-ing and hit, as I estimated, one in 30, thechances were within the limits I had been set,although as 3 in 30 already burst in the air itwould be .some time before results could beproved. On the 28th March, 1945, I gaveorders to the guns to be ready to fire but onthe 27th March, 1945, the last rocket had fallen.On 30th March, 1945, the Chiefs of Staff againrefused permission for the guns to fire atrockets.

105. The advance in the science of anti-air-craft defence since the beginning of the warhas been prodigious, but I believe we are stillonly touching the fringe of future possibilities.

Air Defence is of such paramount importancethat we must spare no effort and no expense tomaintain our scientific lead.

106. On i5th April, 1945, I handed over mycommand to my successor.

107. I would add three names to the fewalready mentioned as having given outstandingservice. There were many others but thesecan only be dealt with on a separate list.

Major-General P. H. Mitchiner, C.B.,C.B.E., T.D., M.D., M.S., organized theMedical services in the Command. He wasan administrator of a very high order as wellas a first class Medical Officer. He renderedgreat services to the State.

The late Major-General Sir Hugh T. Mac-Mullen, K.C.B., C.B.E., M.C., was Major-General in charge of Administration during themost difficult period of the war. He was out-standing. It was largely due to his administra-tive skill and tact that the Mixed Batteriessettled down so easily and efficiently. Onlysickness deprived me of his services.

Major-General R. H. Allen, C.B., M.C., wasan outstanding Divisional Commander. He wasresponsible for the Anti-Aircraft Defences of theWest Country. He mada up for the limited re- 'sources of equipment by his great knowledgeof Anti-Aircraft technique and by his skill.

When an attack took place it was always atonly a matter of a few seconds warning yet bothGun and Searchlight units were ever on theirtoes.

Their discipline, judged by percentages ofcourts-martial and absence without leave cases,was twice as good as that of any other Com-mand or Service.

The Corps of Royal Engineers rendered con-siderable service in that it trained and suppliedthe original Regular and Territorial ArmySearchlight Units before they became part ofthe Royal Regiment of' Artillery in August,

•1940-Other works -carried out by the Royal

Engineers included the designing of static em-placements and command posts, and makingarrangements for a supervision of the con-struction of gun sites and hutted camps.

5994 * ; SUPPLEMENT TO THE LONDON GAZETTE, 18 DECEMBER, 1947

The A.T.S., particularly in the Mixedbatteries, set a standard of bearing and con-duct which in my opinion was not equalled byany other women's service.

The administrative services were not onlyefficient—they were outstanding. Our sick ratewas always small though we never had any-thing like our quota of doctors.

The R.A.O.C. performed herculean taskswith all the new and complicated equipments.The R.A.S.C. set a higher standard of drivingthan in any other Command. The Signals have

been mentioned more than once for they weresuperb and were the one essential requisite inall'our schemes. , •• • o

R.E.M.E. produced an inventiveness,coupled with general engineering skill* and en-thusiasm, which gave us an answer to everydifficulty.

The Chaplains department were the first tointroduce the " Padre's Hour " into the Army.Much of the excellent discipline was due tothem.

Finally, the Commanders and Staffs servingunder me were worthy of the troops they led.

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