14 Anti Aircraft Battery

[Aurel Sercu]

I have been asked by another forum member to post this photograph of the No 14 Anti Aircraft Battery. All that is known about the picture is that second from right is Sjt Harry Arthey, a regular in the Royal Field Artillery.

There is a very distinctive building in the background with "1895" built into the wall. It has been suggested that this could be somewhere in the Ypres area. Does anyone know where it is, if it still survives?

Any information about the Pom Pom section would be much appreciated too. The picture is undated, and the only detail known about Harry Arthey's service was that he was billeted in Mailly Mallet on the Somme in January 1916, when he appears to have been with the 109th Brigade Ammunition Column.

This is the information that was given to me by Peter when he contacted me the first time a week or so ago. I'm afraid that trying to find out where the "1895" house was, is something like a needle in a haystack. But who knows, someone living in the Ypres area or visiting it may have noticed. I myself can't remember seeing it. All I can say is that very probably the location is not in or very near the front line (otherwise it would have been damaged more). So it must have been more eastward, maybe even Poperinge area ?

Or maybe someone knows more about the whereabouts of the "Pom Pom section" ? (To be honest I myself had never heard that name, or better : until now had associated it with something else.

Aurel

[Hoplophile]

The first anti-aircraft units sent out to the Expeditionary Force were 'anti-aircraft sections, RGA' armed with 37mm Vickers 'pom-pom' guns. As these guns, which had been floating around the British Army since the Boer War looking for a decent home, proved disappointing, the anti-aircraft sections were rearmed with more suitable weapons, like the lorry-mounted 13-pdr shown here.

The relatively low number of No. 14 Anti-Aircraft Section suggests it may have been once a 'pom-pom' section that was later rearmed.

The National Archives catalogue entry for the war diary has it starting in December of 1914, which fits in with this theory.

[johnreed]

No 14 A.A. Section(2 x 13 pdr guns) was part of the A.A. School of Gunnery there was also another Section which was No 75 A.A. Section (2 X 3in Guns). Location as yet unknown, it could be either France or Belgium.

John

[SiegeGunner]

The IWM's Thornycroft lorry-mounted 13pdr AA.

[PeterF]

Many thanks for these helpful and informative responses, and to Aurel for posting the picture for me.

Siege Gunner - although it is not clear from the scanned picture, on the original photo the radiator badge sign is clearly legible, showing that the truck is indeed a Thorneycroft. Can you let me know at which IWM museum the truck in your picture is? Is it at Duxford?

PeterF

[Graham Stewart]

Seems that No.14 A.A.Section remained an independent unit and did not go through the reorganisation that other A.A.Sections did and so started life with III Corps on the 4th February 1915 and finished at G.H.Q. on 11th November 1918.

Graham.

[stripeyman]

In Stand To! April 2004 the Camera Returns team, myself and Steve Wall did a feature that showed a building with a date

on it. However the photograph CO110 taken in April1916 has half of it cropped off, it may be on the original but not

in ST!

The location is 1.5 miles north west of Abeele and just north of the road to Watou. I remember at the time that there

was more than one house with a date on its gable end.

Just a thought that this might be the area to start looking

Bob Grundy