page_title: 5th Battalion, King's Own Yorkshire Light Infantry
section_title: Western Desert
hierarchical_section_title: 5th Battalion, King's Own Yorkshire Light Infantry / World War II / Home Defence / Western Desert
caption_attribution_description: English: The British Army in North Africa 1942 A 40mm Bofors anti-aircraft gun being dug in near a squadron of Crusader tanks, 29 October 1942.
context_page_description: The 5th Battalion, King's Own Yorkshire Light Infantry, was a unit of Britain's Territorial Force formed in 1908 from Volunteer units originally raised in the West Riding of Yorkshire in 1860. It served in some of the bitterest fighting on the Western Front during World War I, leading the attack at the tank battle of Cambrai and defending Bucquoy in March 1918. In the late 1930s, the battalion was converted to air defence in which role it served during World War II in the Battle of France and the Dunkirk evacuation, in North Africa including the Second Battle of El Alamein, and in the Allied invasions of Sicily and Italy, including service in the rebellion in Greece. Postwar, its successor units served in Anti-Aircraft Command until 1955.
context_section_description: 53rd LAA Regiment arrived in Egypt during the summer of 1942 as part of the reinforcements for Eighth Army. On 9 September it became the LAA regiment of 10th Armoured Division, which had just fought in the Battle of Alam el Halfa.
  Over the next few weeks careful preparations were made for the Second Battle of El Alamein, which opened on the night of 23 October with Operation Lightfoot. 10th Armoured Division's role was to follow the infantry attack, clearing lanes through the enemy minefields, in order to pass through the following day. 53rd LAA Regiment, with 48 Bofors guns, was defending the division's columns as they moved up, apart from one Troop detached to guard X Corps' HQ. While preparing to start their break-out at 22.00 on 24 October, the division was hit by an air attack that left many vehicles blazing, which attracted further attacks. The division's armour had to disperse for protection, and only just reorganised and got through the minefield gaps by daybreak. The fighting continued for several days in what the British commander, Gen Bernard Montgomery, termed 'the dog-fight'. By the time the break-out attack (Operation Supercharge) came on 1 November, 10th Armoured Division was out of the line, with much of its remaining amour lent to other formations.
  10th Armoured Division was reconstituted for the pursuit after Alamein, but 53rd LAA Rgt was no longer with it, having left on 2 November. By January 1943 the regiment (with 36 Bofors guns) was in Libya with 2 AA Bde on tasks for XXX Corps. When the North African Campaign ended in May 1943 with the Axis surrender in Tunisia, the regiment was with 12 AA Bde, which had followed Eighth Army's advance for 1,500 miles (2,400 km), supplying mobile AA groups to defend forward landing grounds for the Desert Air Force as they were captured. Bofors guns were frequently employed to 'sweep' with automatic fire when Luftwaffe fighter-bombers attacked out of the sun.
caption: A Bofors gun crew digging in near a squadron of Crusader tanks, 29 October 1942.
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