German Experiment In Flying Searchlights

Northern Advocate, 28 May 1940, Page 4

German Experiment In Flying Searchlights

British pilots visiting Germany have commented on the contribution to the decorative scheme of the enemy’s air defences afforded by coloured searchlights. One theory is that orange or violet light penetrates clouds and mist more easily. Another, that it enables anti-aircraft gunners to identify friend and foe by painting their own aircraft in “sympathetic” colours. Now there is a suggestion that the German Air Force has been experimenting in a new direction—fitting searchlights into aircraft. The idea is that the crews of night bombei-s could thus see their objectives from the air, in spite of rigid black-out. Alternatively, with searchlights fitted to lighter craft, defending pilots would be able to pick up hostile bombers,

even though they were not detected and held by the ground defences. The idea of showing a powerful light from an .aircraft in action is in opposition to accepted tactics of air fighting. A first principle, applicable to fighter and bomber aircraft alike, is to remain unseen by the enemy as far as possible. The orthodox method of illuminating a target from the air is by dropping parachute flares, while fighter pilots engaging raiding bombers by night can rely on the co-ordin-ated searchlight defences to light-up their quarry. German ground searchlights have frequently been “doused” as a result of the fire of raiding British bombers, aiming their guns down the beam of light. And no German pilot is likely to relish advertising his exact location by shining a tell-tale searchlight in the presence of enemies, whether hidden in the darkness around him or on the ground below.