page_title: 359th Heavy Anti-Aircraft Battery, Royal Artillery
section_title: Force 122
hierarchical_section_title: 359th Heavy Anti-Aircraft Battery, Royal Artillery / Force 122
caption_attribution_description: English: This image shows one of the two transmitter arrays of the Gun Laying radar, Mk. II. The GL system was used to feed aiming information to AA guns. The large horizontal framework carries three antennas, just visible in this image. Each is a half-wave dipole arranged horizontally, with the framework itself acting as a passive reflector. Another antenna is mounted on the triangular frame at the top of the vertical mast.
context_page_description: The 359th Heavy Anti-Aircraft Battery, Royal Artillery was an air defence unit of the British Army during World War II. After defending the North Midlands during The Blitz, it formed part of Force 122 sent to protect the Falkland Islands against a possible Japanese invasion, where it mounted both heavy and light anti-aircraft guns in inhospitable conditions.
context_section_description: The purpose of the deployment was to stiffen the defences of Port Stanley, an advanced naval base with communication and fuelling facilities, which had been significant during the Battle of the River Plate, and which might be threatened by the Japanese. Previously its defence had rested with the local Falkland Islands Defence Force (FIDF), a few coast defence guns, and such ships of the Royal Navy as were there at any one time.
  Force 122 consisted of 11th Battalion, West Yorkshire Regiment, 359th HAA Bty, and supporting units of the Royal Engineers, Royal Army Service Corps, Royal Army Ordnance Corps and Royal Electrical and Mechanical Engineers. 359th HAA Bty brought with it eight 40 mm Bofors LAA guns equipped with Predictor No.3 (the Kerrison Predictor), and four static 3.7-inch HAA guns with instruments including a GLII radar. The guns were concentrated at the Port Stanley installations, where the HAA guns could also join the coast artillery fire plan.
  The ground was rough and boggy with rocky outcrops, and the battery commander found it difficult to select good sites. A level area had to be dug out for the GLII set. By 14 August the Bofors guns were ready on three positions covering the radio station and oil tanks. However, work was not completed on the static 3.7-inch gun site in Murray Heights ('Brooke Camp', named after General Sir Alan Brooke) and the wire mesh radar 'mat' until December. The position was occupied on 15 December, and in January 1943 the 3.7s carried out proof firing in the presence of the Governor. A semi-automatic plotter was installed for 'unseen' engagement of targets using radar alone.
  There were practice shoots, exercises, calibration and barrage rehearsals throughout 1943, but no hostile aircraft appeared. In October 1943 the battery took over responsibility for coast radar. But in December 1943 Force 122 was ordered to return to the UK, to be replaced by the smaller Force 132. 259th HAA Battery passed two Bofors guns to the FIDF, while the rest of the equipment was stored or removed. After a farewell parade for the Governor, the battery embarked for home in February 1944.
caption: GL Mk II radar receiver van
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