IN THE AUTUMN of 1903 the Atlantic Fleet engaged in joint maneuvers with the Army, at the eastern entrance to Long Island Sound, to test the adequacy of the forts, located on both sides of the Race, to prevent a fleet from entering Long Island Sound.
The fortifications of this point at that time consisted of Fort Wright on the western end of Fisher’s Island and of Fort Michie on Gull Island. Both forts were equipped with searchlights.
The vessels of the fleet were at this time painted white with buff upper works, with the exception of the torpedo boats and destroyers which were painted black, so that as far as the large ships were concerned they were much more liable to be picked up in the beams of a searchlight than they are today with their solid gray color.
The arrangement was that the fleet should attempt to run the Race some time between dark and daylight on a certain night, thus giving the forts an advantage which would not be true of operations in war time when the time of attack would certainly not be known within such close limits.
The rules under which the game was played are interesting today because it was then thought that one 12-inch shell striking a ship would put her out of action, and it was so stated in the rules. The fleet did not believe the battleships were as vulnerable as that but accepted the Army’s proposal on that score since the officers of the fleet had ideas which they believed would prevent the enemy’s seeing the ships in passing.
Two novel ideas were used by the fleet in this attack, one being the smoke screen and the other a searchlight barrage.
The writer is assured that the employment of the smoke screen here was the first use of this idea which has since become so important an adjunct to offensive and defensive naval operations in all the major navies of the world.
No attention seems to have been paid, however, to the possibilities inherent in the blinding effect of a concentration of searchlights as used in this operation, and for that reason a description of the operation would seem to be in order.
The fleet consisted of the following ships: the battleships Iowa, Texas, Maine, Massachusetts, and Indiana; the cruisers New York (flag) and Brooklyn; and ten torpedo boats and destroyers.
At 10:00 P.M. the fleet headed into the Race in two columns, the large ships in one column and the torpedo boats and destroyers in column on the starboard hand, distant about 400 yards. This arrangement placed the torpedo vessels between the large ships and Fort Wright in a position to lay down a smoke screen at the proper moment. The searchlights of the forts were sweeping the waters of the approach to the Race, searching for the fleet.
When we were about 2 miles from Fort Wright, the torpedo vessels began laying down a smoke screen which soon blotted out the Fort Wright searchlights so that we knew we could not be seen from that side.
When it seemed that Fort Michie must soon discover us, all the fleet’s searchlights were suddenly concentrated on the fort, at signal from the flagship, lighting it up so that the movement of individual men could be plainly seen, and the fleet passed into the sound without a shot being fired from the main batteries of the forts. The fleet then anchored in the dead angles of the two forts and theoretically destroyed them.
On discussing the operation afterwards, it developed that neither fort had sighted any ships except that Fort Wright had occasional glimpses of the torpedo vessels. The officers of Fort Michie stated that they were so blinded by the concentration of searchlights that they could see nothing in the foreground and could not have fired a ranged shot. They could not pick out individual searchlights but could see only a continuous glare. There were not more than 24 searchlights available in the fleet and these were of the low power prevalent at that time, so that the glare could not have been nearly as great as would be the case at the present day with the same number of lights.
The importance of this use of searchlights seems to have escaped notice in our own service and naturally this incident was not generally known to foreign navies. The use of individual searchlights to illuminate targets is of course well known, but the effect of a cencentration of light from ships’ searchlights to prevent the enemy from seeing what is going on in the immediate foreground seems never to have been considered as an offensive weapon.
Landings on defended coasts are always a possibility of war and, because the attacking force is usually not familiar with the terrain, night landings are not undertaken if it is known that the landing will be strongly opposed. Thus it was the fear of confusion among the troops if landed at night on Gallipoli which decided the Allies to make their landing there in daylight.
Let us consider that landing, however, and the possibility that if a searchlight barrage had been used it would have rendered the landing easy of accomplishment.
The allied fleet consisted of 16 large ships with from 4 to 8 searchlights of high power on each ship. In addition to these, there were numerous cruisers and small craft equipped with searchlights.
The toe of the peninsula had a rather narrow beach quickly rising to a 30-foot contour, from which the land gradually sloped up to Achi Baba, 600 feet high and about 5 miles from Sed el Bahr, the first major objective of the landing forces. There were at this time 10,000 Turkish troops on the lower part of the peninsula, 10,000 on the Asiatic side, and 20,000 at the northern end along the Bulair lines.
The Allies were to land men at the following points simultaneously:
The French were to land on the Asiatic shore just to the southward of the entrance to the Straits, to take and destroy the entrance forts on that side, and to re-embark and join the British at Sed el Bahr.
The British main landings were to be made at the tip of the peninsula, at “W” and “V” beaches, and the Australians and New Zealanders (Anzacs) at what was later called Anzac Cove well up along the west side of the peninsula. The greatest resistance was expected at Sed el Bahr, so we will consider only that point in this discussion.
Large vessels could safely approach and maneuver within a half mile of the beach at the tip of the peninsula, and their searchlights were carried at sufficient height to permit them to flood the terrain with light for several miles back. With the number of ships that were available, both “W” and “V” landings could have been made under a searchlight barrage at night with the terrain so illuminated as to make the danger of confusion among the landing forces little greater than in the daylight landing, while the glare of the concentrated searchlights would have prevented the Turks from seeing the landing forces until they were ashore and well able to take care of themselves. The ships combing the beaches and the immediate foreground with shrapnel and high explosive shell just before the landing would have assured little effective resistance to the landing proper by an enemy who could not see clearly what was going on.
Due to the daylight landing and the concentration of Turkish troops at this point, the landing at “V” beach was not completely effective until darkness set in that first day, whereas if the landing had been made at night the allied lines would have been established by daybreak and the drive which was made the second day with jaded troops would have been made the first day with fresh troops and Achi Baba would have been taken.
Re-enforcements could not come over from the Asiatic side on the first day because they were engaged by the French, but on the night of the second day they did come over because the French re-embarked and joined the British, leaving the Turks free to join their comrades on the peninsula and thus stop the allied attack.
That such use of searchlights is feasible there seems no question, and that it would be effective is shown not only by the experience of the fleet at the Race but also by the well-known effect of the headlights of automobiles when driving at night— nothing can be seen in the foreground.
In this connection, Admiral of the Fleet Sir Roger Keyes, R.N., has since stated that the glare of the Turkish searchlights seriously interfered with his counter-mining operations in the Straits and this was only the glare of single searchlights and not the concentrated glare of the many which would be available in a fleet.
BEFORE every one who wishes to become a Commander-in-Chief there lies a book entitled The History of War. It is not always, I must admit, very amusing. It involves the toiling through a mass of by no means exciting details. But by their means we arrive at facts, often soul-stirring facts, and at the root of it lies the perception of how everything has happened, how it was bound to happen, and how it will again happen.—von Freytag Loringhoven, Deductions from the Great War.