I have this original photo of a RA AA Unit , I know it`s a long shot but, can any one ID the unit or area . Looks to be taken 1939-40. Keith
Hi Keith, now I'm not 100% sure BUT, that could be Brighton Pavilion in the back ground, so, it could be AA unit listening to a brass concert on camp. I'm sure someone will put me right. David
It appears to be a curved road of semi-detached houses in the background but the resolution is too low to make them out properly. On the extreme right just above the gun breech there appears to be a larger building that might give a clue if shown in more detail
The shoulder flash ought to be an indicator: it looks to be an symmetrical emblem on a light coloured background that looks a little bottom heavy, which could narrow the field. Possibilities are 8AA Division Plymouth/Bristol/Exeter (this is the same badge I use for my posts!), or possibly 5 AA Division, a not dissimilar badge, but on a darker brown background for Portsmouth/Southampton, or at a push 9AA Div for South Wales, but that badge is a lot darker. The badges were all replaced with one emblem, a bow and arrow on a red background after 1943, so it would suggest this image is prior to that date. You can see the divisional badges, rather badly illustrated unfortunately, on the ra39-45 website http://www.ra39-45.pwp.blueyonder.co.uk/index.html . Navigate from 'units' and click 'air defence great britain'. My guess, and it's nothing more than that, is it's 8AA. Architecture of houses looks southern rather than northern to me, but I could be wrong!
Hi all I think the shoulder flash is a good place to start for the first clue and if we can get a consensus on the likely regiment or division then that's going to be a great help. Not necessarily sure that the houses are more 'southern' than 'northern' but at the same time I don't think they are 'London' either. Essentially what we are seeing is the eastern (based on sun and shadow) outer fringe of some suburban development stretching into what would have then been rural countryside. I guess the actual emplacement itself would have long been swallowed up in the 50s or 60s housing and so would be lost now but it would be unlikely that the visible houses have disappeared. One other possible pointer to a more southern location is what looks like an English Elm tree. Sadly now all gone but very distinctive. I always thought they were a tree of the warmer parts of the UK so 8th or 5th AA DIV would definitely be a good place to start. I don't think this is impossible to crack but will need some solid clues to justify a trawl of gun site location coordinates plus them being accurately translated by the coordinate translator software. If we were really lucky we might be able to add a date for the photo as I would expect the battery or Regiment diary to record an event such as this. Graham PS, If anyone has Colin Dobinson's book, AA Command it has 26 pages of modern OSGB coordinates for all the UK HAA gun sites. One final thing, can someone confirm exactly which guns these are, the barrels look too wide for the 3.7"
Those house look a little institutional to me...Staff quarters for something stuck out in the countryside ? A prison, or a psychiatric hospital perhaps ? It reminds me of the type of housing that was associated with this sort of establishment such as we had up on the North Downs - but this is not chalk grassland.
If you have the original photo then a detail scan of 600 dpi should bring out far more that the posted examples. What is on the extreme right hand side above the gun. Is the blob behind the house trees or another building.
Hope this helps a little. It's an extract from a photo of a member of 76th HAA RA Regt showing the shoulder flash, similar to that which I use on the left. Rendition of colour to B&W looks very similar to that in your pics, as also the shape thereon. Some of the earlier badges appear to have less wing illustrated on the badge, so look more 'compact', which may be the case in your photos. 76th was part of 8th AA Div, along with (in 1941) 56, 118 and 104 AA Regts responsible for Bristol, Plymouth, Yeovil, and Portland. I've had a quick look round Bristol gun sites for which I have map references on Google, but have drawn a blank as to any similarities. The row of buildings in the background look to me to be houses, and have an interesting feature of two independent chimney stacks on the gables, which is unusual: could be Victorian/Edwardian perhaps? But as Graham has quite rightly suggested, these may well have been demolished and overrun by more modern developments, which seems to be the case with most Bristol gun sites. I had hoped that the long low building on the right was a church, but it equally appears to be a pair of houses, so no easy identifier there. 8th AA Div came into being in Oct 1940, and lasted until Oct 42, when it was subsumed in 3AA Div, so if the badging is correct, that narrows the timescale for the pic. The site is interesting in that there is a Nissen hut in the background enclosed in a blast wall suggesting some permanency. As a matter of interest morrisc8, from where does your photo originate?
More close ups. I bought the photo from ebay and have others from the same unit / seller on the way that i have bought, i will post them when they arrive. but could not see any ID on them. Keith
Here are a few more that have to arrive yet, two photos look to be taken in a fort ? in the background it has a radio mast. i don`t think it`s in the same camp as the above photo in post 12 There are more photos to come. Keith
One fort/castle that was used was Nothe Fort at Weymouth, but the stonework doesn't look right. Could mast be a radar mast, similar to those used on White Cliffs above St Mary's Bay? Or another part of 'chain home'?
The building in the background far right of the first photo posted appear a bit larger than all the others and might be the best chance of fixing a location. If you can get the area the Britain From Above site will probably be able to match it up http://www.britainfromabove.org.uk/
That dressed stone wall that they're sitting on has a Bath stone look to it. I'm sure that it's not a Kentish wall (or anything from the South East)
Go to the bottom of the page on this link and you'll find all the map references for the chain home sites. Quite a choice! https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Chain_Home
The fort looks similar in design/construction to south coast Napoleonic/Victorian forts (although this speculation could be totally misleading!) : it's not Nothe Fort at Weymouth, as that's built using dressed ashlar, whereas this uses random rubble infill between the dressed reveals to the arches. The village looks Cotswold/Dorset to me, which would tie in with the 8AA deployment. I've had a quick look at the Chain Home list, but nothing obvious. It's difficult to see on the latest pics what the cap badge is, is it artillery?
