The Batteries


36th Regiment Royal Artillery
&
37th Regiment Royal Artillery
On this page we will try to tell you some of the History of the Batteries that have been associated
with 36th & 37th Regiment's Royal Artillery.  I will try to find out as much as is possible about
each Battery and update this page as I progress.

Please Click Below





 
56 (Olpherts) Battery
Royal Artillery

56 (Olpherts) Special Weapons Battery has its origins in India as 5th Company 3rd Battalion Bengal
Artillery formed on 2nd June 1786. It was frequently in action, most notably during the siege of
Pondichery in 1793, the Nepal war 1814 and the second siege of Bhurtpore in 1805, the Nepal war
1814 and the second siege of Bhurtpore in 1825.

The Indian Mutiny of 1857 played a significant part in Battery history. During the first relief of lucknow,
Captain Olpherts or “Hellfire Jack” as he was known (later General Sir William Olpherts) won the Victoria
Cross for conspicuous gallantry; he charged the enemy on horseback and captured two rebel guns which
were pouring fire onto the flanks of the advancing forces. To commemorate this distinction on 19th October
1966, the honour title “OLPHERTS” was awarded to 56 Battery Royal Artillery as the direct
descendants of Captain Olpherts Battery.

The First World War saw the Battery in action in places whose names have become famous in the
annals of the British Army, Mons - Hooge - Arras - Bethune - Le Cateau - Cambrai and Le Bassee.

In the Second World War Olpherts was predominantly involved in Malta and Italy as both a field
and medium battery equipped with 25pdrs and 5.5in guns. It was reformed on 1st April 1947 as an
anti-aircraft battery, which it remained, serving with both guns and guided weapons in 36 Regiment
until 28th March 1968. The battery then moved to 50 Missile Regiment Royal Artillery, changing role
and taking on towed 8” Howitzers. In April 1972 Olpherts became self - propelled with the introduction
of M110 and moved to 27 Regiment Royal Artillery in Lippstadt on 2nd November 1972.

On the formation of 39 Heavy Regiment Royal Artillery in April 1982 Olpherts moved to Paderborn
to support 4th Armoured Division. On 1st November 1987 the Battery was re-designated 56 (Olpherts)
Special Weapons Battery and assumed its operational role of nuclear support to 1st British Corps M109
regiments on 1st July 1988. The Battery lost its role on 31 July 1992. It then amalgamated with
Headquarter Battery  39 Heavy Regiment to form 56 (Olpherts) Headquarter battery.



1857
2nd Company, 3rd Battalion,
Bengal Artillery
1889
23 Field Battery formed from A Battery,
3rd Field Brigade.
1901
23 Battery became part of 40 Brigade RFA and served on the Western Front 1914 - 1918 with the 3rd Division.
1920
23 Battery in 12 Brigade RFA.
1938
23 Field Battery in 12th Field Regiment.
Served in Malta from April 1941,
and Eygpt March 1942.
Nov 1943
Converted to 252 Medium Battery
and served in Italy.
1.1.1947
Converted to 56 HAA Battery,
36 HAA Regiment.
28.3.1968
Left 36 Regiment for 50 Missile Regiment.
2.11.1972
Moves to 27 Medium Regiment.
Feb 1993
Moves to 39 Regiment.




 


As far as I can assertain, this is the origin of 60 Battery. You will notice the frequent
re-numbering of many Batteries. The term "Brigade" was replaced by "Regiment".


1791
60 Battery came into existence with the
East India Company
 60 Coast Battery
19 Heavy Battery
 13 Battery
8th Brigade
1882
4 Battery
1st Brigade
1889
 8 Company
Eastern Division, RGA
at Aden
1901
Became 40 Company RGA
Sierra Leone
1904
Moves to Dover
1920
L Battery RGA
Dover
1924
24 Heavy Battery
Dover
1927
19 Heavy Battery
Bereheven
April 1933
Battery became part of 2 Heavy Brigade
1938
2 Coast Regiment
Regiment remained in the UK and
became 16 Coast Regiment in 1947
Colchester
1940
19 Coast Battery
2 Coast Regiment
 22.3.1946
19 Coast Battery
Disbanded
1.1.1947
60 Coast Battery
16 Coast Regiment
1.10.1948
60 Heavy Anti- Aircraft Battery
36 HAA Regiment, Malta
1.  4.1959
 60 (GW) Anti-Aircraft Battery
Shoeburyness
17.3.1964 - 1.4.1968
60 Heavy Air Defence Battery
Suspended Animation
 60 Battery was put into Suspended Animation when 36 and 37 Regiments
amalgamated at Shoeburyness.




 

As far as I can assertain, this is the Origin of 168 Battery. You will notice the frequent
re-numbering of many Batteries. The term "Brigade" was replaced by "Regiment".

3 Battery
10th Brigade
Suspended Animation
1882
6 Battery
1st Brigade
1894
19 Company, Eastern Division RGA
Gibraltar
1901
76 Company RGA
Aden
June 1924
35 Heavy Battery
Aden
July 1927
29 Heavy Battery
Gibraltar
26.6.1937
19 Anti-Aircraft Battery
became part of 3 Coast Brigade
Gibraltar
1.6.1940 - 10.3.1941
19 Heavy Anti-Aircraft Battery
10.3.1943
29 Heavy Battery
Dec 1943 - Jan 1944
168 Light Anti-Aircraft Battery
56 Light Anti-Aircraft Regiment. Italy
1.1.1947
168 Light Anti-Aircraft Battery
36 HAA Regiment, Malta
1.10.1948

1.4.1959
1.1.1962
168 Heavy Anti-Aircraft Battery
 36 Regiment
Malta, Shoeburyness
Suspended Animation
Disbanded
168 Battery was put into Suspended Animation and later disbanded when the Regiment gave
up its Guns, and re-equipped with the Thunderbird 1 Missile.





 

171 ( The Broken Wheel) Battery became part of 37th Field Regiment in April 1947,
in June 1955 the Regiment amalgamated with 63rd HAA Regiment as 37th HAA Regiment.
The Battery remained with the Regiment whilst the Regiment served in Malta. When the Regiment returned to
the UK in September 1959 it was re-titled as 37th Guided Weapon Regiment (Anti-Aircraft) in November 1959.
The Battery was placed into Suspended Animation in October 1959.


Here is the story of how this Battery received its Honour Title "The Broken Wheel".

This battery was raised as the 2nd Battery Reserve Battalion of the Bombay Artillery in the year of
the Indian Mutiny of 1857, and was shortly afterwards plunged into service which tested it as no
peace-time soldiering could have done.

The rebel held City of Delhi had been recaptured and the siege of Lucknow was about to be
completed when General Sir Hugh Rose was given the task of clearing a vast area in Central India which
was still infested with large forces of mutinous sepoys, disaffected irregular troops, and evilly disposed
persons seeking plunder whereever they could find it. They were inspired, and to a great extent physically
led, by a most re-doubtable Indian princess the Rani of Jhansi, and an equally formidable rebel leader,
one Tantia Topi. The Rani's implacable hatred of British rule was accompanied by fiendish cruelty
towards any Europeans who fell into her hands, but she was at the same time a lady of dauntless
courage and great resource.

These two leaders used the great fortresses which dominated Central India as the pivots on which
they manoeuvred and brought into the field forces which far outnumbered those with which Sir Hugh
could counter them. The short campaign in which he cleared the whole area and signally defeated the rebel
armies is a model of bold offensive action. Armed primarily only with light guns and howitzers Sir Hugh's
2nd Brigade, supported by 2/Res Bn., Bombay Artillery, was first flung against the hill fortress of Rahatgarh
which it took after beating off a relieving force. Joined by Sir Hugh's 1st Brigade, the whole force swept
on to the fortress of Jhansi which was held by 10,000 Native levies and 1,500 rebel sepoys under
command of the Rani.

The City's fortified perimeter was 4 and a half miles in circumference with granite walls 20-30 feet high
and 6-12 feet thick, and with the usual bastions covering the approaches. In one corner was the Citadel,
towering high above the city on a huge rock with inner defences of daunting strength. To stand today on
the plain south of the city, alongside the fine memorial to the Rani, and to look up at this great fortress
dominating the surrounding country makes it seem incredible that it could have been taken by a force
of a total strength of less than 2,000 men.

There were two small hills a few hundred yards from the city walls and on them the breaching batteries
were established, one of them manned by 2/Res Bn. By nightfall of the first day of action practicable
breaches had been made, but, before the assault could be made, news came of the approach of a relieving
force, 22,000 strong with 25 guns, under Tantia Topi. Without the slightest hesitation Sir Hugh recalled
the columns that were poised for the storm, brought his guns out of action, and, with no more than
1,500 men, launched that tiny force in a head on action attack on the rebel army. The audacity of this
move, and the excellent support provided by his guns, utterly routed Tantia Topi's army which was
dispersed to the winds. Sir Hugh then returned to his siege, the storming columns flung themselves through
the breaches and the fortress was captured. The Rani however, who had often been seen with her ladies
in royal apparel on the ramparts during the siege, was let down a precipice below the walls and
escaped with her adopted son.

And so the campaign continued. The fortresses of Kunch and Kalpi were taken, and finally Gwalior -
another gigantic hill fort which had been the Capital of the Mahratta prince Sindhia - fell to this
invincible army and peace was restored to Central India. Having started its life in this stirring way,
under a commander to whom nothing was impossible, 2/3 Bombay Artillery (as the unit became in 1859)
was absorbed, with the other European units of the Indian Artilleries, into the Royal Artillery after
the Mutiny. It then led a quiet life until it went to war again to win its Honour Title in the
Egyptian campaign of 1882.

This war followed an armed rising in which Europeans in Alexandria were massacred and to counter which
an expedition was launced underSir Garnet Wolseley's command. With it went N/2 RA armed with 16
pounder RML guns, and, throughout the operations the loose sand of the desert was to prove a serious
obstruction to the movement of all wheeled vehicles and often prevented the ammunition wagons from
keeping up with the guns.

Landing at Ismailia the British force advanced towards the Nile delta, met and defeated the Egyptian army
at Kassassin, and finally confronted it in a well prepared and entrenched position at Tel-el-Kebir. It was
essential if the war was to be won quickly not merly to manoeuvre the enemy out of that position but
actually to crush him there for good.

It was decided to attack at dawn after an approach march by night. The latter difficult operation was to
be carried out by the two infantry and one cavalry divisions moving in line, in an echelon from the left with
all the seven field batteries, also in line, in an interval between the two infantry divisions.
The left hand infantry division arrived first at the enemy's entrenchments in the half light and was met by
a blaze of fire. Their attack was not at first completely successful but with the aid of their supports they
and the other division forced their way into the entrenchments where hand to hand fighting continued.

Meanwhile the guns had been halted until there was enough light to see what was going on; but, as dawn
broke, they were ordered forward to come into action inside the entrenchments in positions from which
they could engage the defences in enfilade. N/2 galloped forward with the rest and, in the words of an
officer of the battery writing just after the battle, "All of a sudden the smoke lifted like a curtain and
we found ourselves close to a long line of entrenchments....We at once went on and Major Branker found
an angle in the line just in front where the ditch was not so deep, so the right gun galloped straight at it.
It went with a bump into the ditch, and stuck fast on the face of the parapet, with most of the horses over;
but a lot of 42nd rushed to our help, and we lifted and shoved the gun over; but found one of the
wheels smashed to pieces".

 Though one of its guns had thus come to grief, since a gun with a broken wheel is a gun out of action for the
time being, N/2 brought its remaining guns into action inside the entrenchments and engaged the rearward
parts of the defences with effective shrapnel fire in enfilade at 1,000 yeard range. The enemy, flaided both
from the front and in flank, were broken up, the victory was complete, and N/2 obtained its
Honour Title of The Broken Wheel.




 
111 (Dragon) Battery
Royal Artillery

Dragon Battery was founded as G Company, the Madras Foot Artillery in 1806.
In 1840-41,  it was then D Company, 3rd Battalion, Madras Artillery.

The Dragon Honour Titles are held by certain units which were previously part of the Madras Artillery
of the Honourable East India Company. They commemorate service in the expedition to China in 1840-41,
for which those units which took part were authorised to wear a golden dragon wearing the Imperial Crown
and the word China on their appointments.

 The Battery was put into Suspended Animation on the 17th March 1984.

111 and 10 Batteries have had very similar histories in that they belonged to the same
parent Brigade / Regiment from 1900 until 1977.

As far as I can assertain, this is the Origin of 111 (Dragon) Battery.
You will notice the frequent re-numbering of many Batteries.

1806
G Company
Madras Foot Artillery
1824-25
Fought in the Burma War
1840
D Company, 3rd Battalion
Madras Artillery
1889
Formed from O Battery / 2nd Brigade as
48 (Dragon) Field Battery
March 1900
Battery joins the newly formed
36 Brigade RFA. The Brigade served on the Western
Front between 1914 and 1919 as part of the
2nd Division.
1914-18
Western Front
June 1924
The 36 Brigade was renumbered as
26th Brigade and retained 48 Battery.
May 1938
26th Brigade was re-roled as
26th Anti-tank Regiment, still with 48 Battery.
Initially allocated to the 3rd Division at Bulford, the Regiment was in Malta at the outbreak of the war.
The Regiment stayed in Malta until Sept 1943 as a
Coast Defence Regiment.
14.12.1940
48 (Dragon) Mobile Coast Battery
March 1941
9/71 Defence Battery
July 1941
48 Defence Battery

September 1943
Re-roled as a Medium Regiment,
and 48 Battery became 48/71 Medium Battery.      
26th Medium Regiment
18.10.1943
C (Dragon) Troop, 48/71 Medium Battery
23.3.1946
48 Field Battery
26th Field Regiment
January 1947
26th Field Regiment became 37th Field Regiment, and
48 Battery became 111(Dragon) Battery.
20.10.1948
111( Dragon) Heavy Anti - Aircraft Battery
37 HAA Regiment
1.10.1959
111(Dragon) GW Anti - Aircraft Battery
37 GW (AA) Regiment
1963
111 (Dragon) Battery in Aden
8 Months
18.3.1964
1.4.1968
111(Dragon) Heavy Air Defence Battery
37 HAD Regiment  
36 HAD Regiment
1978
111(Dragon) Air Defence Battery
2nd Field Regiment
17.3.1984
111(Dragon) Air Defence Battery
19 Field Regiment
Suspended Animation




 
10 (Assaye) Battery
Royal Artillery


As far as I can assertain, this is the Origin of 10 (Assaye) Battery.
You will notice the frequent re-numbering of many Batteries.

1755
3rd Company, Bombay Artillery
1799
Battle of Seringapataam
23rd Sept 1803
Battle of Assaye
1843
Battle of Hyderabad
1843 - 1914
Battery in service in India, England & Ireland
1889
Formed from H Battery / 2nd Brigade as
15 Field Battery
March 1900
Joined the newly formed 36 Brigade RFA.
August 1914
Battery deployed with the BEF to France.
The Brigade served on the Western Front between
1914 and 1919 as part of the 2nd Division.
1918 - 1939
The Battery re-roled on a number of occasions, ultimately forming a Coastal Battery.
June 1924
The 36 Brigade was renumbered as
26th Brigade and retained 15 Battery.
May 1938
26th Brigade was re-roled as
26th Anti-Tank Regiment, still with 15 Battery.
Initially allocated to the 3rd Division at Bulford,
the Regiment was in Malta from 1940-43.
The Regiment stayed in Malta until Sept 1943
as a Coast Defence Regiment.
26th Anti-Tank Regiment
3.9.1940
15 Mobile Coastal Defence Battery
14.12.1940
15 Mobile Coast Battery
September 1943
Re-roled as a Medium Regiment, and 15 Battery became A Troop, 40 Medium Battery.
26th Medium Regiment
Serving in Syria, Palestine and Italy.
25.3.1946
15 (Assaye) Battery
26th Field Regiment
January 1947
26th Field Regiment became
37th Field Regiment, and 15 Battery became
10 (Assaye) Field Battery.
20.10.1948
10(Assaye) Heavy Anti-Aircraft Battery
37 HAA Regiment
3.7 inch Guns
1.10.1959
10(Assaye) Guided Weapon (AA)  Battery
37 GW (AA) Regiment
Thunderbird 1
18.3.1964
  1.4.1968
10 (Assaye) Heavy Air Defence Battery
37 HAD Regiment
36 HAD Regiment
Thunderbird 2
1978
10(Assaye) Air Defence Battery
Became an Independent Battery within
45 Field Regiment at Hohne
45 Field Regiment
1993
10(Assaye) Air Defence Battery
47th Regiment
10 (Assaye) Battery is still in operation with 47 Regiment Royal Artillery.





Before 1947, the numbers 10 and 111 were used by other Batteries which adopted different numbers in 1947.
10 Battery formed in 1889 and joined 17 Brigade RFA in 1900.  It served with the 29th Division at Gallipoli in 1915,
and on the Western Front 1916-18. In World War 2, 10 Battery continued to serve with 17 Field Regiment.
It served in France in 1940 with 4th then 51st Divisions, and in Tunisia and Italy 1942-45 with the 78th Division.
In 1947 the 17th Field Regiment became 19th Field Regiment, and 10 Battery became 25 Battery.
25 Battery served with 19th Field Regiment until 1999, and is now with 47 Regiment.


111 Battery was formed in 1900 and served with the 6th Division on the Western Front 1914-1918.
After some changes of designation, 111 Battery served as part of 30th Field Regiment 1939-45.
As part of the 4th Infantry Division, it served in France 1940, Tunisia 1943, Italy 1944 and Greece 1945-46.
In 1947 30th Field Regiment became 38th Training Regiment, and 111 Battery became 193 Battery
which was disbanded in 1954.

Why the Royal Regiment keeps changing numbers of Batteries is a complicated story,
which I cannot begin to understand.



N.B. I would like to thank Colin Doran  and Graham Watson for thier  help in obtaining information concerning the Batteries.



     



Copyright: Keith Holderness 2001- 2010
All rights reserved