page_title: A Battery, Honourable Artillery Company
section_title: 1/A Battery, HAC
hierarchical_section_title: A Battery, Honourable Artillery Company / History / First World War / 1/A Battery, HAC
caption_attribution_description: AWM caption&#160;: Ottoman Empire: Palestine. Near Belah. A Battery, Honourable Artillery Company attached to the 4th Australian Light Horse Brigade. The gun crews are crouched between their 13 pounder quick fire field guns and a cactus hedge.
context_page_description: A Battery, Honourable Artillery Company is a L118 light gun Battery that provides a reserve to 7th Parachute Regiment Royal Horse Artillery. Its predecessor was a horse artillery battery that was formed from Light Cavalry Squadron, HAC in 1891. It transferred to the Territorial Force in 1908 as artillery support for the London Mounted Brigade.
  During the First World War it was posted to Egypt in 1915, served as part of the Western Frontier Force in the Senussi Campaign in 1916 and in the Sinai and Palestine Campaign with the Imperial Mounted Division in 1917 and 1918. The second line battery – 2/A Battery, HAC – was formed in 1914 and served on the Western Front in 1917 and 1918 as part of an Army Field Artillery Brigade; the third line – A Battery, HAC – was formed in 1915 to provide trained replacements for the 1st and 2nd Line batteries.
  Post-war, the battery, along with B Battery, Honourable Artillery Company, was amalgamated with the City of London Yeomanry to form the 11th Brigade, RHA.
context_section_description: The 1st Line battery was embodied with the London Mounted Brigade on 4 August 1914 at the outbreak of the First World War and concentrated in Berkshire.  A decision was made to form a new mounted division from the mounted brigades in and around the Churn area of Berkshire.  On 2 September 1914, 2nd Mounted Division, with Headquarters at Goring, came into being and London Mounted Brigade was assigned to the new division.  I Brigade and II Brigade, RHA (T.F.) were formed for the division and the battery was assigned to II Brigade, RHA at Churn, along with B Battery, HAC and Berkshire and Nottinghamshire Batteries RHA.
  In November 1914, the division moved to Norfolk on coastal defence duties.  Artillery headquarters was established at Cromer, before joining the divisional headquarters at Hanworth in December, and A Battery, HAC was at Mundesley (London Mounted Brigade was at Hanworth).
  Overseas service
  In March 1915, the 2nd Mounted Division was put on warning for overseas service.  In early April, the division starting leaving Avonmouth and the last elements landed at Alexandria before the end of the month.  By the middle of May, the horse artillery batteries were near Ismaïlia on Suez Canal Defences.
  The 2nd Mounted Division was dismounted in August 1915 and served at Gallipoli.  The artillery batteries and ammunition columns (along with the signal troops, mobile veterinary sections, Mounted Brigade Transport and Supply Columns and two of the Field Ambulances) were left behind in Egypt.  The division returned from Gallipoli in December 1915 and was reformed and remounted.
  The battery rejoined the division on 13 December, but on 20 December it entrained at Alexandria for the Western Desert, concentrating at Mersa Matruh on 7 January 1916.  Thereafter, it served as part of the Western Frontier Force in the Senussi Campaign, taking part in the Affair at Halazin (23 January 1916).  The battery returned to Alexandria on 6 March and was rearmed with four 18 pounders.  It returned to the Suez Canal Defences on 6 April and rejoined the 8th Mounted Brigade (the redesignated London Mounted Brigade).  The brigade left for Salonika in November without the battery which joined the Australian 4th Light Horse Brigade when it was reformed in February 1917.  It remained attached to the 4th ALH Brigade for the rest of the war.
  Imperial Mounted Division
  The Imperial Mounted Division was formed in Egypt in January 1917; 4th Light Horse Brigade was one of the four cavalry brigades selected to form the division.  A Battery, HAC joined the division on formation and was assigned to XIX Brigade, Royal Horse Artillery (T.F.).  In practice, the battery remained attached to 4th ALH Brigade.
  The battery, and its brigade, served with the Imperial Mounted Division in the Sinai and Palestine Campaign as part of the Desert Column.  With the division, it took part in the advance across the Sinai, including the First (26 – 27 March 1917) and Second Battles of Gaza (17 – 19 April 1917).
  Australian Mounted Division
  In June 1917, the Desert Column was reorganised from two mounted divisions of four brigades each (ANZAC and Imperial Mounted Divisions) to three mounted divisions of three brigades each (ANZAC, Australian – Imperial Mounted Division renamed – and the new Yeomanry Mounted Division).  On 20 June 1917, the Imperial Mounted Division was redesignated as Australian Mounted Division as the majority of its troops were now Australian.  On 12 August 1917, the Desert Column disappeared and the Desert Mounted Corps was formed.
  The battery served with the Australian Mounted Division throughout the rest of the Sinai and Palestine Campaign.  As part of the Desert Mounted Corps, the division took part in the Third Battle of Gaza (by now re-equipped with four 13 pounders), in particular the Capture of Beersheba (31 October) and the Battle of Mughar Ridge (13 and 14 November), and the defence of Jerusalem against the Turkish counter-attacks (27 November – 3 December).
  Still part of the Desert Mounted Corps, the division took part in the Second Trans-Jordan Raid (30
caption: Gunners of A Battery, Honourable Artillery Company, attached to the Australian 4th Light Horse Brigade, crouch between their 13 pounder quick fire field guns and a cactus hedge near Belah, Palestine, in March 1918.
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