page_title: Liverpool Rifles
section_title: Blitz and Orkneys
hierarchical_section_title: Liverpool Rifles / Second World War / Blitz and Orkneys
caption_attribution_description: English: Radar and Electronic Warfare 1939-1945 Aircraft Navigation and Guidance: MPs visiting No 554 Anti Aircraft Battery near Harwich watching a demonstration of a searchlight with radar equipment known as ELSIE - 90 cm Searchlight Control Radar (SLC) No 2 Mk VI - which entered service in 1942 and was of immense assistance to anti-aircraft when used against the flying bomb attacks of 1944.
context_page_description: The Liverpool Rifles was a unit of the Territorial Army, part of the British Army, formed in Lancashire as a 'Rifle Volunteer Corps' in 1859, becoming a battalion of the King's Regiment in 1881. It saw action on the Western Front in the First World War and later became a searchlight unit of the Royal Artillery in the Second World War.
context_section_description: The regiment served througth the early part of The Blitz in the autumn of 1940. By now the regiment was back in  2 AA Division, split between 32 AA Bde covering the East Midlands and 50th AA Bde based at Derby. Then, while 352 S/L Bty remained attached to 2nd AA Division, the rest of the regiment went to Orkney, where it joined 59th AA Bde in the Orkney and Shetland Defences (OSDEF), protecting the Home Fleet's base at Scapa Flow.
  Meanwhile, in the Midlands where 352 S/L Bty was deployed, the searchlight layout was reorganised in 1941, so that any hostile raid approaching the Gun Defended Areas (GDA) around the towns must cross more than one searchlight belt, and then within the GDAs the concentration of lights was increased. Increasing numbers of Searchlight Control (SLC) radar sets also became available.
  The regiment returned to the mainland UK by mid-November 1941 and was reunited with 352 S/L Bty in 68th AA Bde in 11th AA Division (later 4 AA Group) covering the West Midlands. It remained here for over two years.
caption: Demonstration of No 2 Mk VI SLC ('Elsie')
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