His second in command, Brevet Major Shadwell M. Grylls, was also a half-pay RA officer, while the adjutant, Captain Robert Edyvean, had previously been in the Royal Cornwall and Devon Miners Artillery Militia.

[36] By October 1914, the campaign on the Western Front was bogging down into Trench warfare and there was an urgent need for batteries of Heavy and Siege artillery to be sent to France.

[9][18][38][34] Although coast defence companies never left the UK, they did supply drafts of trained gunners to RGA units serving overseas.

It then joined the detachment at Lindi where it adapted Flat wagons so that a howitzer and its limber could be moved along the German light railway, hauled by local porters.

[48][59] The Lindi Column began probing forward in August, with the battery's howitzer shelling Tandimuti Hill in conjunction with Royal Navy monitors firing from offshore.

From 5 October the battery bombarded the high ground across the Nyengedi River, exchanging fire with a German gun, until the column obtained a bridgehead.

Meanwhile, on 10 August a cadre of three officers and 78 other ranks( ORs) – the establishment of a TF garrison company – from the Cornwall RGA, led by Captain A.W.

Gill, officer commanding (OC) No 7 Co at Truro, travelled from Falmouth to the RGA camp at Lydd, where they were joined by the Tynemouth contingent on 16 August.

The Battles of the Menin Road, Polygon Wood and Broodseinde were highly successful because of the weight of artillery brought to bear on German positions.

As the infantry battle moved closer, 19th Bde was ordered to pull back, and 46th Siege Bty gave up its positions to another battery, parking its 9.2-inch howitzers behind Arras.

[73][83][107][108][109] At 07.28 on Z Day (1 July), two minutes before H Hour, the heavy howitzers lifted onto their targets in the German support and reserve lines as the infantry got out of their forward trenches and advanced towards Gommecourt.

But they were hit by enfilade fire and unsuppressed German artillery prevented the follow-up waves and ammunition carrying parties from crossing No man's land.

[78][117][118][119] On 29 September Fourth Army's IX Corps carried out an assault crossing of the St Quentin Canal, with 69th Bde in support.

[126] As the regimental historian relates, "The guns of Fourth Army demonstrated, on 23rd October, the crushing effect of well co-ordinated massed artillery.

[38] 173rd Siege Battery was formed at Falmouth under Army Council Instruction 1239 of 21 June 1916, based upon a cadre of 3 officers and 78 other ranks drawn from the Cornwall RGA.

[140][141] On 30 November the Germans put in a heavy counter-attack against the weakened troops in the ill-organised captured positions, and Third Army had to scramble to set up a defensible line for the winter.

[83][144] Third Army joined in the victorious Hundred Days Offensive with a succession of advances,[83][145][146] culminating in the assault crossing of the Selle on 20 October.

[164] The batteries' duties usually consisted of firing warning shots across the bows (or illuminating with searchlights) when vessels approached the harbour without showing the proper recognition signals.

When the Phoney War ended and the British Expeditionary Force was being evacuated from Dunkirk, all training was suspended and the gunners worked to complete the defences.

The harbour was crowded with 157 ships carrying refugees from the Continent; the regiment found that a Boys anti-tank rifle salvaged from Dunkirk was an economical gun to fire warning shots to control these vessels.

[164] After the Dunkirk evacuation a number of emergency batteries of ex-Royal Navy guns were ordered for the Cornish ports, including two 4.7-inch guns at Fowey, where a draft arrived to form a new 364 Coast Bty under training by the Cornwall Heavy Rgt (this later joined a new 557th Coast Rgt based at St Austell).

Other emergency coastal batteries at Looe, Par, Penzance, and Newquay (each of two 4-inch Mk VII guns) were manned by the newly formed 70th Medium Rgt, which established its HQ at Falmouth.

There was considerable Luftwaffe activity over Falmouth during the summer and autumn of 1940, mostly dropping Parachute mines near the harbour, bur also some bombing raids.

[171][172][173][174][175][176][177][178] At 15.09 on 10 August 1942 the battery was ordered to 'Stand To', and at 15.40 a submarine was forced to the surface by depth charges dropped by the armed trawler HMT Islay.

[175] The submarine was the Italian boat Scirè, which had successfully launched manned torpedo attacks against British ships in harbour at Gibraltar and Alexandria, and was attempting to do the same at Haifa.

During November 1943 the regiment lost a large number of men to other RA branches, to the infantry, to the navy and to coal mining, reducing its strength from around 600 to around 425 by the end of the year, and 108 Bty became non-operational.

[184] By March 1944 the old 75mm mobile guns were withdrawn, but on two occasions that month 216 Bty engaged hostile surface vessels using radar for range finding.

Despite this E-boat activity the coastal artillery branch continued to shrink, a number of officers and other ranks being transferred in from disbanded units, and on 1 April three further batteries (212, 379 and 393) were regimented with 523rd Coast Rgt.

In November 390 and 392 Btys became non-operational, then in January 1945 most of the gun positions were reduced to 'care and maintenance' and 130 other ranks were posted to 618th (Dorsetshire) Infantry Regiment, RA, formed for garrison duties.

[193][194][195][196] The original dress of the 3rd Cornwall AVC at Fowey was a long knitted blue fisherman's jersey with the collar, cuffs and bottom edge braided in red.