The 110th Light Anti-Aircraft Regiment, Royal Artillery, (110th LAA Rgt) was an air defence unit of the British Army during World War II.

It served with 43rd (Wessex) Infantry Division in Normandy (Operation Overlord) and through the campaign in North West Europe until VE Day.

[6][7][8] 43rd (W) Division was stationed in Kent at this time, and as part of XII Corps was training hard for eventual deployment overseas.

[3][11][12] Tactically, 110th LAA Rgt was usually distributed with one SP troop attached to each of the infantry brigade groups:[13] 43rd (W) Division moved into its concentration area in Sussex round Battle, Hastings and Rye by 6 April.

LAA units fired tracer to guide night attacks onto their objectives, and the Bofors guns were much in demand for infantry support.

[19] The division's first major offensive action of its own was Operation Jupiter, to take Hill 112, which had been briefly captured by British armour during 'Epsom' but had to be abandoned.

It was supposed to break through and seize bridgeheads over the River Orne, but the massive barrage stunned but failed to suppress the defenders from 10th SS Panzer Division.

The DCLI held out through the night but by mid-afternoon on 11 July all the anti-tank guns on the hill had been knocked out, the tanks had to retire to the reverse slope, and the defence was almost over.

[21][22][23][24] After a short rest 43rd (W) Division moved to XXX Corps to launch an attack towards the dominating height of Mont Pinçon as part of Operation Bluecoat.

[32][33][a] The breakout achieved, XXX Corps drove flat out for the River Seine (Operation Loopy), with 43rd (W) Division sent ahead to make an assault crossing at Vernon.

The Luftwaffe had been unable to intervene, having suffered a heavy defeat at the end of the Normandy campaign and been forced to reposition to airfields further back.

The first elements moved up to Brussels to protect headquarters, then the division concentrated at Diest to take part in Operation Market Garden, beginning on 17 September.

[43][44][45][46][47] In the aftermath of Market Garden, 43rd (W) Division was stationed on 'The Island' (between the Rivers Waal and Nederrijn), fighting off some serious counter-attacks in early October.

Further back the vital bridges at Nijmegen came under air attack, but their defence was handled by 100th AA Bde, while divisional LAA regiments protected their own field gun positions.

[48][49] 43rd (W) Division was relieved on 10 November and then shifted east with XXX Corps to cooperate with the Ninth US Army by capturing the Geilenkirchen salient in Operation Clipper.

By 22 November any further advance was impossible due to the waterlogged state of the country, which then had to be defended in conditions resembling the worst of the Western Front in World War I.

When the Luftwaffe launched its Operation Bodenplatte against Allied airfields on 1 January 1945, GHQ AA Troops for 21st Army Group reported that '40 mm LAA had the time of its life'.

This was also launched before dawn on 8 February with a massive bombardment: 'The night was lit by flashes of every colour and the tracer of the Bofors guns weaved patterns in the sky.

The advance began on 30 March: after initial traffic jams, the groups either overcame or bypassed German rearguards and Lochem was liberated on 1–2 April.

[72] The pursuit continued through April and ended with the division's capture of Bremen against spasmodic opposition and XXX Corps' drive into the Cuxhaven peninsula.

The number of Luftwaffe attacks on the advancing divisions peaked in the last week of the war before the German surrender at Lüneburg Heath came on 4 May.