大象传媒

On Commissioning as 2nd Lt, George Johnston went to a Light Ack Ack Battery, which was very scattered - the Regimental HQ was at Rye - George went there for a couple of days, but the actual battery HQ was in Lowestoft, and George's troop was at Great Yarmouth. While there George went on the Royal Guard on York Cottage at Sandringham for 6 weeks from Great Yarmouth. A dress uniform was required for this: most Artillerymen had it (it was needed for passing out): Artillerymen were smartly turned out: the RA was fussy about who they had.

When George came back we set up a troop site on an open field at Caister, near Great Yarmouth to deal with the V1 (doodlebugs).

While in East Anglia, shooting at doodlebugs, there was a railway line between the gunsite and the sea, and the light from the engine fireboxes was similar to those of the doodlebugs, so engines were required to whistle their presence. One night one had a bad whistle, and they heard the driver making desperate attempts to get the whistle to make a satisfactory noise.

Once they had a circling doodlebug which they thought was going to land on top of them. It was going round, too close in to do anything about it, as it would have blown them up anyway. George was about to give the order to take cover, to lie down really, when it suddenly dived out into the sea. Its giro had obviously been hit by the heavy Ack Ack fire. The Heavy Ack Ack engaged first, anything which escaped that was then attacked by the light ack ack.

Heavy Ack Ack technically started with the 3" shell, the guns of the First World War. George had fired them but they were devils, with a crack like thunder, screw breeches, were vicious with a limited range, suitable only for visual targets, and only suitable for "stringbags" - i.e. the early biplanes. So heavy ack really started with the 3.7, then 4.5 and eventually 5.25. These had ranges up to 40,000 yards, or more with the 5.25, and a ceiling of about 40,000ft. By end of war the 525s were bringing down reconnaissance aircraft at 40,000ft. The original Wellington ceiling was 28,000ft. Operationally of course, unless low flying, they would do the bombing from 15000 to 20000ft. at night. In the day time they would come in low, but day time bombers were a different matter all together - sometimes as low as they could. But dive bombing apart, they never bombed very low: they did not want to blow themselves up. 15000ft. was the common height for night bombers. Reconnaissance aircraft operated from 30000ft. up.

Light Ack Ack was almost entirely Bofurs with a 2lb. shell. The 3.7 explosive head weighed 28lbs, the total round was about 56-60lbs. The 4.5 total weight was about 90 lbs. Bofurs were automatic firing - they could be fired singly but the ammunition was in clips of 5 rounds. Operationally they had one clip in the gun, and one on the lead, and one in the hand. So you could fire 3 clips with no trouble. The firing rate on automatic was 120 per minute. The gun was made by the Swedes initially. Another slightly lighter, about 1lb. armour piercing shell was the Oerlikon, mostly used at sea. Also they had heavy machine guns, little turret things, but generally Light Ack ack were Bofurs: we had those. 6 guns to a troop, 3 troops to a battery, giving an 18 gun battery.

While in East Anglia George went on 3 officers courses: M.T. course (R.A Officers transport course on every vehicle that they used, from a Jeep to a Tank Chassis - Driving them, maintenance etc. - at school of Transport at Rhyl - it was very interesting - debogging, driving and getting out of sand in the dunes, every mechanical fault they could devise)

He also went on a Signals Course at Wakefield (at Nostell Priory) - again interesting - radio, lines etc.

After that he transferred to the Colonial service, described elsewhere.

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