page_title: Birmingham Rifles
section_title: 122nd Light Anti-Aircraft Regiment
hierarchical_section_title: Birmingham Rifles / World War II / 122nd Light Anti-Aircraft Regiment
context_page_description: The Birmingham Rifles, was a volunteer unit of the British Army founded in Birmingham in 1859. As the 5th Battalion, Royal Warwickshire Regiment, it served as infantry on the Western Front and in Italy during World War I. Its successor units served in air defence during the early part of World War II, and later as anti-tank gunners in the Burma Campaign.
context_section_description: A cadre of six officers and 30 other ranks went to Bradford for training on Bofors guns before the regiment formally converted on 2 February 1942 as 122nd (Royal Warwickshire) Light Anti-Aircraft Regiment, with the batteries renumbered as 400–403 LAA Batteries.> The rest of the regiment went for training on 12 February and a month later the batteries moved from Bradford to various practice camps. In April they took over defence of VPs, three batteries in North Staffordshire and one on Anglesey, with RHQ near Chester.
  During the Spring of 1942, the Luftwaffe began a new tactic of 'hit and run' raids by single-engined Fighter-bombers against targets along the South Coast of England, and AA Command moved LAA units south to deal with this threat. In July, 122nd LAA Rgt moved from 54 AA Bde to join 71 AA Bde in Kent, deployed as follows:
  RHQ at Shepherdswell
  400 LAA Bty at Rye, East Sussex
  401 LAA Bty at Betteshanger
  402 LAA Bty at Minster-in-Thanet, later at Rye, where it was awarded a Category 1 'kill' on 12 October
  403 LAA Bty at Shepherdswell.
  122nd LAA Rgt was now selected for overseas service. On 3 October, 403 LAA Bty was re-regimented with a newly formed 143rd LAA Rgt and the rest of the regiment, now with the three-battery organisation of a mobile AA unit, left AA Command and moved to Dropmore Hall, Burnham, Buckinghamshire, for battle training. A month later it went for mobile training at Leigh-on-Sea, Essex. While awaiting overseas postings, AA units were usually loaned back to AA Command, and on 22 December the regiment took over operational sites in Cornwall under 63 AA Bde, with RHQ at Perranporth and sites at RAF St Eval, St Austell and Porthcothan. In January–February 1943, it attended No 13 AA Practice Camp at Aberaeron, before coming under War Office Control. On 14 February, it moved to Leeds under orders to mobilise for a tropical climate.
caption: A Bofors gun featuring the 'Stiffkey Sight'.
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