WW2 100 – 8 December 1942 – ‘One of the dearest, one of the best’: Gunner Alfred Edmund Burch (1920-42) Royal Artillery, 83rd Heavy Anti-Aircraft Regiment
Continued from 6 November 1942 - ‘In loving memory of a dear husband’:
SAPPER ARTHUR STANLEY PENGILLEY (1914-42)
https://budleighpastandpresent.blogspot.com/2021/01/ww2-75-6-november-1942-in-loving-memory.html
Budleigh Salterton War Memorial, at the junction of
Coastguard Road and Salting Hill
Like many others who are commemorated on our War Memorial,
Alfred was from a family well known in the local area. In the parish records of
St Peter’s Burial Ground I counted no less than 17 members of the Burch family.
He is also commemorated on both East Budleigh’s village memorial and in All Saints’ Church, simply because his parents were living in Knowle, a mile or so west of Budleigh Salterton and part of East Budleigh parish, at the time of his death.
This photo
of Percy Burch is from the Kath Gooding Collection and was used in D. Richard
Cann’s splendid Book of
Budleigh Salterton (2005). Percy Alwyn Burch is recorded in the 1901 Census as
a carter on an Otterton farm
The Commonwealth War Graves Commission (CWGC) lists Alfred’s parents as Percy A. Burch and his wife Louisa. Thanks to the energetic genealogical research of distant relative Jack Earnshaw we know that Alfred’s father, Percy Alwyn Burch, was born in 1879 or 1880, the fourth of nine children to parents Harry Thomas Burch, an agricultural labourer from Otterton, and Selina Harriet Burch née Daniells.
Looking at Jack Earnshaw’s extensive research, and counting the number of Alfred’s possible cousins, it seems likely that somewhere in the local area there may be someone with access to a family photo album showing Alfred himself as he grew up, and even someone who knows the story of how he sadly lost his life in December 1942, aged a mere 22 years old.
For Alfred is yet another case of a young serviceman whose death is barely recorded.
Badge of the Royal Artillery Image credit: Wikipedia
Thanks
to the CGWC we do know that Gunner Burch died as a member of the Royal
Artillery, serving with the 83rd
Heavy Anti-Aircraft Regiment and with the Service Number 1783265. Gunner is a
rank equivalent to Private in the British Army.
The Regiment’s origins go back to 1859, when a Scottish Volunteer unit of the British Army was raised in Glasgow and named the Blythswood Rifles, with its headquarters at 69 Main Street in Bridgeton, a district to the east of the city centre. The Blythswood Rifles later became the 7th (Blythswood) Battalion of the Highland Light Infantry Brigade, and, during WW1 served at Gallipoli, in Egypt and Palestine, in Ireland, and on the Western Front.
During the 1930s the increasing need for anti-aircraft (AA) defence for Britain's cities was addressed by converting a number of Territorial Army infantry battalions into AA units. The 7th Highland Light Infantry was one of the battalions selected, becoming the 83rd (7th (Blythswood) Battalion, Highland Light Infantry) Anti-Aircraft Regiment, part of the Royal Artillery on 1 November 1938.
Formation sign for the 3rd Anti-Aircraft
Division. The photo is of a woven silk officers’ patch. Image credit: Howard Cole, Formation Badges of World War 2. Britain,
Commonwealth and Empire, Arms and Armour Press
It was part
of the 3rd Anti-Aircraft Division, which had been set up a month
earlier to defend Scotland and Northern Ireland.
The Regiment consisted of a Regimental Headquarters (RHQ) and three batteries (257, 258, 259) all based at Bridgeton, a district east of Glasgow. It adopted the simpler title of 83rd (Blythswood) AA Regiment in July 1939, and formed part of 42nd Anti-Aircraft Brigade, newly formed to take responsibility for the AA defence of Glasgow and the Clyde estuary.
How a young Devonian like Alfred found himself so far north is a mystery to me. However, an explanation may be that in June 1939, a partial mobilisation of TA units 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 and searchlight positions. On 24 August, ahead of the declaration of war, AA Command was fully mobilised at its war stations.
The role of anti-aircraft defence expanded rapidly with the development of strategic bombing in WW2. This form of modern warfare had begun on 1 September 1939 when Germany invaded Poland and the Luftwaffe began bombing cities and the civilian population in Poland in an indiscriminate aerial bombardment campaign
Proof of this expanded role in Britain is reflected in the resources invested in AA defence, both in terms of personnel and the sites on which they served. During WW2, the number of people in AA Command reached a peak of 274,900 men. That was in addition to the women soldiers of the Auxiliary Territorial Service (ATS) who served on gunsites from summer 1941, and the Home Guard who manned many sites later in the war.
On 1 June 1940 those AA regiments like the 83rd, equipped with 3-inch or the newer 3.7-inch guns, were termed Heavy Anti-Aircraft (HAA) to distinguish them from the new Light Anti-Aircraft (LAA) units being formed.
A 3.7-inch gun on a travelling carriage in London in 1939
War Office official photographer - This is
photograph H 993 from the collections of the Imperial War Museums.
The newer QF 3.7-inch AA was Britain's primary heavy anti-aircraft gun during WW2. It fired 25 lb (11 kg) shells with a ceiling of 28,000 feet (8,500 m). It rapidly began to replace older anti-aircraft guns in Heavy AA regiments. On 1 January 1938, the British air defences had only 180 anti-aircraft guns larger than 50 mm and most of these were the older 3-inch type. This number increased to 341 by September 1938 and the Munich Crisis, to 540 in September 1939, when war was declared, and to 1,140 during the Battle of Britain.
The QF 3.7-inch AA gun was a high-velocity weapon, with a single charge and firing substantial quantities of ammunition. This meant that barrel life could be short and by the end of 1940 there was a barrel shortage. Some of the substantial numbers of spare barrels required were produced in Canada.
The 83rd (Blythswood) Heavy Anti-Aircraft Regiment, stationed at Dumbarton on the north bank of the River Clyde continued to serve with the 42nd Anti-Aircraft Brigade through the period of the Phoney War and the Battle of Britain. Following the Luftwaffe 's defeat in the Battle of Britain, it began night attacks on Britain's cities. The ‘Blitz’ had begun.
3rd AA Division's responsibilities were split in
November 1940 and a new 12th AA Division created, to which 42nd AA Brigade was
transferred, with its responsibility restricted to the defence of Glasgow and
the Firth of Clyde.
The Launching of the Aircraft Carrier HMS Indefatigable at John Brown & Company’s shipyard on 8 December 1942. Image credit: Royal Navy official photographer Lieutenant S.J.Beadell. This is photograph A 13185 from the collections of the Imperial War Museums
The industrial town of Clydebank's production of ships and munitions for the Allies made it a target for the Nazis. Major objectives included the John Brown & Company shipyard, the Royal Ordnance Factory at Dalmuir – where anti-aircraft guns were manufactured – and the Singer Corporation factory. The Clydebank Blitz, comprised two devastating Luftwaffe air raids on the shipbuilding and munition-making town of Clydebank in Scotland which took place on the nights of 13 and 14 March 1941.
Over the course of the two nights, a total of 439 Luftwaffe bombers dropped in excess of 1,650 incendiary containers and 272 tonnes of bombs. As a result of the raids, the town was largely destroyed. It suffered the worst destruction and civilian loss of life in all of Scotland. 1,200 people died, 1,000 were seriously injured, and hundreds more were injured by blast debris. Out of approximately 12,000 houses, only eight remained undamaged — with 4,000 completely destroyed and 4,500 severely damaged. Over 35,000 people were made homeless.
The urgent need for more HAA guns on Clydeside had been well known: a plan for 80 guns in 1939 had increased to 120 in 1940, but in February 1941 there were still only 67 in position. A new plan for 144 guns was authorised on 21 March, but only 88 had been delivered. There were three other heavy raids on Clydeside during the Blitz, on the nights of 7/8 April, 5/6 and 6/7 May 1941.
RAF fighters managed to shoot down two aircraft during the Clydebank raid, but none was brought down by anti-aircraft fire. It seems that the success of anti-aircraft defences depended to a large extent on luck. At the start of ‘The Blitz’, it was estimated that it took 20,000 rounds to shoot down a single aircraft.
A Vickers No.1 Mk III predictor for the British QF 3.7-inch anti-aircraft gun, situated in the Matiu/Somes Quarantine Station, Wellington Harbour, New Zealand.
Image credit: Tom Ackroyd/Wikipedia
Anti-aircraft artillery gunners like Alfred needed skill to hit a moving target at great heights. Flight paths of enemy planes were difficult to predict but gunners relied on various instruments to help them in their work. Each battery had its own height and range finder, from which data was passed to a predictor similar to the one shown above. The predictor was an instrument that was used to calculate how far in front of an aircraft the gun would have to fire in order to explode close enough to the aircraft to knock it off course, using the information from the height and range finder and the speed.
The
battery in which Alfred served would have had perhaps four gun emplacements
built in an arc, each emplacement housing a 3.7 inch gun. A fifth emplacement with
blast walls would have housed the predictor and its crew.
Image credit: www.geocaching.com
At Carmunnock, south of Glasgow, a HAA battery used this 4.5
inch QF Mark II naval gun. The pedestal mount was bolted to concrete in an
armoured turret, a travelling platform was available to transport the gun and
mounting between positions. The first unit became operational in February 1939.
Remains of the command post, magazines, gun store, engine room and computing
rooms all survive in a field.
As the war progressed anti-aircraft defences became more effective with the development of technologies such as the proximity fuze, which ensured that a shell would explode close to its target.
Uncovering the Civilian Deaths from Friendly Fire, by Simon Webb
On a very negative note, anti-aircraft defences were undoubtedly responsible in many cases for deaths and injuries to the civilian population in Britain. Historian Simon Webb’s book Uncovering the Civilian Deaths from Friendly Fire, published in 2020, quotes one expert working at Cambridge’s Cavendish Laboratory who estimated that half the anti-aircraft shells exploded at ground level and that they killed as many people as the German bombs. ‘If true’, writes Simon Webb, ‘this would mean that the British army and their artillery were responsible for over 25,000 deaths in Britain during the Second World War’.
After the Blitz ended in May 1941, sufficient reinforcements arrived allowing AA Command to withdraw the 83rd (Blythswood) Heavy Anti-Aircraft Regiment in order to meet the urgent need for AA reinforcements in overseas theatres. The regiment left AA Command in July 1941 and joined the War Office Reserve with 257, 258, 259 Heavy Anti-Aircraft Batteries.
Forces war records tell us that Alfred’s death occurred in Persia-Iraq, a somewhat vague geographical indication which needs explanation.
On 1 April 1941, a Nazi-backed coup d’état had overthrown the pro-British regime in Iraq. The coup had been supported by Palestinian nationalists and Vichy French authorities in Syria and Lebanon. Britain responded by sending ground forces into those two countries as well as into Iraq to restore the former regime.
On 22 June, Axis forces had invaded the Soviet Union (USSR), which subsequently allied with Britain against Germany. Two months later, on 25 August, the Anglo-Soviet invasion of Iran began, ending on 31 August when the Iranian government formally agreed to surrender. The invasion's strategic purpose was to ensure the safety of Allied supply lines to the USSR, secure Iranian oil fields, limit German influence in Iran and preempt a possible Axis advance from Turkey through Iran toward the Baku oil fields or British India.
General Henry Maitland Wilson was appointed as head of the forces of British Army’s Persia and Iraq Command, newly created in response to the possibility that Germany, following successes in southern Russia, might invade Iran, also known as Persia.
A wooden plaque showing the Tenth Army insignia
Image credit: Wikipedia
In October 1941, Alfred and the 83rd (Blythswood) Heavy Anti-Aircraft Regiment arrived in Iraq, having sailed from Britain via Cape Town.
They would be an important part of the Tenth Army, which was under Persia and Iraq Command. General Wilson’s aim was the building up of anti-aircraft defences for the Basra base area and the cities of Baghdad and Mosul.
The Haifa, west end of the Kirkuk–Haifa oil
pipeline in 1938. Image credit: The National Geographic Magazine, December 1938/Wikipedia
Of particular strategic importance were the oil installations at Kirkuk. The Kirkuk–Haifa oil pipeline (also known as the Iraq–Haifa pipeline or Mediterranean pipeline) was a crude oil pipeline from the oil fields in Kirkuk, located in the former Ottoman district of Mosul in northern Iraq, through Transjordan to Haifa in mandatory Palestine (now in the territory of Israel).
Image credit: Wikipedia
The 942 kilometre (585 mile) pipeline was
operational between 1935 and 1948. The oil arriving in Haifa was distilled in
the Haifa refineries, stored in tanks, and then put in tankers for shipment to
Europe. The refineries provided much of the fuel needs of the British and
American forces in the Mediterranean during WW2.
Map of Iraq during WW2 Image credit: Wikipedia
Also strategically important was the airfield at RAF Habbaniya station, west of Baghdad. During the 1941 coup d’état, the airfield was besieged by units from the Royal Iraqi Army encamped on the overlooking plateau. The siege had been lifted by the units based at Habbaniya, including pilots from the training school, a battalion of the King's Own Royal Regiment flown in at the last moment, Number 1 Armoured Car Company RAF and the RAF's Iraq Levies. With the entry of Russia on the side of the Allies, RAF Habbaniya became an important stage on the southern air route between the UK and the USSR.
Progress in providing AA defences was slow, and by June 1942, the 83rd (Blythswood) Heavy Anti-Aircraft Regiment was still the only HAA unit in the Tenth Army. However by the end of the year, the Regiment was joined by 238 (Bristol) Heavy Anti-Aircraft Battery, which had left 76th (Gloucester) Heavy Anti-Aircraft Regiment and was already in the Middle East.
A view of part of the Karachi War Cemetery Image credit: Rabia Zafar/Wikipedia
But by the end of the year, Alfred would be dead. CWGC records tell us that he is buried in Karachi War Cemetery, in modern-day Pakistan. ‘One of the dearest, one of the best’ - taken from the inscription presumably requested by his parents for his headstone – are the words which begin this post in his honour.
My first thought on learning that fact was that he had died while on
active service in that area. But it seems that thousands of injured soldiers
were brought to the British Military Hospital in Karachi, which housed one of
the largest camp hospitals in that part of the Empire. Those who died during
the course of treatment were buried in a nearby open field.
On one of many visits to St Peter’s Burial Ground I noted with a mixture of pleasure and sadness how he had been honoured by his family. Karachi, his last resting-place, does seem a very long way from tranquil Budleigh Salterton.
The next post is for SERGEANT JOHN STEPHEN HARRIS (1922-43) who was killed on 4 August 1943 while serving with the
Royal
Air Force Volunteer Reserve, Operational Training Unit (OTU) 42. You can read about him at
https://budleighpastandpresent.blogspot.com/2021/03/ww2-75-4-august-1943-thanks-to-canadian.html
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