[1] These small independent units were quickly organised into larger groupings, and the 1st Administrative Brigade of Kent Artillery Volunteers was formed on 15 August 1860.

[2][5][3][10][11][12] The Home Counties (Kent) Heavy Battery was based at Beaton Street, Faversham, with its ammunition column at Chatham.

[25] The battery supported 56th (1/1st London) Division in the Attack on the Gommecourt Salient on 1 July, the first day of the Battle of the Somme.

[26][27] Over the next two years, the 1/1st Kent Bty was moved from one Heavy Artillery Group (HAG) to another as circumstances demanded.

On 12 February 1917, the battery was joined by a section of 118th Heavy Bty RGA to make it up to a strength of six guns.

This was a regular unit formed at Woolwich shortly after the outbreak of war and had been in France with 4.7-inch guns since 6 November 1914.

[31][32][33] During the German Spring Offensive of March 1918, 92nd (M) Bde was sent from GHQ Reserve to reinforce the hard-pressed Third Army.

After refitting, the brigade remained with Third Army until the Armistice with Germany on 11 November 1918, having supported it in the Allies' victorious Hundred Days Offensive, including the battles of Albert, Bapaume, Cambrai and the Selle.

From November 1915 it formed part of Second Army, Central Force, quartered in Kent with 2/1st Bty at Ightham.

The Provisional Brigades' role thus expanded to include physical conditioning to render men fit for drafting overseas.

[44][43] This process meant a continual drain on the manpower of the defended ports units and in April 1917, the coastal defence companies of the RGA (TF) were reorganised.

[44][47] The battery was equipped with four modern 6-inch 26 cwt howitzers and was sent to the Macedonian front, arriving at Salonika on 20 August 1916.

[52][53] In 1926 it was decided that the coastal defences of Great Britain should be solely manned by part-time soldiers of the TA.

It then served with the Eighth Army in North Africa and Italy until it was placed in suspended animation in September 1944.

[62][63][64][65][66] In 1941, the regiment left AA Command and became part of the War Office Reserve before sailing for the Middle East.

[11][67][66][68] It took part in the Allied invasion of Sicily in 1943 and the subsequent Italian Campaign, where in the absence of air attacks it frequently engaged ground targets in a medium artillery role.

They were equipped with early warning radar to detect surface ships and low-flying aircraft, and were later placed in direct communication with the coast artillery plotting rooms.

[82] In the autumn of 1940, 520th Rgt was stationed at Landguard Fort at Harwich, but had returned to Dover Citadel by the end of 1941.

Prime Minister Winston Churchill ordered the emplacement of long-range guns and by September two long-range Counter Bombardment (CB) fire commands were being added to the harbour defences, manned by the Royal Artillery and Royal Marines.

[78][79] By 1942 the threat from German attack had diminished, the coast defences were seen as absorbing excessive manpower and there was demand for trained gunners for the fighting fronts.

[82] The manpower requirements for the Allied invasion of Normandy, Operation Overlord, led to further reductions in coast defences in April 1944.

By this stage of the war many of the coast battery positions were manned by Home Guard detachments or were in the hands of care and maintenance parties.