306 or 308 Siege Battery 12 Jul 17?

[Errol Martyn]

On 12 Jul 17, Flt Sub-Lt J. A. M. Allan of 10 Naval Squadron, RNAS was wounded in the leg and landed his Sopwith Triplane at either 306 or 308 Siege Battery (sources conflict). Had anyone come across an entry for this event in either the 306 or 308 Siege Battery, and if so what was the approximate location of the battery at this time?

 

TIA,

Errol

[Acknown]

You can download War Diaries without cost from TNA as long as you sign up. No sign of the incident in the 306 Battery WD, although there is much mention of 'aeroplane shoots': https://discovery.nationalarchives.gov.uk/results/r?_col=200&_cr1=WO+95&_hb=tna&_q=306+siege.

Acknown

Addition: The WD for 308 SB is harder to find. These two threads give some information that you could explore:

Acknown

Edited 12 October , 2020 by Acknown

[MaxD]

308 Siege was in 15 Heavy Artillery Group (15 Bde RGA)t the time.  There is an outside chance the HAG diary mentions it

 

http://discovery.nationalarchives.gov.uk/details/r/e7e6af515d504caa89a04dc144042d0e 

 

Max

[Acknown]

Max - Sadly, this WD is mislabelled. In fact it contains 1916 information.

Acknown

[MaxD]

Acknown - that is a pain, thank you for clarifying that.

 

Max

[rflory]

Errol Martyn wrote: "On 12 Jul 17, Flt Sub-Lt J. A. M. Allan of 10 Naval Squadron, RNAS was wounded in the leg and landed his Sopwith Triplane at either 306 or 308 Siege Battery (sources conflict). Had anyone come across an entry for this event in either the 306 or 308 Siege Battery, and if so what was the approximate location of the battery at this time?"

 

The war diary of 306th Siege Battery, RGA for 11 through 13 July 1917 makes no mention of a Sopwith landing near the battery on those dates. At the time the battery was in a new position NW of Ypres.

 

[Errol Martyn]

Many thanks for your replies Gents. Interesting that 306 Siege Battery Diary does not mention the incident, so it may have been at 308, though I

I've not been able to find any Diary mention of that unit so far

 

Cheers,

Errol.

[MaxD]

308 Siege seems determined to remain  hidden!  Its arrival on 5 May 1917 to 1 Corps and 67 HAG is documented in the latter's diary WO 95/228/1 taking position in the Noyelles - Greney line.

On 4 July along with 3 other batteries the personnel of 308 Siege were exchanged for those of 150 Siege.  (The date of the battery changing to 15 HAG is given in WO 95/54594 as 6 July.)

 

As 15 HAG's diary for the time doesn't seem to exist, the next days are unclear! The 1 Corps Heavy Artillery diary studiously avoids any mention of individual batteries or indeed individual HAGs during all that period.  

 

In terms of where 308 Siege was located on 12 July,  whether the change from 67 HAG to 15 HAG was simply a change of communication route or a physical move I don't know, I lean to the latter.  I followed up the "loan" of the heavies to 6 Division for some operations around that time but HQRA 6 Div also refers only to "the heavy artillery".

 

I should get out more.

 

Max

 

[Errol Martyn]

Max,

 

Many thanks for checking anyway, even if the outcome was not a positive result. You can go out now, Covid permitting!

 

Cheers,

Errol