#M2/187784 Private Clarence Thompson Browne
81ST ANTI-AIRCRAFT SECTION, ARMY SERVICE CORPS
BORN AT LAKENHAM IN NORFOLK and raised by his unmarried mother, 21-year-old Clarence Browne lived in Norwich, where his mother’s new husband was a publican at The Princess of Wales on Bishopsgate Street. Earlier in the war Clarence had served with a territorial artillery outfit. When his term of service expired, he immediately re-enlisted in June 1916. A chauffeur in peacetime, his route to driver in the army was a logical one and, this time with the Army Service Corps, Clarence embarked for the Western Front again on 9th August 1916.
Along with the explosion of the use of aeroplanes in warfare came the idea of shooting them down from the ground. Anti-aircraft fire did not exist in Britain before the Great War. For the first months of the conflict, the army made do with little pom-pom guns, whose rounds did not even burst in the air, which meant only a direct hit was any use. Then came the Royal Horse Artillery’s 13-pounders, which were mounted on a motor chassis and fired explosives and shrapnel upwards. By January 1915 the authorities were convinced that this was an effective approach to the problem and mobile sections of two guns were implemented on a divisional basis. Shrapnel was good if it went off on top of the machine, but a high explosive shell could send jagged shards of hot metal flying fatally in all directions. It was also far more devastating for morale, for the sound of a shrapnel shell could be drowned out by a noisy aircraft engine, but there was no hiding from a high explosive detonation going off right next to you while you were in a highly flammable aeroplane. Anti-aircraft sections, such as the one Clarence Browne was on his way to join, helped to keep enemy airmen high up and away from its menace, complicating their work. It harassed them as they went about their business and also drew attention to them for the benefit of friendly pilots nearby. But most important of all was the fact that good ground defences reduced the demands made on the aeroplanes for protection of each other, and so released the rest of the RFC’s airborne resources to concern themselves with their urgent, primary duties.
Anti-aircraft guns in action on the Somme. (Authors’ collection)
There were never enough anti-aircraft sections. Despite the intention of having one per division, by summer 1915 there was not even one for every two. The Germans were proving far better at damaging aircraft from the ground. To rectify this, a new gun was introduced: a field gun bored out. Highly mobile when mounted on the back of lorries and other vehicles, they could fling shells 19,000ft into the air, high enough to hit most aircraft plying their trade on the Western Front. In 1916 this was gradually becoming the standard anti-aircraft gun on the Western Front.
By the beginning of the campaign on the Somme, the number of sections had improved greatly, but was still nowhere near what was needed. Haig calculated that he needed 112 guns. He had sixty-seven. The French also wanted the BEF to take a hand in protecting bases including Calais and Boulogne and this would impose an even greater strain on his anti-aircraft resources. By July he had built his stock to eighty guns plus reserves, plus a dozen of the old pom-poms. To highlight the shortage, on the night of 20th/21st July, several enemy aeroplanes bombed the great ammunition depot at Audruicq near Saint-Omer and destroyed much of what was stored there. At the time it was only protected by two anti-aircraft guns and two searchlights.
Eight guns were based at GHQ and eighty-seven among the four armies in the line, twenty-four of them with Rawlinson’s. At the onset of the Battle of Flers–Courcelette, Clarence Browne was driving a lorry bearing one of these guns behind the middle section of the Fourth Army, to the rear of the New Zealanders, as well as Reginald Legge and his tank. The section raced up and down its sector with Clarence at the wheel as enemy air activity built. Each comprised a four-gun battery, grouped together so that they might work tactically side by side and encourage better co-operation. One artillery officer referred to life with an anti-aircraft section as ‘disgustingly safe’, but they presented an attractive target for the enemy gunners if they could just range their guns correctly. On 20th September the German artillery scored a hit on 81st Section. Clarence Browne was mortally wounded; his body was devastated by shrapnel wounds and, although he was rushed to a dressing station at Dernancourt, he could not be saved. The 21 year old was laid to rest at Dartmoor Cemetery, plot II.A.94.