177th Field Regiment, Royal Artillery

The 177th Field Regiment was a unit of Britain's Royal Artillery (RA) during World War II. Originally formed to man beach defence batteries, it was later converted to field artillery. It served in Home Forces in the London defences, but saw no active service. It was converted to reform a unit of the Regular Army in 1944.

13th, 14th and 15th Defence Regiments

After the British Expeditionary Force was evacuated from Dunkirk and the United Kingdom was threatened with invasion, a crash programme of installing coastal artillery batteries was implemented in the summer of 1940.

Later, as the Home Defence strategy developed, the Royal Artillery formed a number of 'Defence Batteries' to deploy around the coastline for general beach defence. These were not part of the RA's Coast Artillery branch, nor were they included in the field forces under Commander-in-Chief, Home Forces, but equipped with whatever old guns were available they freed up scarce field artillery from static beach defence for the mobile counter-attack forces. Most of these batteries were formed on 1 September 1940, and they were grouped into regiments from 4 October, including:

13th Defence Regiment formed at Hightown, Lancashire

957 and 958 Defence Btys

14th Defence Regiment formed at Swansea, South Wales

959, 960 and 961 Defence Btys

15th Defence Regiment formed at Alcester, Warwickshire

962, 963, and 964 Defence Btys

In the spring of 1941, the defence regiments were reorganised: 13th and 15th Defence Rgts were disbanded on 8 and 9 April, and 959 Bty of 14th Defence Rgt on 12 April. 964 Defence Bty of 15th Rgt was transferred to 14th Defence Rgt, and 958 Bty of 13th Defence Rgt became an independent defence battery.

177th Field Regiment

By the beginning of 1942 the imminent threat of invasion had passed, the coast artillery batteries were fully established, and the RA required gunners for the field forces. The remaining Defence Regiments in the UK were disbanded or converted into field artillery.