3rd and 5th Survey Regiments RA (TA)

In 1937, the 223rd (Field Artillery) Signals Section, Royal Signals (TA) was formed and after many alterations of role, became the 3rd Survey Regiment RA (TA) from which the 5th Survey Regiment RA (TA) was formed.

The Regimental HQ was in Charnwood House in Cotham (now part of the Bristol Grammar School). These units served throughout the Second World War. In 1947 both units amalgamated to form the 376 Observation Regiment RA (TA) a further change of title in 1959 saw this unit become the 883rd Locating Battery RA (TA), forming part of the Wessex Division HQRA. Source: Major J. Smith MBE TD RA (V)

Role of a Survey Regiment

Artillery survey has three main functions.

Survey Battery

The battery is responsible for the linking up of Divisional grids, checking and bringing up-to-date survey maps — three observer pairs. Also two troops, X and Y including further observer pairs to provide suitable surveyed reference points for use by the artillery for gun location, the latter taping and observing from the reference point (RO) with a simple short range theodolite called a Director.

Note All guns from the 25 pounder field guns up to the mediums and heavies have to be positioned on the Divisional grid within a accuracy of one metre.

Flash Spotting Battery

Location of hostile guns by means of observing muzzle flashes and with less degree of accuracy smoke and reflections. Two troops, A and B, each with HQ and observer pairs for setting up and manning two observer posts. Locations fixed by cross angles. Other activities along the front also to be fixed and reported. Flash spotting can also be used to range own guns onto target. As Flash Spotting depends on sight, distance is a limiting factor.

Sound Ranging Battery

a sensor post, consisting of at least a pair of microphones, to produce a bearing to the source of the sound. When using a number of sensor posts, the intersection of these bearings gives the location of the battery. The bearings are derived from the differences in the time of arrival at the microphones located in each of these sensor posts.

223rd (Field Artillery) Signals Section, Royal Signals (TA)

In 1920, the Royal Engineers Signal Service became the Royal Corps of Signals (RCS). The 43rd (Wessex) Divisional Signals reformed at The Priory, The Friars, Exeter, in the Territorial Army (TA), which replaced the TF in 1921. The unit was commanded by Major (later Lt-Col) Godwin Michelmore, and recruited from the West Country.

It administered a number of other TA signal units, among them was 223rd Field Artillery Signal Section at 2 Redcliffe Parade, Bedminster, Bristol, which was formed in 1937.

3 Survey Regiment RA (TA)

The War Office decided in the early 1930s to establish Survey Sections in the TA, and Bristol was chosen as the first new unit, formed by disbanding the Field Artillery 223rd Signal Section in 1934, and then reforming it as the 3rd Survey Section, under the command of the Capt. E. R. C. Ames MBE TD. The unit was expanded first as a Survey Company in 1936, with Captain Beattie as its first Adjutant, to a Survey Battery in 1938, and finally as a full Regiment, 3 Survey Regiment RA (TA) in November 1938,

Major L. J. Bell became a battery commander, and Captain J. B. Dobson the adjutant until early 1945. During WWII, the Regiment served in France, North Africa and Italy. The Regiment went into suspended animation in May 1946, and was re-constituted as 376 Observation Regiment RA (TA) in January 1947.

Its commanding officers were Lieutenant-Colonels, E. R. C. Ames MBE, TD; J. O. M. Ashley; and finally Derek A. Hall-Dare.

Bristol 1938
France 1940 - 3 Corps Troops
UK 1940-2 - 3 Corps Troops
Egypt 1943 - GHQ Troops
Sicily - 1943 - 6 AGRA
Italy 1943-5 - 13 Corps Troops

Bombardier R N. Long was captured in Italy in November 1943 and spent the rest of the War in Stalag 4B at Muhlberg on the Elbe.

5 Survey Regiment RA (TA)

5 Survey Regiment RA (TA) was formed as a duplicate of 3 Survey Regiment RA (TA) on 1 July 1939, under the command of Lieutenant Colonel O. D. Kendall, a geography lecturer at Bristol University, who ran the University Officer Training Corps (OTC). During WWII, the Regiment served in Tunisia, North Africa and Italy. The Regiment went into suspended animation in February 1946. 5 Survey Regiment RA (TA) was disbanded in January 1947.

Its commanding officers were Lieutenant-Colonels, O. B. Kendall, E. A. Oldfield, and finally A. Wedgewood.

UK 1940-2 - 5 Corps Troops
Tunisia 1943 - 5 Corps Troops
Italy 1943-5 - 5 Corps Troops

John Savage was a member of 5 Survey Regiment and wrote:

The Savages are a family with a long military tradition that can be dated back to the Battle of Crecy. My father served in a mounted regiment in Baghdad and Africa during WW1. When I saw, during 1937, my last year at Grammar School in Bristol, that war was definitely coming I was determined to join up and do my duty too. I really wanted to join the Somerset Yeomanry, a mounted regiment, because I was a horseman as my father and grandfather had been. They were so popular however, that their books were closed to new recruits. Instead I volunteered for the 5th Survey Regiment, Royal Artillery.

The 5th Survey Regt was mainly made up from local government officers, men who were used to wearing ties. We were ‘soldier scientists’ and our job was mapping and locating the enemy guns on the French Coast by sight and sound. We moved up and down the South Coast of England in 15 cwt lorries, and often came under heavy fire from bombing raids. As they fell from the planes, the bombs would wobble in the air. Those summers were beautifully hot and sunny, but the glorious views faded away when we pulled into the nearby airfields and saw what a mess these raids had made.

Lieutenant G. G. Scarrott within twelve months had been posted to Larkhill, where he spent the War in the experimental section of the School of Survev aa part of a team under Major R. Tanner at St Joan a Gore Farm near West Lavington designing and testing modified versions of the Sound Ranginf recorders from which emerged the compact portable Mark IV recorders, used later in the war.

3 and 5 Survey Regiment RA (TA)

These two Bristol TA units together were to be awarded 2 OBEs (Lt Cols D. A. Hall-Dare and A. Wedgewood), 6 MCs (three for each regiment - the first awarded to Lt H. "Tubby" Walters of 5th while attached to 1st Survey in BEF for his drive as ESO in bringing home so many souls from Dunkirk in 1940, and the last awarded to Captain G. W. Cissold [?] the last Adjt of 3rd, for his Flash Spotting (FS) work while under fire in the Italian Apennine mountains in 1944, 5 MBEs (two and three), 4 MMs (one and three), 9 Mentioned in Despatches (two and seven ), 1 BEM (Sgt. A. F1elds, 3rd Survey), 1 US Silver and 1 US Bronze Star (Sgt J. M. Sutton and Bdr. H. R. Watts, 3rd Survey), and 1 Croix de Guerre withGold Star (Major W. H. Stair).

Sources and Resources

Derek Driscoll's original pages

3rd / 5th Survey Regiments
3rd / 5th Survey Regiments

Other References

3 Survey Regiment RA (TA) - The Royal Artillery 1939 - 1945
5th Survey Regiment RA - WW2Talk
5 Survey Regiment RA (TA) - The Royal Artillery 1939 - 1945
43rd (Wessex) Signal Regiment - Wikipedia
A Savage Does His Bit! - John Savage, BBC WW2 People's War
Artillery sound ranging - Wikipedia
British Artillery Fire Control - British Artillery in World War 2
Ken Randall - Sgt Royal Artillery - Second World War Experience Centre
Survey Regiment 1943 - British Artillery in World War 2
The Day the Music Died: The Life & Death of the two Bristol Survey Regiments, RA (TA) by Massimo Mangilli Climpson, 2001, The Journal of the Royal Artillery
The Survey Course - Larkhill - Army School of Survey - by Richard Cory, BBC WW2 People's War
When another Guinness is not good for you: The Highs & Lows Moving in and out, and around Survey regiments by Massimo Mangilli Climpson, 2002