About This Unit
2nd/4th Light (later Composite) Anti Aircraft Regiment
With the outbreak of the Pacific War and the imminent return of the 6th and 7th Divisions to Australia, and with them, the 2nd/1st AA Brigade, a need was identifed to retain an Anti Aircraft capability to support the 9th Division which was remaining in the Middle East. Its constituent elements were:
· 2nd/10th LAA Bty - att to 24th Inf Bde
· 2nd/11th LAA Bty - att to 20th Inf Bde
· 2nd/12th LAA Bty - att to 26 Inf Bde
With these groupings they took part in the lead up to the El Alamein campaign, until September 1942, whereupon they were allocated to close protection of artillery, supply lines headquarters and troop concentrations of the 9th Division during the attack and breakout of October / November 1942. They returned to Palestine in December 1942 before embarking for Australia in January 1943.
Fig 1. Men of the 2/10th LAA Battery beside the barrel of a 40mm Bofors gun
at Cairns on 4 July 1943. Left to right:- VX18124 Lt. Charles Parker
Laidley Mort, NX40112 Gnr. Leslie Bryce Eyles, NX33901 Gnr. Aubrey
Filton Claydon, NX24371 Gnr. Jeffrey Michael English, NX36873
Gnr. Harry William Blanks, NX37966 Gnr. Matthew Mitchell Bowden,
NX39780 Lance Bombardier Ian Alexander Norman McLennan
and NX18755 Sgt. George Burton Gibbs AWM image 053303
For the New Guinea campaign the Regiment was designated 'Corps Troops' with the intent that a Battery would be attached to each of the three Divisions. In the event, the 2nd/11th LAA Bty went with the 7th Division, while the remainder of the Regiment was allocated to the 9th Division for its advance on Lae. With the 2nd/11th Bty detached, the 2nd/3rd Bty was assigned to the Regiment at this time (July).
For the advance to Lae the two original Bty moved with the forces at Red and Yellow beaches while the 2nd/3rd Bty remained to cover the beach head. Shortly after this phase, the 2nd/3rd Bty, after covering the town of Lae, was detached in support of a 4th Infantry Brigade along the coast.
The rest of the Regiment remained scattered around the Finschafen area on various tasks until February 1944 when the Regiment was withdrawn to Queensland. The 2nd/3rd Bty had remained with the 4th Infantry Brigade Group in New Guinea. So the 2nd/11th returned to the Regiment, which was awaiting a new task. However they were out of a job, because Operation Oboe, the invasion of Borneo, saw the allocation of a Composite AA Regiment to each Division. The Batteries of the 2nd/4th LAA were not required to be allocated in the usual way, so the Regiment waited at Kairi until the cessation of hostilities.
A Light Anti Aircraft Regiment was generally comprised as follows:
Regimental HQ
3 x Batteries each of three Troops of 6 Bofors guns each. This entailed manning of 29 Officer and 679 Other Ranks by 1943.
Mention was made in the narrative above of 'Composite AA Regiments', which the 2nd/4th was not; it retained an LAA structure and equipment table thrughout.
After 1943 (in the Pacific / Mainland Australia theatre), a need for a mix of guns was recognised and this saw some Regiments convert to a 'Composite' structure with one x Heavy AA (HAA) Bty of 8 x 3.7inch guns displacing one of the LAA Bty.
Compiled by Steve Larkins July 2021
Source: McKenzie-Smith, Graham R. "The Unit Guide - The Australian Army 1939-45" Vol 3 of 6 Artillery Air Defence and Engineers. 2018 Big Sky Publishing ISBN 978-1-295675-14-6