My grandfather Gnr William George Sutherland from Halkirk near Thurso in Caithness served in Burma with 226 heavy anti-aircraft Battery. I am looking for any info, pictures and links that anyone can provide, I have a personal account of the Caithness and Orkney Battery by Douglas Thompson and a roll of honour, short history and names and addresses of the men who served with 101 heavy AA reg, Any info related to their tours in Orkney, Uk and Burma would be very much appreciated. Kind regards Alasdair
Welcome to the mix, Alasdair... Barely Scot's you lot, much worse than my lot... Mind you, I take comfort in the thought that the only "two" parts of Britain that voted against the EC was the Outer Hebrides and Orkney/Shetland... I know very little about your own sphere of interest but I would be surprised if someone does not have something to post that might help with pointers... Obviously you will know the following link page but worthy of posting for anyone that does not know - but up anything of interest that you have: links etc... Orkney Image Library - 101st Heavy Anti-Aircraft Regiment One MM I can find on record... The National Archives | DocumentsOnline | Image Details Regards Ken
Welcome aboard Alasdair, From the National Archives, War Diary of 101 HAA for 1944, reference WO172/4699. Hope this will be of use. Steve
A picture I recently received of 226 H.A.A Battery Royal Artillery (101 regiment RA) who were consisted of mainly Orcadians and Caithnessians and intially tasked to Orkney to defend the naval site Scapa Flow. Im assuming this could be from training near Aberdeen as I don't think they have trees in Orkney or Caithness. Any further info welcome.
left - right is Gnr Willie Budge, Gnr Andrew/Sandy Coghill (Castletown), Bdr Archie Sinclair (Watten) Gnr Jimmy Sinclair (Spittal), Gnr Geordie Sinclair (Spittal), Gnr Benny Miller (Spittal) Taken onboard the St Ninian that ran troops too and from Orkney.
Many thanks to all for your info and tips, finding it all very interesting. I've definitely got myself addicted to researching the photographs and info on the Battery and Regiment.
Welcome to the mix, Alasdair... Barely Scot's you lot, much worse than my lot... Mind you, I take comfort in the thought that the only "two" parts of Britain that voted against the EC was the Outer Hebrides and Orkney/Shetland... I know very little about your own sphere of interest but I would be surprised if someone does not have something to post that might help with pointers... Obviously you will know the following link page but worthy of posting for anyone that does not know - but up anything of interest that you have: links etc... Orkney Image Library - 101st Heavy Anti-Aircraft Regiment One MM I can find on record... The National Archives | DocumentsOnline | Image Details Regards Ken Ha ha probably am closer to Norway than I am the borders, think you west coasters refer to us as Golachs, or at least I know the Cattachs do anyway!
Alasdair, I really like your first picture of 226 Battery. It's not often you see so many happy smiling faces in large group photos, they are usually rather formal portraits. I wonder if this was a later, more relaxed picture taken after the 'formal' photo.
Your right they are quite a cheery bunch in that pic, never really clocked that before, Im going to be discussing a few photos with someone with a lot more knowledge on the regiment but Ill be sure to ask what caused the smiley faces.
Could it be an amusing comment from the photographer or perhaps a ribald comment from the BSM? If you can condense the other photo you tried to post it would be interesting. Try cropping it in a photo editting programme and saving at lower resolution.
Merged threads & moved to Royal Artillery section of the forum. Think it'll be better to keep the info all in one place than spread out over different sections of the forum.
