Moonlight Batteries, Royal Artillery
Navies were the first military forces to adopt the newly developed electric Arc lamp Searchlights (S/Ls) in the later 19th Century, to illuminate potential targets at night.
Before the Bombardment of Alexandria in 1882, the Royal Navy force employed its searchlights to prove that Ahmed ‘Urabi's troops were strengthening the fortifications at night in defiance of the British ultimatum.
[3][4][5] After the onset of trench warfare in World War I, the Tyne Electrical Engineers provided detachments to operate oxy-acetylene S/Ls in forward areas to assist in night defence, but these proved a failure.
[14] By the time of Operation Overlord and the Normandy campaign in the summer of 1944 the Luftwaffe was greatly weakened, and the use of radar by AA guns and night-fighters was widespread, so the S/L units in 21st Army Group were under-employed.
[15] By late August, as 21st Army Group broke out of the beachhead, enemy night air raids were rare and 557th S/L Bty was used to provide floodlighting for round-the-clock bridge-building by the Royal Engineers; this soon became a routine task for S/L units.
[16] As the advance across France gathered momentum, newly arrived batteries of 41st and 42nd S/L Rgts found themselves providing security lighting for Prisoner of war (PoW) camps.
[18] On 9 July, 474 Bty sent six S/L detachments to provide artificial moonlight in the forward area for 43rd (Wessex) Division, which was moving up to its starting positions for Operation Jupiter.
[16][18][23] After 21st Army Group broke out of its Normandy beachhead, 557th S/L Bty went to Le Havre where it provided artificial moonlight for the attack by I Corps on the night of 10/11 September (Operation Astonia).
After a few nights providing movement light over canal and river bridges, XXX Corps sent C Troop to assist 84th US Division in its attack on Geilenkirchen as part of Operation Clipper.
As 84th Division's operation continued with the capture of Tripsrath, the lights attracted increasing amounts of enemy shellfire, causing minor casualties and damage.
On 24 November a US S/L unit arrived to be briefed on the artificial moonlight technique, and the following day C Troop left 84th US Division and rejoined 43rd (Wessex) to resume routine movement light duties.
[29] Early in 1945, in preparation for the forthcoming attack in the Klever Reichswald (Operation Veritable), 31st (North Midland) Anti-Aircraft Brigade HQ in Belgium carried out experiments to optimise artificial moonlight techniques to provide lighting for night movement of ground troops, for floodlighting their objectives and for dazzling the defenders.
[31] The units involved were apparently unaware of the existence of the Canal Defence Lights (CDLs), which had been designed earlier in the war to equip night fighting tank battalions both to illuminate and to dazzle the enemy.
For the attacks on the Siegfried line (Westwall) bunkers, which took place on the night of D/D +1, part of the Klever Reichswald was floodlit, and some S/L positions were sited with the intention of dazzling the defenders while lighting up the obstacles.
The whole battery, together with Horrocks and his Corps Commander Royal Artillery, resisted the transfer, and 356th M/L Bty continued planning for Plunder 'as if nothing had happened', while taking the precaution of refitting its lights with AA radar.
[43][44] 15th (Scottish) Division's experience of the Elbe crossing was described thus: After VE Day the moonlight batteries carried out various occupation duties in Germany until their turn for demobilisation came round.
It then employed the artificial moonlight technique with its S/Ls to allow round-the-clock working to repair the damaged sea defences, calling in additional lights from TA units across the North and Midlands.
When the TA was converted into the smaller TAVR in 1967, 873 Sqn was reduced to Battery HQ and one Troop – the only dedicated searchlight unit remaining, not only in the British Army but the whole of NATO.
