51st (London) HAA Regt. RA

Would love to see them James , I have the ones I have below

 

Looking through my photos, I've got a photo of my Granddad outside his tent in the desert with his tent-mates - One of them is labelled as "Dunn". I wonder if its the same Dunn as you mention? https://photos.app.goo.gl/2hMu5XCRpyeEt47R7
The gents named in this photo are: Back Row (L-R) L/Br Reid.D, Gnr Henderson.J, Gray.R, Paton.A, (Front Row) Walker.D, Dunn, Marley.B.A

 

I have some more photos I will upload , including of Dunn - any chance you could send me what you have as well?

 

Dunn is the one in the group of 4 sitting at a table - my grandfather is nearest right and Dunn is nearest left

 

Mate for some reason that image didn’t attach

 

Click the link - It takes you through to an album on my Google Photos. I'm going through and scanning at the high-resolution, so too big to email - I'll use another means; Whats your email & I'll send you a few over that I've got scanned

 

Miketaylor2811@gmail.com thanks - are you able to see the photos I scanned? If not I will reply to your email. I am really thankful as like most families am sure there is not much history outside of a handful of photos as that generation are all passed now.

 

I can see them - I'll ping over what I've got in a minute. We've got Bertie's rough notes of what he did all the way through the war, that I'm trying to pull together along with mapping where he went and when - A bit of a labour of love!

 

If you click on the link in my original reply, does it let you open the album? That might be the easiest way to send them over!

 

Yes I opened the google photos link

 

If I can I'd like to use something like Apple Photos "Faces" tool to try to cross reference the photo's & work out a Who's Who from my granddad's notes & anyone else's input!

 

These are what I've got scanned in so far - More to follow! Berties War - 153 Battery 51 (London) HAA

 

Excellent pics - thanks James. Do you recognize Bertie in the group photo I uploaded ?
Also I don’t know how many men would be in a haa battery, any idea?

 

I couldn’t see him, or any other the others from his photos in yours, so can only assume they were on different guns within the battery. From one of the big photos that I’ve got (need to compress to upload it as it’s too big) there look to be a lot of them. According to Wikipedia, 51 HAA shipped out with 23 out of an establishment of 24 guns, split across 3 batteries, so 8 guns per battery. From one your pictures, there’s 15 men photographed with the gun, so that would mean 120 men per battery (if they’re all in the photo)!

 

Have asked my father to look for more photos , I know there are more. I also ordered the book top hats in Tobruk so looking forward to getting that and finding out more.
Other names that my old man mentioned are John Jarvie , Norman Mearing , and Ike Jones.

 

Does that gun look real or more of a mock up. I read that at Tobruk they made mock ups for the stukas to go after? All that rope and what looks like a log , but I don’t know?

 

See what you mean about the rope bit, but it looks real to me, just based on the bits that look “machined”

 

I have some photos my father took at Tobruk of 153rd battery, 51st HAA regt. but have no idea how to enter them on here.
If anyone who knows how to do so sends me their email address I will send them to them to include in this page.
My father was from Sheffield and attached to this regiment because of his trade artificer.
He spoke of shooting down a Stuka with a Lewis gun and also of being sent out in the desert where there was a telegraph pole set in the ground at an angle to look like a gun barrel from a plane When the planes attacked Tobruk he had to throw hand grenades to cause a flash to simulate an anti aircraft gun firing and so direct the planes away from the real gun positions.

 

Hi Phil, would love to see those pics - miketaylor2811@gmail.com - I uploaded mine earlier in this thread and can do yours as well . If you want to try yourself click on the camera icon and select your pics for upload