41st (London) Anti-Aircraft Brigade


The 41st Anti-Aircraft Brigade was an air defence formation of Anti-Aircraft Command in the British Territorial Army, formed shortly before the outbreak of World War II. Its role was to defend East Anglia.

Mobilisation

The brigade was formed on 29 September 1938 at Ebury Street, London, as part of 2nd Anti-Aircraft Division. The first brigade commander was Brigadier Arthur Pollock, OBE, appointed 1 October 1938.
While the brigade was forming the TA's AA units had been mobilised on 23 September 1938 during the Munich Crisis, with units manning their emergency positions within 24 hours, even though many did not yet have their full complement of men or equipment. The emergency lasted three weeks, and they were stood down on 13 October. In February 1939 the existing AA defences came under the control of a new Anti-Aircraft Command. In June, as the international situation worsened, a partial mobilisation of the TA was begun in a process known as 'couverture', whereby each AA unit did a month's tour of duty in rotation to man selected AA gun and searchlight positions. On 24 August, ahead of the declaration of war, AA Command was fully mobilised at its war stations.

Order of Battle 1939–40

By the outbreak of war on 3 September 1939, 41 AA Bde had the following units under command:
Although based in London, the brigade's war station was in East Anglia, and its units deployed across the region on the outbreak of World War II. The first months of the war were quiet, but on the night of 7/8 June 1940, 32nd AA Battalion was the first searchlight unit to bring down an enemy aircraft, the crew of a Heinkel He 115 coastal reconnaissance aircraft being dazzled by a detachment at Rendelsham and crashing nearby.
By the summer of 1940, all TA searchlight regiments had been transferred to the Royal Artillery, and AA regiments had been redesignated Heavy Anti-Aircraft to distinguish them from the new Light Anti-Aircraft regiments being formed. At this stage of the war 40 AA Bde operated as a 'light' AA brigade composed of S/L and LAA units, but in July a section of 286 HAA Bty from 91 HAA Rgt in the Humber Gun Zone was sent to the brigade to man two semi-mobile 3-inch guns to defend RAF Horsham St Faith under 29th LAA Rgt. As more LAA units became available, they were distributed to defend Vulnerable Points such as airfields, which were attacked during the Battle of Britain. AA 'Z' Regiments were also formed, equipped with Z Battery rocket projectiles.
The S/L layouts had been based on a spacing of, but due to equipment shortages this had been extended to. As the German Luftwaffe switched to night raids against London and other cities, the S/L layout was changed in November to clusters of three lights to improve illumination, but this meant that the clusters had to be spaced apart. The cluster system was an attempt to improve the chances of picking up enemy bombers and keeping them illuminated for engagement by AA guns or RAF Night fighters. Eventually, one light in each cluster was to be equipped with searchlight control radar and act as 'master light', but the radar equipment was still in short supply. The number of raiders shot down steadily increased until mid-May 1941, when the Luftwaffe scaled down its attacks.

Order of Battle 1940–41

41 AA Brigade had the following organisation during this period:
In the Summer of 1941 AA Command began to receive purpose-built SLC radar in sufficient numbers to allow some S/Ls to be 'declustered' into single-light sites. These were redeployed into 'Indicator Belts' of radar-controlled S/L clusters covering approaches to the RAF's night-fighter sectors, repeated by similar belts covering AA Command's Gun Defence Areas. Inside each belt was a 20-mile deep 'Killer Belt' of single S/Ls spaced at intervals in a 'Killer Belt' cooperating with night-fighters patrolling defined 'boxes'. The pattern was designed to ensure that raids penetrating deeply towards the Midlands GDAs would cross more than one belt, and the GDAs had more S/Ls at close spacing. The number of LAA units to protect VPs was growing, albeit slowly.
At this stage of the war, experienced units were being posted away to train for service overseas. This led to a continual turnover of units, which accelerated in 1942 with the preparations for the invasion of North Africa and the need to transfer LAA units to counter the Luftwaffe 's hit-and-run attacks against South Coast towns that began in March 1942. However, newly-formed units continued to join AA Command, the HAA and support units increasingly becoming 'Mixed' units, indicating that women of the Auxiliary Territorial Service were fully integrated into them.

Order of Battle 1941–42

During this period the brigade's composition was as follows :

The AA divisions were disbanded in September 1942 and replaced by a system of AA Groups corresponding to the Groups of RAF Fighter Command. 41 AA Brigade came under 5 AA Group based at Nottingham and affiliated to No. 12 Group RAF.

Order of Battle 1942–43

In this period the brigade's composition was as follows :
By August 1943 the brigade only had two units under command, and this remained the case into 1944. By this stage of the war AA Command was being forced to make manpower cuts, releasing men to 21st Army Group for Operation Overlord, the planned Allied invasion of Normandy, and a number of S/L btys were disbanded: 72nd and 82nd S/L Rgts each lost one. 5 AA Group was now acting as a reserve: some units and formations left to join Overlord after D-Day in June, and when the long-awaited attacks on London by V-1 flying bombs, AA Command put into action its planned countermeasures. This involved moving units and formations south from 5 AA Group, and 41 AA Bde was given additional responsibilities for some of the units left in place.

Order of Battle Summer 1944

The composition of the brigade during the period was as follows:
By October 1944, the brigade's HQ establishment was 10 officers, 9 male other ranks and 25 members of the ATS, together with a small number of attached drivers, cooks and mess orderlies. In addition, the brigade had a Mixed Signal Office Section of 1 officer, 5 male other ranks and 19 ATS, which was formally part of the Group signal unit.

Diver Fringe

The first phase of V-1 attacks ended in September 1944 after 21st Army Group overran the launching sites in Northern France. In October, AA Command began planning to counter the expected attacks by air-launched V-1s coming in across the North Sea against targets on the East Coast and the Midlands. 41 AA Brigade was one of the formations deployed by 5 AA Group for this 'Diver Fringe' belt of defences. The brigade was reduced to a single regiment, but was tasked with reconnoitring and establishing 10 new AA gun sites from Donna Nook to Wainfleet along the Lincolnshire coast. Each site was to be equipped with six static 3.7-inch Mark IIC guns, with powered mountings, Predictor No 10 and Radar No 3 Mark V. The guns were emplaced on temporary 'Pile platforms' named after the Commander-in-Chief of AA Command, Gen Sir Frederick 'Tim' Pile. They were operated by 'Mixed' batteries, in which a high proportion of the personnel were women from the ATS. These batteries and their guns had to be scraped together from other parts of the country, together with huts to be re-erected for winter accommodation.
There was a pause in the V-1 offensive in December 1944, and 41 AA Bde was reduced to two AA Area Mixed regiments, composed of Z rocket batteries manned by the ATS and Home Guard. The Home Guard was stood down that month, and the brigade was left with almost nothing to command. However, on 24 December the Luftwaffe began launching the missiles across the Lincolnshire coast aimed at Manchester, and the Diver Fringe was activated with HAA and LAA batteries moving into 41 AA Bde's area. The brigade operated against air-launched V-1s until January, after which the Diver Fringe belt was also involved with Operation Trigger, engaging enemy intruder night-fighters.

Order of Battle Winter 1944–45

The composition of the brigade during the period was as follows:
As the war in Europe drew to its end in early 1945, demobilisation of AA Command proceeded rapidly as manpower was diverted to other roles. By February 1945, 41 AA Bde was reduced to commanding one of its former units, together with one returned from the Italian Front. After VE day, the brigade became responsible for a number of AA regiments in the Birmingham area awaiting demobilisation or engaged in agricultural work, together with two 'Area AA Maintenance HQs'.

Postwar

When the TA was reformed on 1 January 1947, the brigade's Regular Army units reformed 13 AA Bde at Coventry, while the TA portion was renumbered as
67 AA Bde, with its HQ at Shepherd's Bush and constituting part of 1 AA Group. It had the following units under command:
The brigade was placed in 'suspended animation' on 31 October 1955, shortly after the abolition of AA Command, and formally disbanded on 31 December 1957.

Footnotes

Online sources