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JULY 23
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Belfast Searchlight Gunners hard road to Dunkirk Pt 1The 3rd (Ulster), Searchlight Regiment of the Royal Artillery, Light Anti-Aircraft, was sworn in on a Belfast Indian summer evening in September 1939, writes Roy Uprichard, son of Bob who served with the Regiment.
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And from these 1,000 young gunners, one Battery (12th) went on to light up the skies over Dunkirk, assisting the French Anti-Aircraft (AA) defence while the other two (10th and 11th ) were deployed inland as part of the Allies AA screen in Northern France.
From May 10, when the German army launched its blitzkrieg, the night fighters of the 10th and 11th Batteries were deployed virtually round the clock, their AA duties combined with daytime infantry defence of canals and towns.
From his command post in Dunkirk, 12th Battery’s Major Heard was given a unique and horrifying grandstand view of the tragedy unfolding in the city and port.
On the morning of May 10 at 0600, he observed: “Stukas swooping down like dark birds of prey releasing their bombs at a French destroyer in the channel to the harbour.”
From the night of 15th onwards he reported: “Very heavy raids of high explosives and incendiaries. And there were loud explosions in the port, multiple fires in Dunkirk and a dense pall of smoke rising.”
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A pillar of smoke by day and fire by night become a beacon for retreating troops.
As the BEF fell back to the coast the regiment’s 10th and 11th Batteries now co-operated more closely, blowing bridges, and fighting as infantry.
On May 22 they were ordered west to Gravelines to assist French troops piling chairs, tables, desks and carts on top of each other, barricading bridges south of the town.
With a company of Green Howards, they waited for the German tanks to arrive.
It was furniture, rifles, anti-tank and machine guns against Panzers.
Understated war diaries show they “resisted all attempts by the 1st Panzer Division to take those bridges”.
Eventually, ordered to withdraw to the beaches they took what little cover there was in the dunes, or formed lines
snaking into the sea, in multiple attempts to reach the smaller boats, until the East Mole (Breakwater) was deployed as an emergency jetty where large ships could moor and speed the evacuation.
In all, 186,587 British and over 125,000 French soldiers were lifted from the Mole and the beaches in the nine days from May 27 to June 4 – the achievement breathtaking.
Churchill called it “a miracle of deliverance” – the returning BEF, wrapped in their tattered glory, delivering enough boots on the ground in southern England to ensure that resistance to invasion would not be futile.
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90 cm Projector Anti-Aircraft, displayed at Fort Nelson, Portsmouth
And Northern Irishmen also played their part in this Greek tragedy of the wounded warrior’s return.
Today the beach at Dunkirk is an ordinary place where something extraordinary happened.
Full of ghosts, the barrier between past and present is so thin and porous that in the early morning quiet, it is said, one can almost hear the sound of shell and shot echoing still over an epic of truly biblical proportions.
But I knew nothing of this, or of my father’s (Bob Uprichard) and his friends’ part in such a crucial moment until its 50th anniversary, when an article appeared in the Sunday News, the first week of June 1990, telling of his escape from the beaches, and of the Searchlight Regiment.
Roy Uprichard is a north Down travel writer who has walked the Dunkirk beaches and accessed the war diaries of the
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Searchlight Regiment. He retired as a lecturer in the South Eastern Regional College in 2014. News Letter Monday 24 July 2017
On this day - July 23
1914
On this day in 1914, Austria-Hungary issues an outrageous 10-point ultimatum to Serbia in the wake of Archduke Franz Ferdinand's assassination in Sarajevo the month before. Surprisingly, Serbia accepts all but one of the demands; Austria-Hungary will declare war anyway.
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1918
Armed Merchant Cruiser HMS Marmora (ex P&O SS Marmora) was torpedoed and sunk by German submarine UB-64 off the south coast of Ireland with the loss of 10 of her complement.
1940
Chancellor of the Exchequer Sir Kingsley Wood announces third War Budget: income lax up 1d to 8s 6d in the £, beer up 1d a pint, purchase tax introduced for first time at 33% on luxuries, war expenditure for the next year estimated at £3,470,000,000.
Secretary of War announces that Local Defense Volunteers to be called the Home Guard, more than 1,300,000 now enrolled.
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The Soviets officially absorbs Lithuania, Latvia and Estonia into the Soviet union, as per the Soviet-German non-aggression pact.
1941
Vital convoy reaches Malta after two-day battle; HMS Fearless is sunk.
Brest-Litovsk is taken by German troops after a month-long siege.
The Japanese extend their occupation across the whole of Indochina, as agreed with Vichy France.
1942
Fierce fighting continues along the El Alamein front.
Hitler, dissatisfied by what he viewed as von Bocks tardiness since the beginning of the summer offensive, dismisses him from command of Army Group B, dissolves his command HQ and gives command of Army Group B to von Weichs. Hitler also issues Directive No. 45 for Operation ‘Brunswick’, the capture of the Caucasus. Army Group A, once having destroyed the enemy in the Rostov area, was to secure the entire eastern coastline of the Black Sea, simultaneously capturing Maikop and Grozny and the advance to Baku. Army Group B would continue east to seize Stalingrad and the advance down the Volga to Astrakhan. This meant that the two would advance on diverging axes and a large gap would develop between them. This was aggravated by the return of Hoth’s 4th Panzer Army to Army Group B. Marshal Timoshenko is removed from command of the Stalingrad Front and replaced by General Gordov.
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Treblinka extermination camp opened in occupied Poland, east of Warsaw. The camp is fitted with two buildings containing 10 gas chambers, each holding 200 persons. Carbon monoxide gas is piped in from engines placed outside the chamber, but Zyklon-B will later be substituted. Bodies are burned in open pits.
1943
Soviet forces continue their advance into the Orel salient.
1944
“Deutsche Gruss”, the Nazi form of salute, is introduced in to the Wehrmacht in the wake of the July 20th bomb plot against Adolf Hitler.
The U.S. 34th Division takes Pisa.
The Russians take Pskov, 150 miles to the South West of Leningrad on Estonian border. Heavy street fighting is reported from Lublin in Poland.
1945
The Allies launch a massive 36-hour air and sea bombardment of Kure naval base and other ports on the Japanese coast from Osaka to Nagoya, sinking and escort carrier and 12 other warships, as well as 84 cargo vessels sunk or damaged and over 200 planes destroyed or damaged.
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On this day in 1759 HMS Victory was laid down at Chatham dockyard. 46 years later she would seal her place in history at Trafalgar. 163 years later, still in service she was saved for the nation as a museum at HMNB Portsmouth and after 260 years is still in commission with the Royal Navy.
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Roll of Honour - July 23
Representing their comrades who died on this day
1915
+DALZELL, Robert
RNR. 2100/T. HMS Lancaster. Died 23/07/1915. Age 43. Husband to Matilda Dalzell, Ulverston St., Belfast. Gillingham (Woodlands) Cemetery, Kent
1916
+CASKEY, Marshall
Royal Scots Fusiliers, 1st Btn. Private. 11319. Died 23/07/1916. Age 24. Son of Marshall and Margaret Jane Caskey, of Ballinameen, Garvagh. Marshall was born in Glasgow on 17/04/1896. The 1911 census lists Marshal as age 15 living in Garvagh. He was working as a farm labourer for the Thompson family. Marshall enlisted in Kilmarnock. Thiepval Memorial, Somme, France
+OSBORNE, Hugh Corry West Yorkshire Regiment, 12th Btn. Second Lieutenant. Died 23/07/ 1916. Age 20. RBAI. QUB OTC. Born in Belfast on 20/05/1896 to Joseph and Margaret Osborne, being the eldest of their three sons. His father was a Chartered
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Beny-sur-Mer Canadian War Cemetery, Normandy.
Accountant and the family lived at Hopefield Terrace, 292 Antrim Road in Belfast. His father’s accountancy business was based in the Mayfair Building in Arthur Square in 1911 and later became Osborne, Cooke & Company with premises in the Scottish Provident Buildings on Wellington Place. Hugh Corry Osborne was working in the family firm when he enlisted with the Officers’ Training Corps at Queen’s University, receiving a commission with the West Yorkshire Regiment on 20/07/1915 and joined the 12th Battalion in France in May 1916. Thiepval Memorial, Somme, France. Duncairn Presbyterian Church, Belfast WM
1917
+WRIGHT, George Henry
Royal Field Artillery, 14th Bde. Gunner.119957. Died 23/07/1917. Age 22 years old. Native of Ballyboy, Co. Tyrone. Son of Samuel and Mary Elizabeth Wright (nee
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Anderson), of Ballyboy and Annacramp, Caledon, Co. Tyrone. Samuel Wright was a farmer.Noeux-les-Mines Communal Cemetery, Bethune, Pas de Calais, France. Dungannon WM
1940
+HOLLAND, Charles Julius
RAFVR. Sergeant (Observer).745631. Died 23/07/1940. Aged 19. 107 Sqdn. Son of Julius Alfred and Beryl Ethel Holland, of Bangor, Co. Down. Tangmere (St Andrew) Churchyard, Sussex. 502 (Ulster) Squadron WM, St Anne’s Cathedral, Belfast
+STERLING, Robert Camac
RAFVR. Pilot Officer. 77981. Died 23/07/1940. Aged 22. 149 Squadron. Son of David Colston Sterling and Jean Smyth Sterling of Belfast. Dundonald cemetery
1941 HMS FEARLESS
+McNEILL, James
RN. AB. D/SSX 25765. Died 23/07/1941. Age 20. HMS Fearless. His only brother Private George McNeill, RUR, was killed in action in Belgium the year previous. His parents residence in Mountcollyer St., Belfast had been destroyed in an air raid. Son of Mr. and Mrs. George McNeill, Upper Charville St., Belfast. (Belfast Weekly Telegraph 16/08/1941). Plymouth Naval Memorial, Panel 47
+SMITH, Hugh
RN. Able Seaman. D/SSX 24851. Died 23/07/1941. Age 21. HMS Fearless. He was posted as missing after the sinking
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of Fearless. He had three and a half years service and had been in two ships which also had been sunk by enemy aerial attack. His brother Thomas was serving in the RN. Son of Samuel and Elizabeth Smith, Fortingale St., Belfast. (Belfast Weekly Telegraph 16/08/1941). Plymouth Naval Memorial, Panel 48
1942
+CURRIE, Vivian Lester
RAFVR. Pilot Officer.106035. Died 23/07/1942. Aged 22. 263 Sqdn. He was the pilot of Westland Whirlwind P7035. The Mark I plane engaged 2 German fighter planes in a skirmish over the English Channel. His plane came down in the sea to the north of Morlaix, Brittany, France. Science 1939 - 40 QUB. Born 17/07/1920 in Newhaven, Sussex, he was the son of Captain Samuel Currie and Margaret Currie (née Wray) of Stormont, Belfast. Runnymeade Memorial, Panel 69. Belmont Presbyterian Church, Belfast, WM. QUB RH
+HAIRE, Sidney Sedgwick
Indian Army Ordnance Corps. attd. 161 Inf. Motor Bde. Major. EC/1105. Died 23/07/1942. Aged 29. Son of Sidney Hume Haire and Nora Julie Haire, of Earlswood Road, Belfast. Brother of Sergeant Pilot John Keatinge Haire RAFVR who died in the Battle of Brittain on 06/11/1940, over the Isle of Wight. Both educated at RBAI. El Alamein War Cemetery, Egypt. Family Memorial, Dundonald cemetery
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1943
+JOHNSTON, John
Royal Ulster Rifles, 1st Btn. The London Irish Rifles. Rifleman. 7013965. Died 23/07/1943. Aged 24. Husband to Elizabeth Johnston, of Belfast. Catania War Cemetery, Sicily, Italy
1944
+IRVINE, JOHN
Royal Ulster Rifles, 2nd Btn. Rifleman.1647367. Died 23/07/1944. Aged 24. La Deliverande War Cemetery, Douvres, Calvados, France
VETERAN
ALLEN, Conway Benning
RN. Commander. DSO 1943. RN Colleges, Osborne and Dartmouth. Served in WW1 and WW2. Lieutenant in HMS Inconstant in WW1. Commanded HMS Rochester, a sloop of the Shoreham Class, from 16/01/1941 to 10/1942. 19/10/1941 - German U-boat 204 was sunk near Tangier, in position 35°46'N, 06°02'W, by depth charges from the British corvette HMS Mallow (Lt. W.R.B. Noall, RNR) and the British sloop HMS Rochester (Cdr. C.B. Allen, RN). 06/02/1942 - German U-boat 82 was sunk north of the Azores, in position 44°10'N, 23°52'W, by depth charges from the British sloop HMS Rochester (Cdr. C.B. Allen, RN) and the corvette HMS Tamarisk (Lt. S. Ayles, RNR). Retired 1945. Born 25/09/1896. Son of Samuel Allen and Florence Mary nee Adair, Lisconnan House, Dervock, Co. Antrim.
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Husband to Marjorie nee Warren. Died 23/07/1980, Victoria BC, Canada. ADM196/119. ADM196/146
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The remembrance ni programme is overseen by Very Rev Dr Houston McKelvey OBE, QVRM, TD who served as Chaplain to 102 and 105 Regiments Royal Artillery (TA), as Hon. Chaplain to RNR and as Chaplain to the RBL NI area and the Burma Star Association NI. Dr McKelvey is a Past President of Queen’s University Services Club. He may be contacted at [email protected]
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