page_title: 1st Northamptonshire Rifle Volunteer Corps
section_title: Operation Diver
hierarchical_section_title: 1st Northamptonshire Rifle Volunteer Corps / Second World War / Operation Diver
caption_attribution_description: For documentary purposes the German Federal Archive often retained the original image captions, which may be erroneous, biased, obsolete or politically extreme. V1 vor dem Start Aus guter Deckung wird "V1" an die Abschußstelle gerollt. Der Start erfolgt durch eine Pressluftanlage. Mit Hilfe eines Fernlenkverfahrens trifft die "V1" das befohlene Ziel. Die gleichbleibend hohe Geschwindigkeit, die von keinem Feindjäger erreicht wird, erhält "V1" von einem Raketenantrieb. Diese erste deutsche Vergeltungswaffe ist eine hervorragende Schöpfung unserer Luftrüstung. Foto: PK-Lysiak/Transocean-Europapress
context_page_description: The 1st Northamptonshire Rifle Volunteers were a unit of the British Army raised from 1859 onwards as a group of originally separate Rifle Volunteer Corps. They later became the 4th Volunteer Battalion of the Northamptonshire Regiment and saw action in the Gallipoli and Palestine campaigns during the First World War. Converted into a searchlight unit between the wars, they served in the defence of the United Kingdom and as an infantry regiment in liberated Norway during the Second World War. Postwar they continued in the air defence role until 1961 when they reverted to infantry as part of the Royal Anglian Regiment.
context_section_description: 2 AA Group was responsible for defending the assembly camps, depots and embarkation ports for Operation Overlord (the Allied invasion of Normandy) and was planning for the expected onslaught of V-1 flying bombs (codenamed 'Divers') against London. Meanwhile, the group had to deal with a sharp increase in Luftwaffe air raids trying to reach London (the so-called 'Baby Blitz'), which continued until May. In June 1944 47 AA Bde was disbanded but 50th S/L Rgt simply transferred within 2 AA Gp to the command of 38th Light AA Bde.
  On 13 June, a week after the Overlord fleets had left to launch D Day, the first V-1s appeared over southern England. 2 AA Group deployed its Light AA guns alongside S/L positions, hoping that the Searchlight Control radar (SLC) could guide the LAA guns at night. By day, the S/L positions used their AA Light machine guns in an effort to bring down the fast-moving missiles. The early success rate was low, but later fighter aircraft and radar-directed Heavy AA guns achieved high rates of success against V-1s.
caption: V-1 flying bomb being prepared for launch.
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