130th (Lowland) Field Regiment was a Royal Artillery (RA) unit of Britain's part-time Territorial Army (TA) created just before World War II. It was formed from part of 79th (Lowland) Field Regiment, Royal Artillery, itself descended from the 1st Ayrshire and Galloway Artillery Volunteers, first raised in Scotland in 1859. After serving in home defence the new regiment was sent to India where it participated in the First and Second Arakan Offensives, and then in the Burma campaign (1944–1945). It was reformed in the postwar TA and continued in various roles until 1955.
Mobilisation
The TA was doubled in size after the Munich Crisis of 1938, and most regiments split to form duplicates. Part of the reorganisation was that field artillery regiments changed from four six-gun batteries to an establishment of two batteries, each of three four-gun troops. For the 79th (Lowland) Fd Rgt this resulted in the following organisation from 12 June 1939:
79th (Lowland) Field Regiment, Royal Artillery
Regimental Headquarters (RHQ) at Ayr
313 (Ayr) Field Bty
314 (Irvine) Field Bty
130th Field Regiment, Royal Artillery
RHQ at Kilmarnock
315 (Kirkcudbright) Field Bty
316 (Kilmarnock) Field Bty
On the outbreak of World War IIr in September 1939, 130th Field Regiment mobilised in 15th (Scottish) Infantry Division (the duplicate of the TA's established 52nd (Lowland) Infantry Division).
Home defence
Upon mobilisation, 15th (S) Division moved into the Scottish Borders to begin its training, with the artillery at Selkirk and Jedburgh. After three months it returned to winter quarters, which were chosen to meet the defence requirements of the Firth of Clyde and Firth of Forth: in the case of 130th (L) Fd Rgt, this was actually at its home base of Kilmarnock. The division marched out to the Borders to resume training in April 1940, with 130th (L) Fd Rgt at Stobs Camp, attached to 45th (Lowland) Brigade at Hawick. The division was now one of those assigned to the 'Julius Caesar' defence plan, even though it still had virtually no equipment.
At the beginning of May the division was suddenly ordered to vacate its camps, which were required to house the troops being evacuated from the failed Norwegian campaign. It moved south to the area of Wiltshire and Berkshire under Southern Command. The German invasion of the Low Countries followed on 10 May, and four days later 15th (S) Division began moving again, this time by successive brigade groups to take up defensive positions on the south-east Essex coast under Eastern Command. 45th Brigade and the divisional troops first moved to Hertford, then from 26 May the complete division was positioned along the Essex coast under the command of XI Corps. The divisional artillery had the task of covering the whole divisional front from Southend-on-Sea to Harwich () from static positions with a very small number of guns. On 31 May the three field artillery regiments between them had 6 x 18-pounder guns and 12 x 4.5-inch howitzers, all of World War I vintage. After the Dunkirk evacuation this was the front line of Britain's defences.
The division remained in its positions through the autumn and into the winter of 1940-–41. As the danger of invasion receded, training was stepped up with divisional exercises. In February 1941 the division moved north to take over defence of the Suffolk coast. One of the lessons learned from the Battle of France was that the two-battery organisation did not work: field regiments were intended to support an infantry brigade of three battalions. As a result, they were reorganised into three 8-gun batteries, but it was not until late 1940 that the RA had enough trained battery staffs to carry out the reorganisation.. The regiment formed its third battery, 494 Fd Bty, by March 1941. It was authorised to use its parent regiment's 'Lowland' subtitle on 17 February 1942. A few modern Mk II 25-pounder guns began to arrive after the move to Suffolk, but it was not until September 1941 that the field regiments each had their full complement of 24 of these guns.
In November 1941 15th (S) Division was moved to Northumberland under IX Corps, but was placed on a lower establishment, recognising that it was not going to be deployed overseas in the short term. Instead, it became a feeder of men and units for other formations. 130th (Lowland) Fd Rgt left the division on 4 January 1942 and sailed to India, which urgently required reinforcements following the Japanese invasion of Malaya.