The 9th Anti-Aircraft Division was one of five new divisions created on 1 November 1940 by Anti-Aircraft Command to control the expanding anti-aircraft (AA) defences of the United Kingdom. The 8th and the 9th AA Divisions were formed by splitting off parts of 5th AA Division. The 9th AA Division took over responsibility for South Wales, Gloucestershire, and Herefordshire.[2][3][4][5][6][7]
The divisional headquarters (HQ) was at Cardiff and the General Officer Commanding (GOC) was Major-General Douglas Paige, MC, who had been commander, Corps Royal Artillery, of XI Corps.<[8][9] The division formed part of I AA Corps, which was created at the same time to cover Southern England and Wales.[4] The existing 45th AA Brigade continued to control the whole South Wales area and report to the 5th AA Division until the end of 1940 while the 9th AA Division and 61st AA Brigade HQs were being established.[a] 61st AA Brigade finally assumed responsibility at the beginning of February 1941.[10][12]
At the time the 9th AA Division was created, the towns of South Wales, including important coal and oil port facilities, refineries, steelworks and ordnance factories, were under almost nightly air attack (the Cardiff Blitz and Swansea Blitz), to which the AA defences replied as best they could.[5][6][20] The division's fighting units, organised into three AA Brigades, consisted of Heavy (HAA) and Light (LAA) gun units and Searchlight (S/L) units of the Royal Artillery. There were major concentrations of HAA guns in the Gun Defence Areas (GDAs) at Cardiff (covering Barry, Cardiff, and Newport) and Swansea (covering Llanelli, Port Talbot, and Swansea), LAA units were distributed to defend Vulnerable Points (VPs) such as docks and Glascoed Royal Ordnance Factory, while the S/L detachments were widely spread and crossed brigade boundaries.
A mobile 3.7-inch gun surmounts the monument erected to the air defence of Swansea, particularly the night of 21 February 1941.
There was enemy air activity over the Bristol Channel and South Wales coast on most nights, but usually these were reconnaissances or nuisance raids,[12] Heavier raids began against Cardiff and Swansea in January and February, 1941.[10][23] The Luftwaffe began a new tactic of hitting the same towns on successive nights in an attempt to put them completely out of action. Swansea was the first town so attacked.[5] On the night of 19/20 February the building housing both the Regimental HQ of the 79th (Hertfordshire Yeomanry) HAA Rgt and the Gun Operations Room (GOR) of the 61st AA Brigade at Swansea was destroyed by a bomb during a heavy raid. Two officers and five other ranks were killed or died of wounds, but the guns continued firing under local control and communications were maintained.[24][25]
The Luftwaffe returned to continue the 'Swansea Blitz' on the nights of 20/21 and 21/22 February. On the latter night, there was confusion between the Sector Operations Room (SOR) at RAF Pembrey and the Swansea GOR, resulting in the guns ceasing fire between 20.20 and 21.10 but no night fighters arriving, leaving the town centre unprotected. Although some raiders were shot down once the restriction was lifted, the centre of Swansea was devastated, and fires and delayed-action bombs destroyed communications. The GOR had to be temporarily relocated to Neath.[26]
By the end of February 1941, the HAA guns (3-inch and the newer 3.7-inch and 4.5-inch guns) in the Cardiff and Swansea GDAs only numbered 52 and 18 out of a planned establishment of 64 and 36 respectively. These had been increased a month later to 56 and 36, though further additions to the establishment were already being called for.[27] The position on LAA gun sites was worse: only small numbers of Bofors 40 mm guns were available at the start of the Blitz, and most LAA detachments had to make do with LMGs.[28]
Mothers and children in a working class area of Swansea have tea and sandwiches from a mobile canteen after a night's bombing.
Order of Battle 1940–41
The division's composition during the Blitz was as follows:[3][21][29][30][11]
After a busy period for the AA defences of South Wales in early May 1941, the Blitz effectively ended in the middle of the month. Desultory raiding continued through June and July while the gaps in AA defences were filled as more equipment and units became available. Searchlights, now assisted by Searchlight Control (SLC) radar, were reorganised, with a 'Killer Belt' established between the Cardiff and Bristol (the 8th AA Division) GDAs to cooperate closely with RAF night fighters. The HAA and support units increasingly became 'Mixed', indicating that women of the Auxiliary Territorial Service (ATS) were fully integrated into them. At the same time, experienced units were posted away to train for service overseas (sometimes being lent back to AA Command while awaiting embarkation). This led to a continual turnover of units, which accelerated in 1942 with the preparations for the invasion of North Africa (Operation Torch) and the need to transfer AA units to counter the Luftwaffe's Baedeker Blitz against largely unprotected towns and hit-and-run daylight attacks against South Coast towns.[5][51][52][53][54]
In June 1942, the 5th AA Brigade HQ was transferred to the 5th AA Division defending the South Coast and was replaced by the 67th AA Brigade HQ from the 11th AA Division in the West Midlands.[55] On 27 July 1942, the lights of the 37th S/L Rgt were engaged during a Baedeker raid on Cheltenham.[56]
Order of Battle 1941–42
During this period the division was composed as follows:[11][57][55][58]
77th (Welsh) HAA Rgt – left UK December 1941, captured in Java March 1942[38][68]
79th (Hertfordshire Yeomanry) HAA Rgt – returned from the 8th AA Division August 1942; then mobilised and left AA Command; later to Operation Torch[69]
112th HAA Rgt – from the 8th AA Division July 1941; to the 61st AA Brigade May 1942[70]
37th (TEE) S/L Rgt – from the 5th AA Brigade June 1942; to the 45th AA Brigade August 1942
The increased sophistication of Operations Rooms and communications was reflected in the growth in support units, which attained the following organisation by June 1942:[55]
A reorganisation of AA Command in October 1942 saw the AA divisions disbanded and replaced by a smaller number of AA Groups more closely aligned with the groups of RAF Fighter Command. The 9th AA Division re-merged with the 5th and the 8th AA Divisions into the 3rd AA Group based at Bristol and cooperating with No. 10 Group RAF.[2][3][7][94]
General Officer Commanding
The following officer commanded 9th AA Division:[8][9]
Major-General Douglas Paige, MC (16 November 1940 – 30 September 1942, retired)
Footnotes
^Several sources mistakenly label the 61st AA Brigade as the 64th AA Brigade; the correct designation is confirmed by 79th (HY) HAA Rgt's regimental history[10] and official AA Command Order of Battle.[11]
^ abcOrder of Battle of Non-Field Force Units in the United Kingdom, Part 27: AA Command, 12 May 1941, The National Archives (TNA), Kew, file WO 212/79.
^Order of Battle of the Field Force in the United Kingdom, Part 3: Royal Artillery, 26 December 1940, with amendments, TNA files WO 212/4 and WO 33/2365.
^Order of Battle of the Field Force in the United Kingdom, Part 3: Royal Artillery (Non-Divisional Units), 25 March 1941, with amendments, TNA files WO 212/5 and WO 33/2323.
^Order of Battle of the Field Force in the United Kingdom, Part 3: Royal Artillery (Non-Divisional units), 22 October 1941, with amendments, TNA files WO 212/6 and WO 33/1883.
Gen Sir Martin Farndale, History of the Royal Regiment of Artillery: The Years of Defeat: Europe and North Africa, 1939–1941, Woolwich: Royal Artillery Institution, 1988/London: Brasseys, 1996, ISBN1-85753-080-2.
J.B.M. Frederick, Lineage Book of British Land Forces 1660–1978, Vol II, Wakefield, Microform Academic, 1984, ISBN1-85117-009-X.
Joslen, H. F. (2003) [1960]. Orders of Battle: Second World War, 1939–1945. Uckfield, East Sussex: Naval and Military Press. ISBN978-1-84342-474-1.
Norman E.H. Litchfield, The Territorial Artillery 1908–1988 (Their Lineage, Uniforms and Badges), Nottingham: Sherwood Press, 1992, ISBN0-9508205-2-0.
Cliff Lord & Graham Watson, Royal Corps of Signals: Unit Histories of the Corps (1920–2001) and its Antecedents, Solihull: Helion, 2003, ISBN1-874622-92-2.
Brig N.W. Routledge, History of the Royal Regiment of Artillery: Anti-Aircraft Artillery 1914–55, London: Royal Artillery Institution/Brassey's, 1994, ISBN1-85753-099-3.
Col J.D. Sainsbury, The Hertfordshire Yeomanry Regiments, Royal Artillery, Part 2: The Heavy Anti-Aircraft Regiment 1938–1945 and the Searchlight Battery 1937–1945, Welwyn: Hertfordshire Yeomanry and Artillery Trust/Hart Books, 2003, ISBN0-948527-06-4.
