The 172nd Field Regiment was a unit of Britain's Royal Artillery (RA) during World War II. Originally formed to man beach defence batteries in Kent and Sussex, it was later converted to field artillery. It served in the Tunisian campaign, where one of its batteries was overrun and destroyed after an epic defence at Sidi Nisr. It took part in the Salerno landings and fought its way up the Italian peninsula, including the bitter fighting for the Gothic Line and the crossing of the Lamone. The regiment spent early 1945 on security duties in Greece, and ended the war in Austria. It was disbanded after the war.
3rd and 5th Defence Regiments
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.
Later, as the Home Defence strategy developed, the Royal Artillery formed a number of 'Defence Batteries' to deploy around the coastline for general beach defence. These were not part of the RA's Coast Artillery branch, nor were they included in the field forces under Commander-in-Chief, Home Forces, but equipped with whatever old guns were available they freed up scarce field artillery from static beach defence for the mobile counter-attack forces. Most of these batteries were formed on 1 September 1940, and they were grouped into regiments from 4 October. 3rd Defence Regiment was formed at Horsmonden in Kent, with 911, 912, 913 and 914 Defence Batteries. On 15 March 1941 911 Defence Bty was disbanded. 5th Defence Regiment was formed at Steyning in West Sussex, with 917, 918, and 919 Defence Batteries. On 15 March 1941 919 Defence Bty was disbanded.
172nd Field Regiment
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. The remaining Defence Regiments in the UK were disbanded or converted into field artillery. On 12 January 1942 3rd Defence Rgt at Hastings was converted into 172nd Field Regiment, and 912, 913 and 914 Defence Btys were designated A, B and C Btys. At the same time 5th Defence Rgt and its two remaining batteries were disbanded and their personnel posted to 172nd Field Rgt. A, B and C Btys were redesignated P, Q and R on 11 March. At this period the establishment of a field regiment was three batteries, each of two troops of four 25-pounder guns.
On 11 May 1942 the regiment was assigned to 46th Infantry Division. At the time the division was training with XII Corps in South-East England. However, in August 1942 it was transferred to First Army, which was preparing for the Allied landings in North Africa (Operation Torch).
On 1 January 1943 the regiment's batteries were numbered as 153, 154 and 155 Field Btys.
Tunisia
The Torch landings began on 8 November 1942, and First Army's units and formations were progressively fed into the fighting. 46th Division's 139th Brigade sailed on 24 December; the rest of the division embarked on 6 January 1943 and landed on 17 January, by which time the focus of the campaign was in Tunisia. By midnight on 13/14 February, the division was in the line, holding the sector nearest the coast. During the hurried reorganisation caused by the Battle of Kasserine Pass (19–24 February) the division's brigades were split up, each with its attached field regiment. When the Axis launched Operation Ochsenkopf towards Béja on 26 February 128th Brigade with 172nd Field Rgt and additional artillery support was attacked in the area of Hunt's Gap by commanded by Rudolf Lang. The fighting began at the patrol base of Sidi Nsir, north-east of Hunt's Gap, when Lang's Panzers fell on a detachment consisting of 5th Battalion Hampshire Regiment supported by 155 Field Bty. During the night, flares began to go up in the hills around Sidi Nsir, and at 06.30 German mortars began firing on the British guns. After 45 minutes German tanks drove down the road from Mateur and four of the 25-pdrs opened fire. No. 1 gun had been specially placed at the top of a slope to cover the approach from Mateur and fired over open sights. The leading German tanks ran onto mines, were damaged and withdrew with the infantry. At 11.00 the Germans made another attempt on the left flank, but F Troop opened fire and hit four German tanks, setting them ablaze. Around midday, the Germans prepared to attack again, but massed British artillery fire broke up the attack before it began.