Steven,
If you go to your local library or local authority archives they SHOULD have copies of your local paper going back to the year dot.
Not only will this record any bomb damage/attacks, but if you check the immediate prewar issues, they will usually give details of local ARP organisation and the location of air raid shelters, first aid posts etc.
If you ask your local authority archaeology officer, or planning department, they should have a hard copy of the Defence of Britain database for England and Wales. This will list ALL AA sites, gun operations rooms and decoy sites in your local area, as well as telling which AA Division the troops manning these gunsites belonged to. Later in the war, these sites were usually manned by Home Guard detachments who also manned sites called hedgehogs-batteries of UP launchers(Unrotated Projectile, or rockets to you and me)which were clustered in batteries of 64, and look like modern free range pig farms.I have a lot of data for AA regiments in Scotland, and also ROC organisation, but none for England.
You could try and get copy of The Defence of the United Kingdom by Basil Collier. If you can't get this through an inter-library loan, the IWM sell them.
For the record, I think you said you were in Cheshire, and I believe this came under the army's Western Command during the war. Not a lot of this command's records survive, but you might get lucky.
Hope this helps.
Regards,
Gordon
[ 27. January 2004, 03:02 PM: Message edited by: The_Historian ]
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