The Searchlight Image Gallery
(Postcards, Magazine Covers, Toys, Photos)

A sand-bagged 60-inch searchlight position somewhere in Australia. © Hulton-Deutsch Collection/CORBIS.

An American searchlight, 1937.

An Italian searchlight crew in the mountains, 1915. © Hulton-Deutsch Collection/CORBIS.

A British searchlight crew depicted on a late 1930s tobacco card.

Two American soldiers discover a wooden "searchlight" and the dummy figure of a Japanese soldier in Saipan in the Marianas of the Central Pacific, 1944. © Hulton-Deutsch Collection/CORBIS.

Searchlight beams dice the night during a training exercise.

A German searchlight crew is depicted on a Nazi postage stamp.

A 1940s wooden searchlight model kit.

A pre-war view of a 60-inch searchlight section (240th Coast Artillery). From left to right, a sound locator, the light, and the truck containing the power plant. (Click on the thumbnail to load a larger version of the image.) [ 26K JPEG file ]

A pre-war view of a 60-inch searchlight belonging the 240th Coast Artillery. The light was rated for over 1 million candlepower at 150 amperes and 78 volts. (Click on the thumbnail to load a larger version of the image.) [ 30K JPEG file ]

WW II German searchlight (or Flakscheinwerfer). (Click on the thumbnail to load a larger version of the image.) [ 18K JPEG file ]

An Artificial Moon. Pre-war General Electric advertisement. (Click on the thumbnail to load a larger version of the image, or click "Enlarge the Photo.") [ 42K JPEG file ]

Searchlights light the sky in this ad for Chevrolet antiaircraft guns.

This cover of Liberty features AAA guns and searchlights.

The eyes and ears of the Army. (Click on the thumbnail to load a larger version of the image, or click "Enlarge the Photo.") [ 39K JPEG file ]

Airplane listening post and giant searchlight (Click on the thumbnail to load a larger version of the image, or click "Enlarge the Photo.") [ 49K JPEG file ]

An AAA gun in action at night. (Click on the thumbnail to load a larger version of the image, or click "Enlarge the Photo.") [ 32K JPEG file ]

A 60-inch searchlight depicted on a stock postcard sold at scores of AAA training camps. (Click on the thumbnail to load a larger version of the image, or click "Enlarge the Photo.") [ 20K JPEG file ]

Bill Navey, a visitor to this site, pointed us to this painting, done by one of the leading artists at the time, Dean Cornwell. It was done for a General Motors advertisement in 1944. Bill was training with the 516th AAA Gun Battalion (120 mm guns) (they were redesignated the 97th AAA Gun Battalion before shipping overseas) at Camp Haan, California, and remembers when Cornwell came out and made pictures and sketches. He never heard anything later, and then discovered the image on the Internet. Bill says, "I am the gunner standing in the center." Interested readers can visit Bill's site to find out more about the guns and about the artist. Check out those searchlights criss-crossing the sky! (Click on the thumbnail to load a larger version of the image, or click "Enlarge the Photo.") [ 68K JPEG file ]

Reprinted from the April 1956 issue of National Geographic Magazine, click "Enlarge the Photo" (or click on the thumbnail above) to find out how WW II era searchlights were used in early satellite experimentation. [ 73K JPEG file, contributed by Jim Mulligan ]

An official U.S. Army postcard depicts a searchlight unit working with a sound locator. Click "Enlarge the Photo" (or click on the thumbnail above) for a larger version. [ 39K JPEG file, contributed by Jim Mulligan ]

The painting above is reprinted here courtesy of the U. S. Air Defense Artillery Command. It depicts a typical battery of 90-mm antiaircraft guns somewhere in Belgium during the autumn of 1944. The battery has engaged a V-1 flying bomb, the tight pattern of exploding shells probably due to the accurate gun control provided by the SCR-584 radar visible in the right background. U. S. AAA units downed 1,766 V-1s in the defense of Antwerp alone. Worth noting are the pyramid tents at left and two 60-inch searchlight units (one with generator) beyond. This tableau reflects a typical AAA defense setup involving searchlights, radar, and AA guns, circa 1944-45 in the ETO. (Click on the thumbnail to load a larger version of the image, or click "Enlarge the Photo.") [ 59K JPEG file ]

The painting above was used for the March 7, 1942 cover of the Saturday Evening Post; the artist is unknown. Depicted along with a 60-inch searchlight is a sound locator and a 90-mm antiaircraft gun, two staples of the AAA forces in 1942-43 (the sound locator would later be supplanted by radar, though such units were still used in combat to deceive the enemy into thinking the U. S. Army was not equipped with radar). [ 23K JPEG file; reprint contributed by Jim Mulligan ]

The April 1941 cover of Popular Mechanics magazine (reproduced here courtesy PM) featured an aerial observer scanning the skies with a searchlight in the background. The original text describing the cover art (artist unknown) reads: "Light Brigade. As war clouds gathered, the nation mobilized its scientific resources. Premiere among industrial labs of its day was General Electric's Schenectady, New York, facility. GE's antiaircraft searchlights probed six miles into the sky, and their ultraviolet lamps illuminated signs on blacked-out streets. But the lab was also marshaling hundreds of scientists on a top-secret mission: harnessing the magnetron to jam German and Japanese radar." [ 44K JPEG file ]

The BuddyL Company's Toy Searchlight Truck. [ 13K JPEG file ]

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