page_title: 82nd (Essex) Heavy Anti-Aircraft Regiment, Royal Artillery
section_title: Gibraltar
hierarchical_section_title: 82nd (Essex) Heavy Anti-Aircraft Regiment, Royal Artillery / World War II / Gibraltar
caption_attribution_description: English: Searchlights pierce the night sky during an air-raid practice on Gibraltar, 20 November 1942. Searchlights pierce the night sky during an air-raid practice on Gibraltar, 20 November 1942.
context_page_description: 82nd (Essex) Heavy Anti-Aircraft Regiment, Royal Artillery, was a volunteer air defence unit of Britain's Territorial Army from 1938 until 1955. During World War II it served in the Norwegian Campaign, defended Gibraltar and the D-Day invasion ports, and took part in Operation Diver against the V-1 flying bombs.
context_section_description: AA units returning from France and Norway were rapidly reinforced, re-equipped where possible, and redeployed for future integration into existing defence plans.  On 1 June, those AA regiments equipped with 3-inch guns or the newer 3.7-inch were termed Heavy Anti-Aircraft (HAA) to distinguish them from the new Light Anti-Aircraft (LAA) units being formed. 82nd (Essex) HAA Regiment was re-equipped with 16 x 3.7-inch guns, 8 x Bofors guns and GL Mk I gun-laying radar, and was then sent aboard the SS City of Cairo to reinforce the defences of Gibraltar.
  On the outbreak of war in September 1939 there had only been two batteries (9 and 19 AA Btys)  manning the totally inadequate AA defences of Gibraltar, which consisted of four old 3-inch guns and four new 3.7-inch guns, spread in two-gun sections to give the widest possible coverage, and two of the new Bofors 40 mm guns to protect the Royal Navy Dockyard, with the assistance of Royal Navy (RN) 2-pounder pom-pom guns. 10th AA Rgt was formed in December 1939 to command 9 and 19 AA Btys and train the AA Section of the new Gibraltar Defence Force (GDF), which took over the 3-inch guns. Apart from occasional shots fired at unidentified aircraft penetrating Gibraltar's airspace, there were no attacks on the fortress during the 'Phoney war' period.
  After the Fall of France, a group of AA detachments under 53rd (City of London) AA Rgt escaped from Marseilles aboard the SS Alma Dawson. A French dockyard strike prevented them from loading any of their 3-inch guns or vehicles, but they mounted Bofors guns on the ship's deck and put to sea on 18 June. On arrival in Gibraltar they reinforced 10th AA Rgt. 82nd (Essex) AA Regiment arrived on 27 June, and once it had unloaded its guns and equipment 53rd AA Rgt re-embarked for home.
  There followed a reorganisation of the AA units in Gibraltar: 19 AA Bty joined 82nd AA Rgt, together with the GDF HAA battery, while 9 AA Bty took over all the Bofors guns. A searchlight battery arrived, and an AA Operations Room (AAOR) was established to control all the gunsites and to coordinate with AA-equipped ships in the harbour. 10th AA Rgt HQ was ordered to be transferred to Malta in July, but this did not occur until November when, as part of Operation Coat, a reinforcement convoy for Malta put in at Gibraltar and picked it up.
  The first serious air raid on Gibraltar came at 02.00 on 18 July, when two unidentified aircraft bombed the slopes of the Rock, causing some fatalities. The attack was thought to be by the Vichy French Air Force in retaliation for the British attack on the French fleet at Mers-el-Kebir on 3 July (Operation Catapult), which had been carried out by Force H from Gibraltar. On 21 August the AA defences brought down a Savoia-Marchetti SM.79 bomber during a raid by the Italian Regia Aeronautica. On 24 and 25 September waves of Vichy bombers attacked Gibraltar again in retaliation for the British and Free French attack on Dakar (Operation Menace), and caused considerable damage. Several of these bombers were shot down by the combined AA fire. On other occasions the guns fired at single Italian reconnaissance aircraft, known to the garrison as 'Persistent Percy'.
  A new 13th HAA Rgt HQ was formed in Gibraltar in March 1941 to replace the absent 10th and take over the newly-arrived 228 (Edinburgh) HAA Bty and the radar troop. Additional guns and GL radar sets arrived by May, and in September 1941 15 AA Bde HQ was formed to coordinate all AA defences and integrate them into the plans against invasion by sea or land. The revised layout could bring the fire of 20 HAA guns to bear on a target approaching at a speed of 240 mph from any direction at a typical height of 12,000 feet. Each AA gunsite was also given an Oerlikon 20 mm cannon for self-defence.
  During 1941 there were five air raids that were positively identified as Vichy French, another six were attributed to Italian aircraft. A total of nine 'kills' were claimed with one 'probable', though the Vichy and Italian HQs announced higher losses than these, so some aircraft probably crashed 
caption: Searchlights over Gibraltar during an air raid practice on 20 November 1942.
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