5th Searchlight Brigade (United Kingdom)
The 5th Anti-Aircraft Brigade was an air defence formation of the British Army during the Second World War. It was formed as a searchlight brigade to protect the British Expeditionary Force's bases just before the Battle of France. After the Dunkirk evacuation it was reformed as a conventional anti-aircraft (AA) brigade and served through the rest of the war in Anti-Aircraft Command, defending various parts of the United Kingdom against bombing raids and V-1 flying bombs. It continued to serve in the Regular Army during the early postwar years.
90 cm Searchlight of 10 S/L Bty, 3rd S/L Rgt, in France, May 1940.
British prisoners being marched away after the fall of Calais, 26 May 1940
3.7-inch gun preserved at Imperial War Museum Duxford.
150 cm Searchlight fitted with SLC radar.
2nd Anti-Aircraft Brigade (United Kingdom)
2nd Anti-Aircraft Brigade was an air defence formation of the British Army during the Second World War, seeing active service in the Battle of France and the North African and Italian campaigns.
3-inch AA guns of 2 AA Bty, 1st AA Rgt with the BEF in France, 19 October 1939.
3-inch AA guns abandoned on the seafront at Dunkirk 1940.
A 3.7-inch HAA gun in the Western Desert, 27 June 1941.
A Bofors crew watches the sky after a Stuka raid during Eighth Army's advance to Tripoli, 29 January 1943.
