253
a quick sweep of the area then douse. 'Douse lights' was the official term used when passing an order. Coast artillery searchlights could not be used in an anti-aircraft role as they had very little elevation.
The Bluff Head Battery
The Bluff Head Battery was set up as an improvised emergency battery sometime after 1938 in the event of war. Although no two batteries were exactly alike they all conformed to a general pattern. A typical emergency coastal battery, such as that set up on the Bluff, would consist of two guns either fitted with their own gun shields or mounted in temporary steel framed casemates covered with sandbags which would later be rebuilt in brick or concrete, with sunken expense magazines or shell stores and air-raid shelters or dugouts for the gunners between them. There would be two searchlight emplacements, one on each flank of the battery, so that the guns could be used at night. A battery observation post equipped with range finder, predictor, and fire-control equipment would be sited behind the guns, if possible on higher ground, otherwise in a two or three storey tower, or in a convenient nearby building.
The battery would have been surrounded by barbed wire entanglements, and protected by infantry defences such as pillboxes, sandbagged machine-gun emplacements, and slit-trenches. The searchlights were housed in small brick or concrete shelters protected by steel shutters, each searchlight powered by its own diesel-engined generator housed in a small engine room at the rear of the shelter. Alternatively wet cell accumulator batteries in series could be used and probably were at Stanley, as a number of carbon rods, which were a component of this type of battery, have been found discarded in old bunkers and several old battery charging rooms have also been found. Emergency sandbagged searchlight emplacements could also be set up quickly if required.
Other Gun Emplacements
A mobile anti-aircraft battery, 18th AA Bty, 5th AA Regt RA, is known to have been captured at Stanley on 25 Dec 1941. An AA position is shown on old wartime maps on the spur above Tai Tam Tau,
253
a quick sweep of the area then douse. 'Douse lights' was the official term used when passing an order. Coast artillery searchlights could not be used in an anti-aircraft role as they had very little elevation.
The Bluff Head Battery
The Bluff Head Battery was set up as an improvised emergency battery sometime after 1938 in the event of war. Although no two batteries were exactly alike they all conformed to a general pattern. A typical emergency coastal battery, such as that set up on the Bluff, would consist of two guns either fitted with their own gun shields or mounted in temporary steel framed casemates covered with sandbags which would later be rebuilt in brick or concrete, with sunken expense magazines or shell stores and air-raid shelters or dugouts for the gun- ners between then. There would be two searchlight emplacements, one on each flank of the battery, so that the guns could be used at night. A battery observation post equipped with range finder, predictor, and fire-control equipment would be sited behind the guns, if possible on higher ground, otherwise in a two or three storey tower, or in a conve- nient nearby building.
The battery would have been surrounded by barbed wire entanglements, and protected by infantry defences such as pillboxes, sandbagged machine-gun emplacements, and slit-trenches. The search- lights were housed in small brick or concrete shelters protected by steel shutters, each searchlight powered by its own diesel-engined generator housed in a small engine room at the rear of the shelter. Alternatively wet cell accumulator batteries in series could be used and probably were at Stanley, as a number of carbon rods, which were a component of this type of battery, have been found discarded in old bunkers and several old battery charging rooms have also been found. Emergency sandbagged searchlight emplacements could also be set up quickly if required.
Other Gun Emplacements
A mobile anti-aircraft battery, 18th AA Bty, 5th AA Regt RA, is known to have been captured at Stanley on 25 Dec 1941. An AA posi- tion is shown on old wartime maps on the spur above Tai Tam Tau,
No comments yet.
Private notes are available after approval.