Lighting in British trenches

[alex falbo]

Which types of lighting were used most to light trenches (particuarly fire trenches)? The storm lanterns,

trench lamps

Candle sticks placed in either a metal plate or base> Or just a combination?

Regards.

[Tom A McCluskey]

Michael,

Out of personal choice, with well-armed and quite proficient German: snipers, artillery, rifle-grenadiers, and minenwerfers opposite, I would not want to be lit up by: anyone carrying a storm lamp, or walk past an illuminated fixed point...it may not stay lit for long.

Aye

Tom McC

[truthergw]

It takes 20 minutes or so for eyes to fully adapt to the dark. A dim red light does the least damage to that. A flash of any of these lanterns would leave a sentry effectively blind for the next 5 minutes and it would be 10 to 15 minutes before he regained full night sight. It was a known ploy to try to catch sentries with searchlights to blind them in just such a way. The fire trench would be kept dark and only very dim dark lanterns or carefully hooded torches used in it. These kind of lamps would have been in the dugouts or support trenches.

[centurion]

I'm not sure that fire trenches would be lit at all. After all even lighting a cigarette at night could be risky. Electric torches with some sort of shading might be used if really necessary but any kind of light could destroy the sentries' night vision. Now dugouts are a different kettle of fish and I suspect that all sorts of things would apply, oil lamps of the kind you show, candles on spikes, in bottles and sometimes in candlesticks (perhaps salvaged from shelled out buildings). I've seen references to civilian domestic oil lamps (you know with the tall glass funnels) perhaps also salvaged and home made lamps from clay with a piece of cord for a wick. Some well appointed dugouts even had electric light.

[David B]

Centurion,

How did dugouts arrange their electric light ? was it battery - rather unreliable - portable power generator - were these

devices available in the period - or power cable from a rear area, which could be unreliable given a shell or two on top of the wires

david

[Mick D]

There wouldn't be much need for light at night, all essential kit would be worn or carried by the individual. It would be a rare to have zero visibility, even the smallest amount of ambient light can be used. Soldiers wouldn't have looked directly at any source of light as it would result in the loss of 'night vision'.

it's all to do with the cones and rods in your eyes you see !

Mick

[centurion]

Centurion,

How did dugouts arrange their electric light ? was it battery - rather unreliable - portable power generator - were these

devices available in the period - or power cable from a rear area, which could be unreliable given a shell or two on top of the wires

I never said it was reliable! Cables were led down communications trenches from rear areas (as were telegraph and phone cables) which were less vulnerable to shell fire. There was often equipment in the front line that used electric power and wet cell batteries were a pain to carry forward and needed recharging anyway. I understand that in quiet sectors of the front (of which there were some) power was not that unreliable

[Peter Doyle]

It depended somewhat on the scale of the dugout, but certainly some had electric light. Candles were commonly used; candle stubs are found in archaeological excavations of both front line trenches and dugouts (I've had the opportunity to take part in both), and were commonly sold in YMCA and Expeditionary Force Canteens, etc. What the regulation said about it is another matter.

Cheers

Peter

[alex falbo]

Yes I suppose lighting a fire trench would not be the brightest idea ( ). I was wondering if a lantern lit in a corner in order to guide sentries releaving each other could be dim enough to not be seen from the opposing lines. I've read about the many ways dug outs were lit but not much on the fire trenches.

[humber1]

Lighting would obviously have been required in underground shelters and variations on candles and parafin lamps would have been most common. In rear areas large numbers of stationary engines would presumably have been used to generate electricity.

The picture of two trench lamps which you borrowed from one of my threads show a pattern which are regularly sold by contnental dealers claiming to have found them in France and Belgiun, but a request for information on them recently did not produce anything new. This pattern takes a candle as well as the parafin burner.

Quite if Hurricane Lamps were in production in the UK at this time is questionable. Try a google search on their history. The compact pattern made now rather than the taller version is also probably of latter design.

[centurion]

Yes I suppose lighting a fire trench would not be the brightest idea ( ). I was wondering if a lantern lit in a corner in order to guide sentries releaving each other could be dim enough to not be seen from the opposing lines. I've read about the many ways dug outs were lit but not much on the fire trenches.

I've read somewhere of a dark lantern left where its light could not be seen from outside the trench - not for illumination but to provide a safe way of lighting a cigarette (of course today the H&S would soon put a stop to that!)

[centurion]

Quite if Hurricane Lamps were in production in the UK at this time is questionable. Try a google search on their history. The compact pattern made now rather than the taller version is also probably of latter design.

Need to be careful over names - Hurricane lamps or lanterns were in production as early as the last part of the nineteenth century but these were not the hurricane lamps shown in the earlier posting but something quite different. The definition of a hurricane lamp is

candlestick or oil lantern protected against drafts or winds by a glass chimney (Webster)

this link to a replica will show what was meant Hurricane lamp. Modern 'hurricane lamps' are in fact what was known as storm lanterns or lamps (originally a naval invention) see attached

I'm sure both kinds would have been found in dug outs where the rule seems to have been 'make the most of what you can get'

[wainfleet]

Alex

Electric light in dugouts would have been rare in the forward areas. I doubt there was much use of oil lamps there either, as oil is messy and not easily transportable. The vast majority of dugouts would have been lit by candles. Officers would probably have used either private purchase collapsible candle lanterns, or an old wine bottle for a candlestick; other ranks, where they had access to dugouts (or more likely, in billets) would probably have used either a cheap candle holder, such as the Khaki Kombination Kandlebox, or just melted the candle base and stuck it down anywhere.

Officers carried trench torches, and this is probably the only lighting there would ever have been in a frontline trench. A lot of these torches have survived; the "Orilux" is the most common, and there are undoubtedly plenty of forum members who have one and will post a picture if you ask for one.

Regards,

W.

[Peter Doyle]

In the dugouts I have entered as part of archaeological work, there is candle soot on the timbers, and evidence suggests that they were in some cases stuck to these using clay or other available media. As discussed candle stubs were common enough in the front line trenches excavated as part of the A19 rescue dig near Ieper a few years ago (in which I had a small role to play).

Cheers

Peter

[centurion]

Extract from letter written to Vera Britain by Roland Leighton Dec 1915

"Just a short letter before I go to bed. The Battalion is back in the trenches now and I am writing in the dugout that I share with the doctor. It is very comfortable (possessing among other things an easy chair, stove, an oil lamp, a table complete with tablecloth) and I am feeling pleasantly tired but not actually sleepy. Through the door I can see little mounds of snow that are the parapets of trenches, a short stretch of railway line, and a very brilliant full moon."