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.

[5][6] 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.

[8] On 11 February 1942 the regiment was assigned to 45th Infantry Division, which had recently been placed on a lower establishment as a home defence formation with no immediate prospect of overseas service.

This was an agglomeration of reserve formations and units including (unusually for an infantry division) both a heavy (171st) and a medium (56th (Highland)) artillery regiment.

It retained its heavy batteries (or what remained of them) and was joined at Bexhill by new 150 and 151 Field Btys reformed at Mundford in Norfolk on 12 May.