201st Heavy Battery N.W.E.F. Norway

Discussion in 'Royal Artillery' started by steffl, Jan 28, 2013.

  1. steffl

    steffl Junior Member

    Hello

    My grandfathers army service record states that he was posted to Norway (Harstad)with the N.W.E.F. between the dates of 06/04/1940 and 10/06/1940.

    It appears that he was first posted, as a gunner, to No.2 Port Exam Service Det? which was then later absorbed into the 201st Heavy Battery R.A. The only thing he ever mentioned to my father about this was that they had to get out of Norway so quickly that they left almost all of their kit behind.

    I am paying a visit to The National Archives on Saturday and whilst there would ideally like to have a look at the war diaries of my grandfathers units in respect of the above time.

    The problem I am having is that I can find no mention of either of my grandfathers two units within the N.W.E.F. records held at Kew so any help in this connection would be most appreciated.

    Thank you.
     
  2. dryan67

    dryan67 Senior Member

    I have found one mention of 201st Heavy Battery in Frederick's Lineage Book of British Land Forces. It was raised on 1 May 1940 and expanded into 536th Coast Regiment, RA in 1 November 1940. There is indication that the regiment served in Iceland.
    There is no mention of a 201st Heavy Battery, RA serving in Norway in the official history.
     
  3. DaveB

    DaveB Very Senior Member

    I would suggest scanning and attaching his service records and providing his name and number.

    I can't work out what No.2 Port Exam Service Det is - but reading his records in context might help.

    The closest unit in name to 201st Heavy Battery identified as serving in Norway in 1940 was 203rd Field Battery / 51st Field Regiment as per the Wiki article & here:

    Northwest Expeditionary Force, April-June 1940
     
  4. steffl

    steffl Junior Member

    I have attached a pdf of the service record for my grandfather, Francis Dennis WEST, number 1428004.

    It appears he was posted overseas with the N.W.E.F. on two occasions, the dates of which are as follows:

    07/04/1940-09/06/1940 Norway, reference to Harstad on page 3, under column D.

    07/07/1940-15/05/1942 Iceland, with Alabaster Force.

    Due to file size restrictions I had to edit and compress my upload so I'm hoping I haven't missed anything essential out.

    Thanks for your help.
     
  5. steffl

    steffl Junior Member

    Sorry but the file upload keeps failing. Will edit and have another go tomorrow.
     
  6. Drew5233

    Drew5233 #FuturePilot 1940 Obsessive

    Could it have been a Heavy Anti-Aircraft Battery?
     
  7. Drew5233

    Drew5233 #FuturePilot 1940 Obsessive

    Dam I'm good :lol:


    WO 168/52 2 Port Examination Service Detachment 1940 Mar.-May

    Its a Royal Artillery unit and WO 168 is the Norway series of files......Enjoy :D
     
  8. steffl

    steffl Junior Member

    You absolute star!

    This ties up with the service record, which I've tried umpteen times to upload but with no success. This states that the 2 Port Examination Service Detachment was redesignated to 201st Heavy Battery on 24/05/1940. Hopefully the war diary will shed some light on the redesignation.

    Thanks once again.
     
  9. Drew5233

    Drew5233 #FuturePilot 1940 Obsessive

    No probs....Make sure you photograph them and post them on here ;)
     
  10. Owen

    Owen -- --- -.. MOD

    Hopefully this is the fil steffl couldnt upload.
     

    Attached Files:

  11. steffl

    steffl Junior Member

    Thanks Owen.
     
  12. don keiller

    don keiller Junior Member

    Subject-Norway 1940
    Last month (Jan 2013 ) someone was enquiring about his grandfather who was in the North Western Expeditionary Force and landed at Haarstead in April 1940 with, he said, the 201 heavy AA battery. He said he could not find any record of him serving there.
    I landed at Haarstead in April 1940 as a gunner and to the best of my knowledge, there was only one battery of HAA in Northern Norway and that was the one I was in. It was the 193rd battery -Territorial Army of the 82nd Regt. RA. Would your grandfather have been in that?
    If you are interested, I have an account of my activities in Norway,details
    of our evacuation, our fortunate escape from the German battleship, Scharnhorst, our landing in Scotland and our immediate departure to Gibraltar.
    Don Keiller, now in my 93rd year
     
  13. don keiller

    don keiller Junior Member

    Subject-Norway 1940
    Last month (Jan 2013 ) someone was enquiring about his grandfather who was in the North Western Expeditionary Force and landed at Haarstead in April 1940 with, he said, the 201 heavy AA battery. He said he could not find any record of him serving there.
    I landed at Haarstead in April 1940 as a gunner and to the best of my knowledge, there was only one battery of HAA in Northern Norway and that was the one I was in. It was the 193rd battery -Territorial Army of the 82nd Regt. RA. Would your grandfather have been in that?
    If you are interested, I have an account of my activities in Norway,details
    of our evacuation, our fortunate escape from the German battleship, Scharnhorst, our landing in Scotland and our immediate departure to Gibraltar.
    Don Keiller, now in my 93rd year
     
  14. steffl

    steffl Junior Member

    Hello Don
    Many thanks for your post.
    With a little help from other board members, and a trip to the National Archives to read the unit war diaries, I was eventually able to determine that my grandfather served with the following two units whilst in Norway:
    07/04/1940 to 24/05/1940: 2 Port Examination Service Detachment
    24/05/1940 to 09/06/1940: No1 Fire Command

    I would be most interested in reading an account of your activities, especially your evacuation, as the unit diary for No1 Fire Command ends pretty abruptly on 03/06/1940 with a simple confirmation that a secret document was destroyed by fire, location Harstad.
     
  15. AndoWasHere

    AndoWasHere New Member

    I know this is an old post but I am being very inquisitive/assisting my F-I-L (100 years old) with tracing his movements during WWII. We recently received his service record and noted that he was posted to the 201st Heavy Bty, RA on 5 May 1940. We know for sure he landed at Harstaad probably around 12 May 1940 and we have deduced that he spend about 5 weeks in the northern parts of the Lotofen Islands. As best we can tell they did not have any artillery pieces, just perhaps a Lewis gun or two. He did a few anti submarine patrols in fjords and evacuated on HMS Beagle around 9 June 1940. He did go to Iceland too, initially as 201st but this was re-designated the 533 Coastal Regt. in Nov 1940
    One of my questions is to Don Keiller - although I note he has not been active since 2013 - could I get a look at the record of your activities in Norway? My other question is more general, accessing unit histories. We are in Australia and wondering whether there might be some relevant history in records. We are trying to discover where he may have served within Lofoten.
    My thanks in advance.
     
  16. Derek Barton

    Derek Barton Senior Member

    I hope I can clear up some of the confusion caused by the original enquiry. First a bit of guesswork, is 2 Port Examination Service Detachment an early version of the Coast Artillery detachments that went in to captured ports immediately after an invasion? Their job was to examine the port defences to see if the existing guns could be used & if not, what equipment would be needed to replace them, so that we could then use the port facilities for ourselves.

    2 PESD went to Norway with the expedition in 1940. While there, they were re-designated as 201 Heavy Battery. Note that at this time coast defence batteries were designated Heavy Battery. On return from Norway they embarked for Iceland with Albaster Force in July. In Nov 40 the Battery was expanded into a regiment becoming 536 Coast Regt (not 533). At this point 201 Heavy Battery ceased to exist. 536 Coast Regt disbanded in May 1942.
     
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  17. AndoWasHere

    AndoWasHere New Member

    Thankyou Derek, your clarification is much appreciated. I hope in the future to be able to get to the archives and view the records of the 201st Heavy and 536th Coastal to get a bit more of an idea of where they were and what they did.
     

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