458th (Kent) Light Antiaircraft Regiment

The IV Home Counties (Howitzer) Brigade, Royal Field Artillery was a new volunteer unit formed in Kent as part of the Territorial Force (TF) in 1908. It saw active service on the Western Front during World War I and was reconstituted as medium artillery in the interwar years. Later it converted to anti-aircraft artillery, in which role it served in The Blitz, North Africa and Italy during World War II and continued under various designations until its disbandment in 1969.

Origin
IV Home Counties Brigade was a volunteer unit of the Royal Field Artillery raised at Erith to provide Howitzer support to the TF's Home Counties Division. It had the following composition:


 * 4th Kent (Howitzer) Battery
 * 5th Kent (Howitzer) Battery
 * 4th Home Counties (Howitzer) Ammunition Column

World War I
On the outbreak of World War I, most of the Home Counties Division was sent to Gibraltar and India to relieve Regular troops for service in Europe. However, the howitzer brigade did not accompany the division; instead it was posted to the 27th Division forming at Winchester from these troops returned from India. The brigade (without guns) provided the Divisional Ammunition Column and embarked for France on 21 December 1914. During 1915 the 27th Division was engaged in the Battle of St Eloi (14–15 March) and the Second Battle of Ypres (22 April–25 May).

On 3 August 1914, TF units were authorised to raise 2nd Line units composed of men ineligible for overseas service and new recruits. Units forming the 2nd Home Counties Division (later numbered 67th) began to gather, and the 2nd/IV Home Counties Bde formed at Erith, though it had no guns or ammunition. However, in June 1915 the 1st/IV Home Counties Bde returned to England from France and joined the new division.

By the end of 1915 the 67th Division was still not fully trained or equipped, and on 22 December the 1st/IV Bde left the division to prepare for overseas service independently. The following day the 2nd/IV Bde joined the division, based at Seal, Kent. At the end of January 1916, the 1st/IV handed over its eight obsolete 5-inch howitzers to 2nd/IV, and received new 4.5-inch howitzers in their place. On 10 March it disembarked at Le Havre and joined the British Expeditionary Force's Fourth Army.

On 9 June 1916, the brigade joined 63rd (Royal Naval) Division, which had recently arrived in France from the Mediterranean and had no artillery. At the end of the month the brigade was renumbered as 223rd or CCXXIII (Howitzer) Brigade, Royal Field Artillery. The two batteries (1/4th Kent and 1/5th Kent) became A (H) Battery and B (H) Battery. However, they were immediately reassigned so that the rest of the divisional artillery brigades (from the disbanded 63rd (2nd Northumbrian) Division) each had a howitzer battery, while the brigade ammunition column was absorbed into 63rd Divisional Ammunition Column. A Battery went to CCCXVIII Bde, which adopted the number CCXXIII Bde. Henceforth the brigade comprised three six-gun 18-pounder batteries (A, B and C) from the North of England and D (H) Battery (formerly 1/4th Kent (H) Bty), which was later joined by half of 2/4th Durham (H) Bty to make it up to six guns. In this composite form the brigade served with 63rd Division for the rest of the war, participating in the final phase of the Battle of the Somme (November 1916), the Battle of Arras (April 1917), the final phases of the Battle of Passchendaele (November–December 1917), the German Spring Offensive (March–April 1918) and the final Hundred Days Offensive (August–November 1918).

In May 1916, 2nd/IV Home Counties Bde was numbered 338th or CCCXXXVIII (Howitzer) Brigade, Royal Field Artillery, but during the year it too was broken up, its two batteries being reassigned to CCCXXXV and CCCXXXVI (formerly 2nd/I and 2nd/II Home Counties) brigades. These brigades never went overseas but remained in the UK, supplying drafts to frontline units.

52nd (Kent) Medium Brigade, RGA
The 63rd Division was demobilised in early 1919 and CCXXIII Brigade went into suspended animation. With the re-estabishment of the Territorial Army in 1920, the unit was reconstituted as a medium artillery brigade in the Royal Garrison Artillery, initially numbered 13th, but soon designated 52nd (Kent) Medium Brigade, Royal Garrison Artillery with the following composition:


 * HQ at Erith
 * 205 (Chatham and Faversham) Medium Battery at Sittingbourne – formerly Home Counties (Kent) Royal Garrison Artillery
 * 206 (Erith) Medium Battery (Howitzer) – formerly 4th Kent Battery
 * 207 (Erith) Medium Battery (Howitzer) – formerly 5th Kent Battery
 * 208 (Bromley) Medium Battery (Howitzer) at Penge – formerly Kent Cyclist Battalion

In 1924 the Royal Garrison Artillery was subsumed into the Royal Artillery (RA).

58th (Kent) Anti-Aircraft Brigade, RA
In 1935, the unit was one of a number of medium artillery units selected for conversion to the Anti-Aircraft (AA) role as 58th (Kent) Anti-Aircraft Brigade, RA, and was assigned to 28th (Thames and Medway) Anti-Aircraft Group of 1st Anti-Aircraft Division. The following year, 205 Battery was transferred to the smaller 55th (Kent) Anti-Aircraft Brigade, RA based at Rochester. When the TA was augmented after the Munich Crisis of 1938, a new 264 Battery was raised within 58th AA Bde at Dartford. That year the RA redesignated its 'brigades' as 'regiment'.

In May 1939 a new 6th AA Division was formed within Anti-Aircraft Command for the air defence of the Thames Estuary, Kent and Essex, and the 28th (Thames and Medway) AA Brigade and its units transferred to the new formation. This organisation was in place when war broke out in September 1939.

World War II
In the summer of 1940, along with other AA units equipped with older 3-inch or newer 3.7-inch AA guns guns, the 58th was designated a Heavy AA Regiment. During the Blitz of 1940–41, the regiment was engaged in defending the Medway Towns against German bombers.

In November 1942 the regiment embarked for North Africa with First Army and served under it in the Tunisia Campaign. In September 1943 it joined Eighth Army and served in the Italian Campaign the until end of war. The regiment was placed in suspended animation on 1 December 1945.

Postwar
The regiment was reconstituted in the TA on 1 January 1947 as 458 (Kent) (Mixed) Heavy Anti-Aircraft Regiment, RA (TA) ('Mixed' indicating that it included members of the Women's Royal Army Corps). The regimental HQ was now at Sidcup, and it was attached to 54 AA Bde (the old 28th (Thames and Medway) AA Bde) until that formation was disbanded the following year.

AA Command was disbanded in 1955 and there was a considerable reduction in AA units: 458 HAA was amalgamated with 564 (Mixed) Light Anti-Aircraft/Searchlight Regiment and 608 (Kent) (Mixed) Heavy Anti-Aircraft Regiment to form a new 458 (Kent) Light Anti-Aircraft Regiment, RA (TA) with the following organisation:


 * RHQ Battery – from 608 Regiment
 * P Battery – from 458 Regiment
 * Q Battery – from 564 Regiment
 * R Battery – from 564 Regiment
 * S Battery – from 608 Regiment

In 1961, 458 Regiment (less one battery that merged into 211 Field Squadron Royal Engineers) amalgamated with 265 LAA and 570 LAA regiments, forming P (Kent) Battery in a new 265 LAA Regiment. Further reorganisation saw P (Kent) Battery, representing the whole of 265 Regiment, absorbed into a new London and Kent Regiment (TA), but when this was reduced to a cadre in 1969 the 4th Home Counties lineage disappeared.

Successor units still occupy Grove Park and Bexleyheath drill-halls, as 265 (Home Counties) Battery, 106th (Yeomanry) Regiment, Royal Artillery and 265 (Kent and County of London Yeomanry) Support Squadron, Royal Corps of Signals. Both units strive to continue and maintain the traditions and history of their predecessor Regiments.

Regimental silver is held in trust and displayed within The Army Reserve Centre, Baring Road, Grove Park, London SE12 0BH. This can be viewed at by prior appointment.

Honorary Colonels

 * Col W.C. Hale, OBE, MC, TD, appointed 4 August 1937

Online sources

 * British Army units from 1945 on
 * British Military History
 * Orders of Battle at Patriot Files
 * Land Forces of Britain, the Empire and Commonwealth (Regiments.org)
 * The Royal Artillery 1939–45