Army·Technology obsolescence·In Memoriam
AAA Searchlight Battalion
Served: 1941–1945
Manned 60-inch carbon-arc anti-aircraft searchlights — sound-locator and later radar-cued — to illuminate Luftwaffe and IJN night bombers for AAA gunners.
The Story
A searchlight battery's secret weapon was the sound locator — four giant horns operated by men with headphones triangulating a bomber's engines by ear. By 1944 the SCR-268 radar replaced the horns. By 1945 the radar replaced the searchlight too. Three layers of technology compressed into one job, and the job evaporated.
Epitaph
“Listened. Lit. Lost.”
Sources
- CMH — Army Lineage Serieswww.history.army.mil