AA battery info
Interestingly, we were lucky enough to come across a couple of items relating to the operational and technical aspects of two of the lesser known features of World War II Anti-Aircraft defences recently.
The first was an article on the Z or Rocket Battery which featured at a few locations throughout the country. As far as we’ve been able to see (though we wouldn’t claim to be authoritative) these appear to have latterly been replaced by conventional gun equipped batteries. Specifically, RAF aerial images of Polmadie, on the outskirts of Glasgow, show one such instance. You can find the description of a Z Battery, together with a photograph of one of the rocket launchers on the Z Battery Details page.
The second find related to the GL or Gun Laying Radar used by Anti-Aircraft batteries to aim the guns. Although many battery descriptions and articles refer to GL Radar and its application, there is very little information regarding the radar itself, or its operation. As with the previous item, the BBC’s People’s War project attracted a contribution regarding this subject, including some technical details and theory, and has allowed us to include a GL Radar page.
Surprisingly, we’re still on the hunt for period material regarding conventional HAA Batteries. While there’s a fair bit amount of present day investigation and reporting of these sites, completed with pictures, the online resources seem to provide very little detail with respect to the detailed structure, operation, appearance, building and guns that populated the batteries. The information is no doubt floating around out there, we’re just not looking in the right places.
The same is true of the Postwar, or Cold War batteries, although their lesser number and possibly more secret nature, means there’s less info to be had, and it’s not yet circulating, so it’s just a case of keeping watch, and pouncing on anything that looks good.
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Back in 1943 I use to go camping along with fellow army cadets from Govan. One of the venues was a farm on a hill overlooking the West Kilbride shore. On a Sunday morning we’d walk down to a field at the shore and watch them firing rockets out into the Firth of Clyde. From where we saw them they appeared to be 3″ rockets and they were fired in an array rather than individually. There were usually a number of rocket launchers.
I don’t know if the soldiers were regular army soldiers or Home Guard types. I would guess they were Home Guard(although perhaps the Home Guard had disbanded by this time)since the firing seemed to happen only on Sunday mornings. This however is pure guess work: we were never close enough to them to be sure. In view of what I have learned on this AA site I’d guess further that the soldiers were learning how to handle AA rocket launchers.