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Remembered Today:

Anti Aircraft Sections Salonika


Gardenerbill

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I plan to add a page to my website about the Anti Aircraft Sections in Salonika and this raised a few general questions for me.

Firstly when were Anti Aircraft sections first established?

Where and when were they first deployed?

When were the fisrt lorry mounted anti aircraft guns used?

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AA gunnery was not confined to the RGA at Salonika but I have been unable to find any details of the Royal Navy's AA set-up, beyond a mention in one of the AAS Diaries to seeing a Naval AA gun firing across the bay at Stavros. All of the RGA AA guns were fired from lorries.

24th AA Section was the only Section to serve at Gallipoli. Both guns were in action at Suvla Bay from the 21st and 23rd September, 1915, respectively. No 2 Gun was evacuated to A Beach on 17th December. Due to problems at the Beach, the Gun was not loaded onto HMT Eloby until 19th. This sub-Section went to Egypt via Mudros and stayed there for some time.

No 1 Gun was evacuated on 19th and was embarked on the SS Packling the same day - presumably lessons had been learned.While at Mudros the gun was used against a hostile plane on 20th. Four more rounds were fired on 25th December. On 29th the Gun was moved to SS Clan Macrae and the ship arrived at Cape Helles at 23.45 but it returned to Imbros as the Gun could not be unloaded. It was back at 03.00, however, and the Gun was at its position at 07.15. It fired four rounds at noon. Between 3rd and 7th January the Gun was hard at work and was heavily shelled "from Asia and Achi Baba" from time to time but no damage or casualties resulted. The Gun was evacuated to W Beach on 8th January and was loaded onto the SS Clan MacPherson, which took them to Mudros. Captain Thomas and 7 OR went to Mudros East Rest Camp on 10th, leaving 2 OR with the equipment.

The Captain and the 7 OR embarked on the SS Miniminee on 19th and found the Gun, its equipment and the 2 OR already present. The ship left for Salonika on 21st, arriving on 22nd. The men and Gun were disembarked on 23rd and they reported to 27th Division HQ at Hortakoi. The Gun was sent for overhaul to the IOM Workshops and returned on 30th January.

32nd AA Section left Woolwih on 6th November, 1915, and was sent to Alexandria, disembarking on 21st and moving to Camp Gabbari. They remained there, undergoing training, until 18th January, when orders were received to prepare for service overseas. The men embarked on the HMT Minneapolis and the equipment on the HMT Celtic King. The men disembarked on 24th and the equipment on 25th. They then took up a position 200 yards East of the 6km point along the Seres Road (Series in the Diary).

I'll omit the details of the actions the guns took part in to avoid cluttering up the thread.

B sub-Section of 24th AAS reappears in the Diary, at Camp Gabbari near Alexandria, on 5th April, where the Gun lorry is being measured for a new cab. On 20th 2/Lt Mortimer and 35 OR sailed for Salonika on board the HMT Michigan. The Gun, with its new cab and a new ranging board and 8 OR, was loaded onto the SS Kalomo on 22nd and disembarked on 28th. They reported to their O/C and dug in 20 yards from NO 1 Gun the same day.

On 29th April, 32nd AAS moved to a position "1 mile West of Seres Road and took up position near Summer Hill Camp." This appears to have been in anticipation of the Zeppelin raid on 5th May and the Section returned to Jajalek (probably now called Filyro) immediately afterwards.

On 20th May, No 1 Gun of 24th AAS was detailed for detached service and left by train for Kukus, detraining at Sarigol. It moved around the area for several weeks but, on 21st, it was sent to Orljak, in the Struma valley. It arrived at 16.00 the following day and moved to Kopriva on 23rd. No 2 Gun had been moved to Orljak on 11th. The journey was 50 miles and a number of breakdowns meant the journey took 11 hours. The Diary plaintively records the difficulties of keeping the lorries in good order due to the terrible roads and complete lack of spares for the Packard type. Their stay in the Struma ended in July. On 26th No 2 Gun left for Dudular, with No 1 Gun following on 27th. The two Guns met at Dudular at 20.00 on 28th but it was too dark to do anything except camp. They set off for Janes by road on 29th but torrential storms made the roads difficult and the Section did not arrive at Janes until late on the 31st.

On 19th May, 32nd AAS moved to a position 400 yards East of the 9km mark on the Seres Road. There was little aerial activity and no action until 25th July, when 13 rounds were fired. The Section was split on 31st when No 1 Gun was detached and moved to the Janes railhead.

Will that do to be going on with?

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Let me know what you need. I have it all transcribed so I could bore you to death with it if you don't give me some boundaries!! ;-)

There were French AA guns at Salonika but I have no real info on them, though there are a few passing references. Some were mobile units while others were what they called semi-mobile (demi-fixe). In effect the latter were static guns mounted in temporary pits and my guess is that they were used at places like airfields that might move but not frequently.

Keith

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The RNAS AA guns seen firing across Stavros bay presumably these were land based not on a ship?

As far as I know, yes. I have seen a photo of a ground-mounted naval AA gun at Stavros. Some of the ships in the Salonika theatre had AA guns but the way the Diary is worded makes me think that it refers to a land-based one.

And just for clarification was Gallipoli the 24th first deployment in the field?

Yes.

Keith

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Thanks Keith,

In post #2 you refer to No1 gun, No 2 gun and B sub section, am I right in asssuming that an A.A.S. is divided into two sub sections, A sub section No 1 gun and B sub section No 2 gun?

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A Section of artillery is almost always two guns so a single gun, its equipment and manpower was and, presumably, still is a sub-Section. I say almost because one of the AA Sections formed in Salonika in 1918 only ever had one gun while 73rd AAS landed with two but ended up with four - 3 x 6 cwt and one 9 cwt! Where there were two guns the Diaries refer to them either as No 1 and no 2 or, less often, A and B. The OR manning each gun were also formally associated with it so my Grandfather was the No 1 (serjeant) of the No 2 Gun in 99th AAS.

As a matter of interest, the six guns of a RFA battery could be referenced as A to F sub-Sections. No doubt batteries forming other artillery units were referenced in a similar way.

Keith

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So at the end of July 1916 both guns of the 24th and one of the 32nd were near Janes and the other gun of 32nd was near the 9km mark on the Seres road. Which AA section arrived next?

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The next Sections to arrive were 73rd and 74th around 10th August 1916 but they were not considered able to operate immediately and were trained up by Captain Orrell of 32nd AAS. The first entry in 73rd's Diary is 1st October, at which point it is already in position, and it makes reference to 74th several times in the next few months but the latter's Diary is incomplete. There is nothing at all from October 1916 to January 1917 and the entries for February 1917 have been mistakenly included within another Section's Diary at some point. 73rd took up a position on the ridge north of Dudular and stayed there or thereabouts. 74th was sent to the Struma Front and stayed there.

32nd AAS moved to the Doiran front from August 1916.

90th, 91st, 94th and 95th arrived in January/February 1917. No 1 Gun of 90th was always in the Janes area and its No 2 on the Doiran font. 91st went to the Struma. 94th spent a short time near 73rd AAS on the Dudular ridge but was then moved to the XII Corps area at Snevce and Hill 420. 95th went to a two-gun position east of the 5km post on the Seres road, which it calls Lembet. 97th, 98th and 99th arrived around March 1917. 97th went to the Doiran front. 98th went to Guvezne and worked as a Section. 99th did not become operational until July 1917, when its guns arrived. it operated a two-gun position at the eastern end of the ridge by what was called the Harmankoj tumulus. These were the last Sections to be formed in Britain that operated at Salonika. 141st, 153rd and 154th were formed at Salonika in 1918 and the last two saw very little active service.

24th, 32nd and 74th, 90th, 91st, 94th and 97th almost always worked as sub-Sections with the guns sometimes being a considerable distance apart but each was always administered from the No 1 Gun position and the O/C was based there.

What I have found is that the nominal locations given by the Diaries, where they are given that is, can be misleading. ISTM that the writer often used the name of the nearest village, which could be several kilometres away. That becomes clear when some Sections begin to give map co-ordinates as well as the nominal position. For example, 94th's gun at Snevce could not have been anywhere near that village and been able to see events it records on the northern side of the valley.

Keith

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Thanks again Keith, more for me to digest.

Another question, on the LLT it says the original intention was to allocate one AAS to each division, did that happen in Salonika?

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I don't think so. To the best of my knowledge, those based around Salonika came under Line Of Command and the others came under their respective Corps. I don't remember ever seeing a reference to Divisional HQs.

Keith

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I suppose initially allocating them to a division made sense from an administrative point of view, but for parctical purposes you want your anti aircraft guns protecting potential bombing targets such as supply dumps, aerodromes etc.

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Guvezne was a dump on the Seres road so two guns there makes sense, as does the placement of 95th AAS at Lembet to cover Summerhill Camp. 73rd and 99th were to the north of hospitals, dumps and the military railway station but it can be very difficult to see the grand picture when so much of the detail you need for that was purposefully hidden. Until I went to the area with the Salonika Campaign Society I couldn't always see why the guns were placed where they were. We found an AA position near Ardzan and it was only when other people started to talk about the horse lines, R&R areas and so on that were nearby that the importance of having a gun hereabouts for so much of the war became obvious. I know tha the guns were used, at last at some point, to cover heavier guns that were not easily moved. You could say that the AA gun was a sacrificial lamb since the heavy would stop firing when a spotting plane neared and the AA gun had to draw its attention. Balloons were also protected and there is at least one occasion when an AA gun had to move from its prepared position to a temporary one when a balloon was moved temporarily.

After the Spring of 1917, when the German bomber squadron was relocated to the Western Front, there were no major attempts to bomb Entente positions. Enemy flights were most often either spotting and reconnaissance by one or two planes an any bombng was on a similar scale. The AA guns became less effective because the operational ceiling of the enemy planes was much higher than their upper limit. British fighters were similarly disadvantaged because their planes were older.and could not reach the 20,000 feet the German planes could. The Germans also changed their routes to avoid the guns, as you'd expect. Instead of coming south-east towards Salonika, which meant coming into the range of the guns, they followed the Vardar south and approached Salonika from the west over the sea, beyond the guns' range.

Keith

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With my MT hat on I now know that an Anti Aircraft Section typically had two lorry mounted guns, but what other vehicles did they have?

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24th and 99th AA Section's Diaries record they received a staff car, three 3-ton GS lorries - these all seem to have been replaced by Daimler 30-cwt vehicles later - and a Douglas motorcycle. 90th's says four GS lorries but the others give no details except for an exasperated note in 95th's Diary when No 1 Gun was told to follow its No 2 Gun from Lembet to the Struma valley on 15th May, 1918.

"Under orders from CRA 16th Corps & Base Commandant Guns, Transport and Personnel left Base Area for 70 kilo - left kilo 6 1/2 arrived kilo 70 14.00 hours without incident. Two 3-ton lorries were loaned by Base Commandant - one from 99th AAS & one from 141st AAS. Other transport 4 30-cwt Daimlers - actual carrying capacity 4 tons. It is very evident that the establishment of 5 30-cwt lorries is insufficient for a mobile section operating on Corps Area or anywhere in the Salonika Area. 3-ton lorries, at least two, should be provided leaving remaining three for light loads. Parked vehicles at K.B. Section ground & personnel accommodated in No 6 Rest Camp."

That suggests that the 3 x 3-ton lorries were replaced by up to 5 30-cwt ones. If I'm reading the entry correctly, the Daimlers could not work to their nominal capacity and were more like 20-cwt actual so the reduction from a nominal 9 tons with the original allocation was a considerable shortfall.

Keith

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As far as I know, yes. I have seen a photo of a ground-mounted naval AA gun at Stavros.

Keith, would you have more details re the above, with the possible position? Would this have been near the RNAS seaplane base at Stavros? I am aware of an 'anti-aircraft' position located close to the seaplane base on Thasos and am presuming that all such bases would have been protected thus.

Cheers,

Peter.

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No, Peter, I'm afraid not. I really don't have a clue about RN AA gunnery on ships or on land. I think I saw the photo at the IWM photo archives and, wherever it was, it gave no more detail than that it was at Stavros. It was a 3-in 20-cwt gun mounted on the ground, rather than on a lorry, and appeared to be on a hilltop as there was nothing showing in the background. It was a close-up of the gun and a Naval officer (no idea of his rank) in a cap, short-sleeved shirt and shorts standing alongside it. Given the importance of Stavros as the supply route for the eastern end of the Rendina valley and Lake Besik and also the southern end of the Struma valley I would expect there to have been protection for the port area, too, assuming the RNAS base was not nearby.

I have never found any naval records at TNA tagged for Salonika or Stavros. ISTR being told that the Naval HQ was on one of the islands and that would be where to look but never took things any further as my primary interest is in the RGA, where my grandfather served. If you can point me in a new direction I'd be grateful because getting a feel for air defence around Stavros and Halkidiki would fill a gap in my knowledge. I believe some of that may have been under French control but the Royal Navy would have looked after its own bases. How much further its influence ran is a closed book.

Keith

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Many thanks for that Keith. I shall have a search through the IWM photos on-line to see if can locate such an image. I too have never come across any TNA records marked Salonika or Stavros - not with anything to help in my research anyway.

I would think that the Naval HQ would have been on Lemnos, at Mudros. If I locate anything that I think may be of interest to you I will certainly be in contact.

Peter.

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You beat me to it! Looks like this position is recently set-up, no ready use ammunition or signs of recent use.

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Keith,

According to the long long trail:

'An Anti Aircraft Section consisted of 43 men in total: 2 officers, two gun detachments of 12 men each one of which was an ASC Driver, 2 telephonists, 1 linesman, 4 height finders, 4 Wilson-Dalby Detector Operators, 2 Height and Fuze Indicator men, 1 Order Board Setter, 1 Lookout man (Air sentry), 1 orderly and 1 cook. An Anti Aircraft Section consisted of 43 men in total: 2 officers, two gun detachments of 12 men each one of which was an ASC Driver, 2 telephonists, 1 linesman, 4 height finders, 4 Wilson-Dalby Detector Operators, 2 Height and Fuze Indicator men, 1 Order Board Setter, 1 Lookout man (Air sentry), 1 orderly and 1 cook.'

Is that consistent with what you found in researching the Salonika anti aircraft sections?

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Almost, Mark. In my grandfather's notes from his training there are ten RGA men (numbers one to ten) and two ASC men in the twelve-man team, who must be the driver and a mate. The number eleven assisted number ten with preparing the shells and setting the fuzes while the number twelve's job was to keep an eye on the jacks under the firing platform and the scotches under each wheel and to make sure they remained tight during an action.

Wilson-Dolby apparatus did not arrive in this area until quite late-on. There are odd mentions of men being sent for training with it.

Keith

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