The 10th Anti-Aircraft Division (10th AA Division) was an air defence formation of the British Army during the early years of the Second World War. It defended Yorkshire and Northern Lincolnshire during The Blitz and the Baedeker Blitz but only had a short career.
Mobilisation
The 10th Anti-Aircraft Division was one of five new divisions created on 1 November 1940 by Anti-Aircraft Command to control the expanding anti-aircraft (AA) defences of the United Kingdom. The division was formed by taking the two southern brigade areas (31st and 39th) from the existing 7th AA Division in North East England, together with a newly formed brigade (62nd brigade), and giving it responsibility for the air defence of East and West Yorkshire and the Humber Estuary.
The divisional headquarters (HQ) was at York and the first General Officer Commanding (GOC), appointed on 14 November 1940, was Major-General Langley Browning, who had been Commander, Royal Artillery, at 4th Infantry Division. The 10th AA Division formed part of II AA Corps.
The Blitz
The division's fighting units, organised into three AA Brigades, consisted of Heavy Anti-Aircraft (HAA) and Light Anti-Aircraft (LAA) gun regiments and Searchlight (S/L) regiments of the Royal Artillery. The HAA guns were concentrated in the Gun Defence Areas (GDAs) at Hull, Leeds and Sheffield. The LAA units were distributed to defend Vulnerable Points (VPs) such as factories and airfields, while the S/L detachments were disposed in clusters of three, spaced apart.
At the time the 10th AA Division was created, the industrial towns of the UK were under regular attack by night, to which the limited AA defences replied as best they could. West Yorkshire, despite its important industrial facilities, steelworks, aircraft and ordnance factories, was at a considerable distance from the Luftwaffes bases and was less often raided than coastal targets and The Midlands. Nevertheless, in the 10th AA Division's area, Sheffield was badly bombed on 12 and 15 December 1940 (the Sheffield Blitz), Leeds on 14 March 1941 (the Leeds Blitz), Hull on 18 March (the Hull Blitz) and on 7 and 8 May, when Sheffield was also hit again.
There were still too few AA guns for the tasks set them, and in March 1941 AA Command was obliged to shift some HAA guns from Sheffield to Liverpool, which was under much heavier attack. The position on LAA gun sites was worse: only small numbers of Bofors 40 mm guns were available at the start of the Blitz, and most LAA detachments had to make do with Light machine guns (LMGs).
Order of Battle 1940–41
The division's composition during the Blitz was as follows:
31st (North Midland) AA Brigade – HQ York: responsible for West Yorkshire
87th HAA Rgt – joined by May 1941
38th LAA Rgt (part) – to the 2nd AA Division by May 1941
71st LAA Rgt
43rd (Duke of Wellington's) S/L Rgt
49th (West Yorkshire Regiment) S/L Rgt
54th (Durham Light Infantry) S/L Rgt
39th AA Brigade – HQ RAF Digby: responsible for airfields and the Humber Estuary
62nd (Northumbrian) HAA Rgt
91st HAA Rgt
39th LAA Rgt
40th (Sherwood Foresters) S/L Rgt
46th (Lincolnshire Regiment) S/L Rgt – to the 7th AA Division by May 1941
84th S/L Rgt
62nd AA Brigade – responsible for Leeds and Sheffield
75th (Home Counties) (Cinque Ports) HAA Rgt
96th HAA Rgt
117th HAA Rgt – new regiment formed in December 1940
59th LAA Rgt – new regiment formed in October 1940
2nd AA 'Z' Regiment – new divisional unit equipped with Z Battery rocket launchers, formed in September 1940 10th AA Divisional Signals, Royal Corps of Signals (RCS) – formed at York November 1940 10th AA Divisional Royal Army Service Corps (RASC) 914th Company – to the 9th AA Division May 1941 926th and 930th Companies 10th AA Divisional Company, Royal Army Medical Corps (RAMC) 10th AA Divisional Workshop Company, Royal Army Ordnance Corps (RAOC)
Mid-War
Even when the main Blitz ended in May 1941, Hull was an easy target for inexperienced Luftwaffe crews and was frequently bombed and Parachute mines dropped in the Humber Estuary. A special S/L 'Dazzle Barrage' installed at Hull foiled at least one attack, in August 1941. The other gaps in AA defences were filled as more equipment and units became available. Searchlights, now assisted by Searchlight Control (SLC) radar, were reorganised, with a 'Killer Belt' surrounding the Hull GDA to cooperate closely with RAF Night fighters. The HAA and support units increasingly became 'Mixed', indicating that women of the Auxiliary Territorial Service (ATS) were fully integrated into them.