Col Mandeep Singh (retd)

The origin of Indian Anti-Aircraft artillery goes back about eight decades, to 1940, when a group of British officers and NCOs from the 8^th Heavy Anti-Aircraft Battery of Royal Artillery with a few selected VCOs of the Indian Artillery reported to the Gun Carriage Basin in Colaba, Bombay (now Mumbai) on 14 September 1940. They had been selected to establish the 1 Indian Technical Training Battery including the nucleus of the ‘R’ HAA Regiment; the first Anti-Aircraft unit of the Indian Army. From these modest beginnings, the Anti-Aircraft (AA Artillery) soon eclipsed its more senior cousins; the Field and Mountain Artillery and at one stage, India had more AA Regiments than any other theatre of operations barring the Great Britain.

The AA Regiments served in varied theatres during World War II, from Singapore in the Far East to Iraq in the Middle East. They had a chequered history, serving with honour in all theatres; and also suffered numerous losses but none of the AA Regiments had more tragic history than the first AA Regiment of India Artillery, the ‘R’ Heavy AA Regiment.

The Regiment had not even completed its raising when No 1 Heavy AA Battery was sent to defend the Digboi oilfields in Assam. Soon thereafter, the Regiment (less the No 1 Battery) sailed to Singapore in August 194