Ernest Park 171 Battery 57th LAA Regiment RA

Hi,

I am researching my partners family tree and one of his family members (Ernest Park) was in the 57th light anti- aircraft regiment in the 171 Battalion. He sadly died during action aged 22 and we have no other information about him. I wondered if anyone had any information about his regiment or anyone has any other relatives in the same Battalion? He was originally from Dorset. I am not sure if this it the right thread to post this on but if not can someone direct me?

Thanks

Best Wishes

Louise

 

Hello - There were no Battalions in the Artillery, they were and still are regiments. Battalions is normally associated with infantry units. Can you post his name so I can look him up on CWGC and see if there is any additional info regarding his unit.

Cheers
Andy

 

http://www.cwgc.org/find-war-dead/casualty/2169026/PARK,%20ERNEST

 

Here's the Battery war diaries list at Kew:

WO 166/2904 ANTI-AIRCRAFT COMMAND: LIGHT ANTI-AIRCRAFT BATTERIES: 171 Light Anti-Aircraft Battery (LAA). 1939 Nov.- 1940 Jan., May - 1941 Jan.
WO 169/1684 171 Light Anti-Aircraft (LAA) Battery 1941 Mar.- Sept.
WO 169/4824 171 Heavy Anti-Aircraft (HAA) Battery 1942 Apr.
WO 169/4964 171 Light Anti-Aircraft (LAA) Battery 1942 Feb.- Dec
WO 169/10089 171 Light Anti-Aircraft (LAA) Battery 1943 Jan.- Dec

And the regiments:

WO 166/2730 ANTI-AIRCRAFT COMMAND: LIGHT ANTI-AIRCRAFT REGIMENTS: 57 Light Anti-Aircraft Regiment (LAA). 1939 Aug.- 1940 Jan., June - Oct., Dec.- 1941 Jan.
WO 166/2803 ANTI-AIRCRAFT COMMAND: LIGHT ANTI-AIRCRAFT BATTERIES: 57 Light Anti-Aircraft Battery (LAA). 1939 Aug.-1940 Sept.
WO 169/1641 57 Light Anti-Aircraft (LAA) Regiment 1941 Mar.- Apr., June, Aug.- Sept., Nov.- Dec.
WO 169/1642 57 Light Anti-Aircraft (LAA) Regiment Detachment 1941 Mar. - June
WO 169/4896 57 Light Anti-Aircraft (LAA) Regiment 1942 Jan.- Dec.
WO 169/9997 57 Light Anti-Aircraft (LAA) Regiment 1943 Jan.- Dec.

Cheers
Andy

 

Thank you very much for the details. What information would they hold? Can I access them at National Archives? thanks again louise

 

Click the red link below for more details

 

Hi Louise,

Ernest Park was one of seven men from 171 Battery that were killed that day (One Bombadier Rank and 6 Gunners) and all are buried at Tripoli War Cemetery.

I see you have already looked at the Find a Grave website for info. Are you looking for a photo of his headstone?

(Info thanks to Geoff's Search engine and CWGC.)

001 HOWE BR 1684930 171 BTY, 57 LT AA REGT 07/03/1943 ROYAL ARTILLERY
002 JORDAN W 1708325 171 BTY, 57 LT AA REGT 07/03/1943 ROYAL ARTILLERY
003 LOWERSON JW 1531322 171 BTY, 57 LT AA REGT 07/03/1943 ROYAL ARTILLERY
004 MASON W 1648162 171 BTY, 57 LT AA REGT 07/03/1943 ROYAL ARTILLERY
005 PARK E 1778545 171 BTY, 57 LT AA REGT 07/03/1943 ROYAL ARTILLERY
006 TOLLEY BL 1770051 171 BTY, 57 LT AA REGT 07/03/1943 ROYAL ARTILLERY
007 WIGGLESWORTH B 1606091 171 BTY, 57 LT AA REGT 07/03/1943 ROYAL ARTILLERY

I will be going to the NA very soon and could spare time to do a look up for the day they died and copy the page and post it here on the Forum for you. Provided of course the incident was mentioned as this does not always happen.

Regards - Rob

 

Thank you all so much for your help and information! Rob - that would be great if you get chance to look that up, would really appreciate it. And that you Owen for changing the title to the correct termanology - its confusing to get my head around. Thanks agian, any information is really great as we hardle know anything about him and such a short life want to remember and know more.

Thanks again,

Louise

 

Hi again,

I have also been given an old piece of paper that someone in the family had that says '171 Battery, Army No: D 71515 (2E + 006)'. How do I find out if this is relating to Ernest Park or a different family member?

Thanks

Louise

 

Hi Louise,

I've added the information to my list of things to do at Kew.

Cheers - Rob

 

Went to Kew yesterday and as promised, copied the relevent pages of 171 LAA Bty & 57 LAA Regt war diaries. These are shown below.

Just realised, I copied the April 7 page of the battery diary, not March. Will come back to this when I next go to Kew.

The Regimental Diary reports that 171 Battery had casualties, sustained as a result of a bomb landing adjacent to Gun Site 36A (Sgts Moody's Detachment of B Troop). This happened at 18-30 hrs on the 6th March. All the casualties have a headstone date of 7 March 1943. It's not unusual for this to be a day out from the actual date of death.

Nothing in the Appendicies of the Regimental diary either.



Hope this helps a little.

Regards - Rob

 

I copied the war diary page of 171 LAA Battery and it tells of the death of 11 men from the bombing. Quite horrific from the description.

 

Hi Louise and everyone else. My first post here and I found you accidently looking for some information on my granddad. My granddad is the second person in this list, William Jordan who was sadly killed,

001 HOWE BR 1684930 171 BTY, 57 LT AA REGT 07/03/1943 ROYAL ARTILLERY
002 JORDAN W 1708325 171 BTY, 57 LT AA REGT 07/03/1943 ROYAL ARTILLERY
003 LOWERSON JW 1531322 171 BTY, 57 LT AA REGT 07/03/1943 ROYAL ARTILLERY
004 MASON W 1648162 171 BTY, 57 LT AA REGT 07/03/1943 ROYAL ARTILLERY
005 PARK E 1778545 171 BTY, 57 LT AA REGT 07/03/1943 ROYAL ARTILLERY
006 TOLLEY BL 1770051 171 BTY, 57 LT AA REGT 07/03/1943 ROYAL ARTILLERY
007 WIGGLESWORTH B 1606091 171 BTY, 57 LT AA REGT 07/03/1943 ROYAL ARTILLERY

I never knew so much information was available and very sad to read how they died. Is it possible to get copies of regiment diaries?

 

Hi Louise,

I have just stumbled across your post whilst doing some research into my father, Joseph Alborn, who was the Battery Quartermaster Sargeant of 171 Battery in the 57th Light Anti-Aircraft Regiment at the time your partner’s relative was killed. From what I understand, each Battery consisted of several Boffors anti-aircraft guns towed by Quad ammunition trucks. In March 1943 they were tasked with defending the harbour and port installations at Tripoli in Libya. They had been doing this for three weeks quite successfully with no casualties until the night before they were due to move out. On that night, a stick of bombs landed behind one of the gun positions, on what my father described as a vat full of acid, but I see in the war diary is described as Italian smoke munitions. The end result was that the detachment of soldiers manning the gun were covered in acid and eleven of the twelve soldiers in the detachment were killed. My father would never talk about the fighting he went through, but I remember asking what the worst thing he ever had to do during his thirty years as a soldier was, and he told me about the night he had to go and recover the bodies from that gun emplacement. It obviously left a huge emotional scar on him as I imagine he knew all the men very well. He left the regiment a few months later, when he was given a field commission and went to Italy to train as a paratrooper.

Marcus Alborn.

 

No war diaries, I'm afraid, but I have the published regimental history for this unit. I can't copy the entire book, but if anybody has a specific request for information I'm happy to look it up for them.

My grandfather's infantry battalion was with 4th Indian Division for most of the time 57th Light AA was. If anybody ever copies the war diaries for 1942/43/44, please get in touch with me and I'll be happy to offer an exchange for diaries that may be of similar interest.

 

Hi, my gt-uncle was in the 171st, I have a letter from him dated Oct 1943, seems to be from Italy. If you have any details on him, or what he may have gone through that would be great. service number i think is 1687486, Skinner G L - (A. Troop) address given as 171 HY. AA. Battery RA. C.M.F (not sure what CMF means).

Thanks

 

CMF is Central Mediterranean Forces.

171 Heavy Anti-Aircraft Battery and 171 Light Anti-Aircraft Battery are different units, I'm afraid. I have nothing on the former.

 

57 Light Anti Aircraft Regiment Royal Artillery were the integrated LAA defence for 4 Indian Division. They always moved with the Division and went wherever they went and their task was to protect the Division from the German Air Force by deploying their 40mm Bofors guns wherever the Div Comd - or more likely his staff, decided.

57 LAA Regt RA was made up of 169 Battery, 170 Battery & 171 Battery.

Regards

Frank

 

Charley, going of topic slightly, but do happen to know if a regimental history was printed for the 1,4,11,25 & 32 FD REGTS R.A.? I've got a copy of Owen Robert's book on the 31. ISBN 0 9523547 Printed by Northward Press.

Regards,
Stu.