Military Searchlight Tattoos

 Tattoo, August (?) 1967

Berlin Tattoo, September 1967

"I was very lucky to be chosen to go to Berlin - I had only been in the Squadron a few months and was not very experienced, particularly on the technical side. The lights had been in store in Berlin for some years, and they needed quite a lot of attention before they were mounted onto a couple of German-built MANN trucks operated by 38 (Berlin) Sqn RE, whose barracks (Smuts, next to Spandau Prison where Hess could be seen exercising) was our home for two weeks.
 
It was held in the famous Olympic Stadium, where Hitler had addressed the masses in the 1930s, and where the Black American athlete Jessie James won 4 Olympic medals to Hitler's extreme annoyance.  It was a huge pageant - I was told that it was the first time that 1,000 bandsmen had been assembled, but the letter I was given later [see right] quotes only 700. Which is still a mighty big band.

We didn't operate inside the stadium. Our job was to shine the lights ack-ack fashion from the ground into the sky above. At one end of the stadium a huge scaffolding had been erected covered with hessian painted to represent the Moscow skyline. During the finale, the massed bands played the 1812 Overture, with a local church providing the bells, and the Horse Artillery, with their ancient gun carriages, the canon fire. Then the hessian was set alight and a firework display began.  90,000 Germans cheered while "Moscow" burned and British artillery filled the stadium with booms, smoke and smells. I was lucky enough to nip into the stadium to witness some of that. Then at the end of the show a huge Union Jack was unfurled below a helicopter high above the stadium - and four part-time TA Sappers from 873 in Acton lit it up with their WW2 searchlights. It was all very moving - and rather bizzarre.

The tattoo was on our middle weekend, and after getting the lights back into store, we had nothing official to do, so had four days of sight-seeing. The highlight was a trip in uniform in an army mini-bus through Check-point Charlie into the Russian zone. The driver parked up somewhere and stayed in the vehicle while we walked all round East Berlin. We were followed everywhere by East German soldiers but weren't prevented from going anywhere. At one point we were at the Brandenburg Gate, looking to the West, when a party of Russian officers appeared about 70 yards away. I remember being told on our first day that we could ignore East German officers, but I could not remember the drill for Russian ones. If we saluted and shouldn't, we would be a laughing stock, if we didn't but should have, there would be an international incident. In the end we faced them, and I took my right arm up to my head, and scratched it. The Russians assumed it was a salute and saluted back."

Cardiff Tattoo, August 1968

"The Cardiff Searchlight Tattoo an outstanding military spectacle of the time, held in Cardiff Castle – my father would build the scenery for mock battles on the side of Army Bedford trucks using a framework of scaffold poles, then wooden frames with hessian stretched over and the scenery painted on by council painters eg the farmhouse at waterloo, or the mission station at Rorke's Drift. Whereas my role was building the portable ‘bogs’ and cleaning the ‘Elsan pans’ ! On a more serious note, beating the retreat and ‘Sunset’ remain embedded in my heart as a result of this job."

Ulster Tattoo, September 1968

"The Ulster Tattoo

This is a Military Pageant designed for your entertainment. For you it need be no more unless you are of the younger generation anxious to investigate what a Service life has to offer. This Tattoo is a part of the day's work for the young men taking part and they are all proud to show you their professional skill as Technicians and Specialists in the Modern Army.

In one way or another there are nearly 1,000 Officers and men involved in this Tattoo, many of whom you do not see in the Arena. There is the Administrative Team which accommodates, feeds and transports the performers, the Producer and his assistants who co-ordinate the Bands, the Parachutists, the Motor-Cyclists and the Military Police Team - all 'Stars' by right of their training and technique. It is the Teamwork and Training which do the trick!

Any profits from this Show will be donated to the Army Benevolent Fund which looks after the old, disabled and the widows and children in the Army 'Familv'. Last year the Fund spent £621,000 in supporting Homes and Hospitals in grants to those in distress and in helping Army widows and children. In Ireland alone the Fund spent approximately £42,000. There is no charge for admission, so if you have a copper to spare put it in an Army Benevolent Fund collecting box!

Hoping to see some of you again :

At Omagh on 13th and l4th September
At Belfast on 19th, 20th and 21st September"

Colchester 1973

Wessex Tattoo, 1974

"I am writing to thank you most sincerely for the tremendouse assistance you gave us with the Wessex Searchlight Tattoo. It was a great success in spite of the appaling weather conditions. About 1800 people saw it and letters of appreciation are already flooding in.

I am very much aware of how much we owe to your Squadron, for without you there would have been no searchlight tattoo. I think your team worked magnificently under very difficult conditions, and on behalf of everyone connected with the tattoo I would like thank you all for carrying out such a difficult task extremely well. In addition I would like to thank you for all the additional tasks you helped us in, such as laying and taking up track 30, getting caravans (or nearly) into high places, assisting us with transport, etc, all of which helped enormously.

Thank you once again for your valuable help without which the tattoo could not have been the success it was. I am extremely pleased to have been able to say farewell to the West Country in such a memorable way"

" Now that your summer camp is at an end and you have left us for London and your normal civilian jobs, I would like to offer you and your sqadron my most sincere thanks for the immense help you have given the tatoo. I am quite sure we established an ideal mix of Territorial and Regular experience and expertise.

It was indeed a very happy and fortunate day we heard that it would be possible for you to light our tattoo as it would coincide with your 1974 camp. Thank you so much for bearing with the idisyncracies of an amateur Infantry Committee.

There is no doubt that the searchlight tattoo was a great success despite the wretched weather conditions. It was marvelous the way your Squadron coped with the intricate lighting required for both the Cavalcade and the Finale. Both could have been a total failure without the correct lighting.

The Squadrons performance on Saturday night was a tribute to a fine Territorial Officer (Captain Robshaw) and was also a wonderful display by a fine Territorial Unit. Well done indeed 873 Movement Light Squadron - How about a show in Brunei in 1976 - I can promise you there will not be a River Clyde to build"

The Royal Tournament, Earls Court, 1976

Tidworth, 1976

Windsor, 1977

"I arrived on the first day of setting up with Dad [WO2 Jack Woodroffe]and at least four [Bedford] RL trucks, lights and generators were queued up on the main path into the Deer Park awaiting instructions for deployment having driven in through Rangers Gate. There were at least two on each side of the monument from the front of the statue and the photo was taken by Dad from the back of an RL sitting on the edge of the tilt [canvas top cover].

There may have been fifth and sixth lights behind the monument as I am sure that two lights came in from the Englefield Green gate but there were definitely four in front of the Copper Horse, two on each side (the other two not in the photo being to the left from where we are looking and placed either side of the Guinness Tent). Dad had a deployment plan which I saw and I am sure that there were probably six lights in total. I was with the light you can see in the photo.

Sir Edmond Hilary and Sherpa Tensing were HM’s guests of honour and halfway through the evening a drunken man climbed up on top of the Copper Horse and had to be brought down by Police. Guinness were supplying the beer tent and Dad kept me well supplied during the evening wonderful chap he is!"

"An amusing moment was when the high-tech lighting device had not actually reached the beacon, yet the flames leapt into the air nonetheless. Apparently the ACTUAL lighting device was triggered by a hidden operator who misread his queue [sic], lighting the beacon several seconds before the Queen had completed the ceremonial lighting! The Queen was delighted apparently, enjoying the glitch!"

Minley Manor, 1977

Wembley Military Musical Pageant, 1979

Tattoo in Gibraltar, 1991

"I wonder if any of the guys remember the deployment/camp to Gibraltar back in 1991? At the time, I was in the REME attached to RHQ and myself (CPL Storey) and Cpl Bob Dalziel joined 873 for a 2 week camp in Gib where the lights were being used to illuminate a military tattoo as the resident battalion (the Green Jackets) were leaving. The tattoo featured many acts as well as the Army Motorcycle display team and there were RM Commandos abseiling down the rock. We were stationed at the fortress so could look out over the Mediterranean as HM forces were building up for the 1st Gulf War (as I recall). Attached are a couple of scans of photos that I have. Hope it brings back memories to some."

memories of some ex-873 sappers

"When doing the lighting for a military band events on Horse Guards Parade in the 1980's we mounted our carbon arc searchlights on scaffold towers on three sides of the square in advance and then turn up for each perforance over a few nights. It was great fun having such a good view and seeing the Blues & Royals and Guards in action often in the presence of the Queen.

Two incidents spring to mind -

The Lister generators were parked round the corner to keep the noise away from the crowd during the event. One night after going home we left one of the Lister Generators running and when one of the Squadron returned the next day it was still running!

Once when I was working in Central London , I said to the lads I'll meet you up at Horse Guards rather than go all the way out to W3 and back. So I went to HG with my kit in my ruck sack and sat down on a Lister Generator right next to the rear of 10 Downing St. As I was in civys at the time a Policeman asked me what I was doing. I told him I was with 873 Mvt Light Sqn RE but he didn't like me being there so told me to move on. So I walked over to the gents toilet in St James and changed in to my uniform and then walked back to the Listers and started removing the covers and getting them ready, without interference, while the same Policeman looked on! "

On Cup Final Day in May 1979 Captain Cooper arranged for a portable TV to be taken to Salisbury Plain so we could stop training and watch it! Otherwise we would not have attended that weekend!

"One thing (or rather two) I'll never forget concern Capt Cooper. On more than one occasion when we were working down on Salisbury Plain, and had packed up ready for the drive back to Acton in the early hours, we were all treated to a fish and chip supper (obtained from some 'chippy' in the middle of nowhere) and a beer (from a barrel and pumps clamped on the tailgate of a LandRover). Still in the same general area, John ? (see my 19 Dec email) and I were driving back to Acton, and Capt Cooper (who was in his car) called a refreshment halt at the pub in Chitterne. It was a nice summer evening so we were in short-sleeve order. However, we'd been spotted by a couple of patrolling MPs who objected to our manner of dress as it was after 7pm or something daft like that. Capt Cooper told them - in his own initimable way - what they could do with their regulations, and nothing more was said or heard! He always looked after his men.

I used all my annual leave (plus the 2 weeks paid special leave my employer granted me), most weekends, and as much as I could fit in during the week (mostly trips down to Salisbury Plain to provide light for the regulars) 'working'. In '69, I was living in a London Hostels Association hostel in South Kensington, and had to rely on lifts to get 'home' or at least part of the way, following the night-time adventures on the Plain. On one occasion, we didn't get back to Acton until about 2am and the lads I was with were all within walking distance of their homes, so I walked back to South Ken (near to the West London Air Terminal on Cromwell Road), with hob-nailed boots making a bit of a racket on the pavement. I got into bed just before 5am, and had to get up two hours later for 'proper' work, only to go down to the Plain that evening - but with a guaranteed lift back."