page_title: 474th Searchlight Battery, Royal Artillery
section_title: Normandy
hierarchical_section_title: 474th Searchlight Battery, Royal Artillery / Normandy
caption_attribution_description: English: 90cm Projector Anti-Aircraft, British, c.1940. At Fort Nelson, Hampshire, England. Height: 2.6m (8'6") Weight: 662kg (1,460lb) Crew: 9 Luminosity: 2 billion candlepower Ceiling: 8km (5 miles)
context_page_description: 474th Searchlight Battery, Royal Artillery was a unit of the British Army during World War II. Originally raised as an anti-aircraft battery, in which role it served during the Battle of Britain and Blitz, it also provided artificial illumination, or 'Monty's Moonlight', for night operations by 21st Army Group during the campaign in North West Europe in 1944–45.
context_section_description: The battery's reconnaissance and assault groups embarked on 1 June, and the first part of C Troop disembarked on Juno Beach at 14.00 on D-Day (6 June). However, attempts to land four S/L lorries of C Troop later in the day led to three becoming submerged, and offloading of equipment did not restart until the following day at Juno and Sword Beaches, still under fire. By the end of D + 1 the battery had three lights in action against enemy raiders. It was under command of 80 AA Bde, initially responsible for covering 3rd Canadian Division at Juno and 3rd British Division at Sword, later extended to include the port of Ouistreham and the Orne and Caen canal bridges.
  Over succeeding days the battery brought more lights into action (16 by D + 4), but engagements were difficult because of the low cloud, the haphazard directions from which raiders approached, and their use of 'Window' to interfere with searchlight control (SLC) radar. The S/L sites were also subject to occasional shelling and bombing, causing some casualties. Nevertheless, the lights did assist the AA guns in the beachhead to destroy a number of bombers.
  From early July, the battery was regularly called upon to send detachments to provide 'artificial moonlight' for troops in forward areas. This was a new technique being developed to reflect light off the cloudbase to provide 'movement light' (also known as 'Monty's moonlight') in support of night operations. 344th and 356th Independent S/L Batteries pioneered this technique using their mobile 90 cm searchlights. It was first used operationally to assist the assembly of troops for Operation Greenline on the night of 14/15 July, when the drivers of 15th (Scottish) Division 'found the light a great help to them in finding their way up the pot-holed track through the blinding dust'.
caption: 90 cm Projector Anti-Aircraft, displayed at Fort Nelson, Portsmouth
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