Report on Meeting of 1st February 2022
93rd Searchlight Regiment
Women's Royal Artillery Company (WRAC)
Former Army Major Imogen Corrigan gave us another interesting talk about Searchlight Girls of the 93rd Regiment Royal Artillery. She gave a brief history of her own army life. She is a 3rd generation woman soldier following in the footsteps of her mother and grandmother. There is at present only one other woman with this accolade. She quoted extracts from interviews she had with several women who served in the army during the war. Both wars gave women the opportunity to break with tradition and escape their expected life of marriage and domestic service.
A plan in 1934 anticipated 100 searchlight companies, with 2334 searchlights and 43,500 men (how's that for early planning). However as the war progressed the men were needed for deployment elsewhere and women of The Auxiliary Territorial Service were drafted into assist in 1941. A trial was carried out in to find if women would be able to carry out the duties required in searchlight regiments. Members of the ATS were sent for training to see if they could cope with working in isolated places and if they would have the strength and the ability to operate the searchlights. The experiment proved successful and General Sir Frederick Pile later wrote that: "They showed themselves more effective, more horror inspiring and more blood-thirsty with their pick axe handles than many a male sentry with his gun, as several luckless gentlemen found to their cost". General Pile was also to write later, "The girls lived like men, fought their lights like men and, alas, some of them died like men". He also proposed that the women should have a more practical uniform for this work, and should be given the same rates of pay as the men if they were doing the same job.
In October 1942 the 93rd Searchlight Regiment, Royal Artillery was formed as an all female British air defence unit. It was disbanded in July 1945. and was the only women only regiment in the British Army and there will never be another women only regiment as women are now fully integrated into the services.
One of the other uses of the Searchlights was to highlight the way home for returning planes, some of which had been damaged by enemy fire. The procedure was for the plane to use a coded signal to inform the searchlight operators that it was a homecoming plane and the searchlight would be raised and lowered three times to acknowledge the signal and then pointed horizontally directing the plane to the next Battery or nearest airfield. At least 224 returning planes were guided home by the searchlights (apparently one was a German fighter plane where the pilot surrendered on landing saying he had had enough of the war)
Once demobbed at the end of the war the women returned to their roles as cooks, clerks, administrative and home domestic duties.
Peter Taylor
Newsletter Editor
93rd Searchlight Regiment
Women's Royal Artillery Company (WRAC)
Former Army Major Imogen Corrigan gave us another interesting talk about Searchlight Girls of the 93rd Regiment Royal Artillery. She gave a brief history of her own army life. She is a 3rd generation woman soldier following in the footsteps of her mother and grandmother. There is at present only one other woman with this accolade. She quoted extracts from interviews she had with several women who served in the army during the war. Both wars gave women the opportunity to break with tradition and escape their expected life of marriage and domestic service.
A plan in 1934 anticipated 100 searchlight companies, with 2334 searchlights and 43,500 men (how's that for early planning). However as the war progressed the men were needed for deployment elsewhere and women of The Auxiliary Territorial Service were drafted into assist in 1941. A trial was carried out in to find if women would be able to carry out the duties required in searchlight regiments. Members of the ATS were sent for training to see if they could cope with working in isolated places and if they would have the strength and the ability to operate the searchlights. The experiment proved successful and General Sir Frederick Pile later wrote that: "They showed themselves more effective, more horror inspiring and more blood-thirsty with their pick axe handles than many a male sentry with his gun, as several luckless gentlemen found to their cost". General Pile was also to write later, "The girls lived like men, fought their lights like men and, alas, some of them died like men". He also proposed that the women should have a more practical uniform for this work, and should be given the same rates of pay as the men if they were doing the same job.
In October 1942 the 93rd Searchlight Regiment, Royal Artillery was formed as an all female British air defence unit. It was disbanded in July 1945. and was the only women only regiment in the British Army and there will never be another women only regiment as women are now fully integrated into the services.
One of the other uses of the Searchlights was to highlight the way home for returning planes, some of which had been damaged by enemy fire. The procedure was for the plane to use a coded signal to inform the searchlight operators that it was a homecoming plane and the searchlight would be raised and lowered three times to acknowledge the signal and then pointed horizontally directing the plane to the next Battery or nearest airfield. At least 224 returning planes were guided home by the searchlights (apparently one was a German fighter plane where the pilot surrendered on landing saying he had had enough of the war)
Once demobbed at the end of the war the women returned to their roles as cooks, clerks, administrative and home domestic duties.
Peter Taylor
Newsletter Editor