Chotie goes to Bristol

On 6^th April 1943 Chotie moved to

Markham Camp, Easton-in-Gordano, Bristol.

She was now in ‘B’ troop of the 462 Heavy (M*) Anti-Aircraft Battery of the

Royal Artillery. 

 

(Chotie is wearing the ATS field cap, which could be purchased privately to wear with service dress and the white gunner's lanyard of the Royal Artillery.)

 

“After all the training I moved to Bristol, to a gun site Ack Ack to perform as a fully-fledged radar operator.  When the guns first went off I was off duty and in bed. So terrified I jumped into the next bed to hug the girl there.  She was also terrified.  I made some good friends, especially Nan from Yorkshire, she was a sweet girl.” (From ‘Chotie’s Story’.)

 

Nan from Yorkshire.

Bristol had 'Z' batteries among its anti-aircraft defences at Easton-in-Gordano.  These fired short-range rockets so it may have been the noise from these that Chotie found so disturbing.  Perhaps she need not have feared.  W.E.Clark recalls manning the guns at Portbury (next to Gordano) almost every night but although “planes going to many other places tended to follow the river” (i.e. the Severn Estuary) the city of Bristol was completely free from attack during 1943.

Gordano is mentioned as among the group of Heavy Anti-aircraft gun emplacements defending Bristol and the Severn Estuary on the citation for the protected remains of the anti-aircraft battery at Holes Mouth with the nearby Portbury Heavy Anti-Aircraft Battery.  There is still an aerial view of the Bristol B1 3 Gordano-Happerton Farm battery on Google Maps.

*The M stood for 'Mixed'.  The Royal Artillery Regiments were divided into Batteries which were termed 'Mixed' when A.T.S. members were attached to them. There were two Batteries to a Regiment and they were located at bases all over the country. (See also 'Whose Finger on the Trigger'.)

 

 

7th April 1943 – the British 8^th Army (Montgomery’s battle hardened troops from Egypt) and the Allied 1^st Army of American, British and Vichy French forces from Operation Torch in West Africa meet up in Tunisia.

Hitler begins a series of pep talks – first with Mussolini, to keep Italy in the war, and then with the leaders of Vichy France, Norway, Bulgaria, Hungary, Romania, Slovakia and Croatia. (From  WW2-net Timelines.)