The Battle of Britain Five Months That Changed History, May—October 1940 by James Holland (z-lib.org).epub

Germany. Towards the end of June a further 232 men and six officers
arrived, all new recruits with between six and nine months’ training. Then,
on the last day of June, they had moved to Prudhoe near Newcastle. Their
new role was to defend the coast, repelling any invaders, and to help them
move around they were given a number of civilian Midland Red buses
complete with Midland Red civilian drivers. As a mechanic, Sid had little to
do so he asked to be trained as an infantryman instead. The new RSM, who
had been the HQ Sergeant-Major in France, agreed.
Stan Fraser had also been busy, having been drafted in to help
reorganize the 4th HAA Regiment. Based at Aberporth Camp in south-west
Wales, Regimental HQ was based in marquees from where Stan drafted in
new men and investigated rumours and reports of those still missing from
France. He found the work rather interesting, but, as with the Borderers, the
regiment was ready by the beginning of July. The men had been without
any guns since ditching theirs in France, but having been posted to Whatton
near Nottingham, they arrived to find enough3.7-inch heavy AA guns for
all three batteries. The reason for this apparent high prioritization of gun
allocation soon became apparent when two of the batteries, 5 and 6, were
sent to Derby to help protect the Rolls-Royce factory. The third battery, 18,
remained with HQ, and together they were to form a mobile column for any
place in the East Midlands which might be blitzed, as air attacks were now
being called.
Five days later, however, they were posted, not anywhere in the
Midlands, but to a tiny village in Norfolk near the airfield of Bircham
Newton. The men were billeted in the granary. ‘Using the sacks of grain as
a mattress,’ recalls Stan, ‘I slept very well during the week which we spent
at this lonely spot.’ They usually moved after five days or so, fulfilling their
new name, ‘MacDuff Mobile Column’. Stan’s job was to accompany the
two 18th Battery surveyors, working out the known ranges at each gun site
so that the range-finding instruments could be checked. He was enjoying
himself well enough; after France and Dunkirk, a slightly less frenetic pace
of life was not unwelcome.
Clearly, the army was in far better fettle than it had been six weeks
earlier after the shock of Dunkirk. The shortage of weapons was certainly
still critical, but American rifles, ammunition, machine guns and field guns
had been enough to make a difference, and war production was speeding up
too, thanks to an all-out effort from the war factories. What now concerned