Light Division

“ They were replaced by men from the 87th and other units of the division. Training The training mission of the 10th Light Division was to attain ultimate combat efficiency in high mountain warfare. There were many obstacles in the way. The original units were in various stages of training; the fillers for the division were slow in arriving, some of these were direct from reception centers while others had completed individual and unit training in different branches; and, in addition, large numbers of officers and men were unacquainted with the special techniques of mountain and winter warfare. ”

“ Light Divisions Early in 1943 Army Ground Forces developed a new type of unit, the light division, which the Operations Division of the Army Staff had suggested earlier as a possibility for the Pacific theater. Planners thought such a division could function in a variety of combat conditions, such as jungles and mountains, simply by varying the unit's mode of transportation. Initially, McNair, who disliked special units, opposed the idea because of the unique training it required. Given the shortage of shipping in the fall of that year, the Operations Division again put forth the proposal. ”

“ In one division of 5,000 men there were but 170—in the five British battalions of the Light Division no more than 96. In both these cases the deficiency represented only weakly men who had fallen by the way from fatigue and disease, and cannot afford any margin for stragglers and marauders. ”

“ The ready response to this appeal soon supplied more than sufficient men for the first six divisions of the New Army, eventually numbered 9 to 14. New battalions continued to be raised to absorb as far as possible the stream of recruits and on the 11th of September the formation of six additional divisions—the 15th to the 20th—was authorised. Thus the 20th (Light) Division came into existence. It was to be composed entirely of Rifle and Light Infantry battalions—formed into the 59th, 60th, and 61st Infantry Brigades—and Divisional troops. ”

“ Whenever the fourth division was in movement, the light companies were entrusted to his charge, and during a part of the retreat of the army to the lines of Torres Vedras in 1810 those companies were embodied under his command as a light battalion. ”

“ Div Redesignation. 10th Light Div memo, sub: Enlisted Men transferred who are Physically Unqualified for High Mountain Operations. General Orders GO 1, 10th Light Div, 15 Jul 43, sub: Activation of the 10th Light Div. GO 7, 10th Inf Div, 22 Feb 44, sub: Reorgn and Redesignation of 87th Mt Inf Regt. ”

“ The gallant Light and 4th Divisions boldly braved every danger, and with a good will, rarely to be found, prolonged a struggle, the very failure of which, taking into account the nature of the obstacles opposed to them, and their immense losses, was sufficient to immortalise them. ”

“ Anyhow, I have given you a picture of a great train in the war zone, winding its way toward the front, in complete darkness.
FLASH-LIGHTS
Flash-lights have come into their own in this war. One would as soon think of living without a flash-light as he would think of travelling without clothes in Greenland. It simply cannot be done. In any city, from Paris to the smallest towns on the front, one must have his flash-light. The streets of the cities and towns of France are a hundred times more crooked than those of Boston. ”

“ Sectors.—Coloured lights are often requisite to distinguish cuts or sectors, and should be shown from fixed or occulting light apparatus and not from flashing apparatus. In marking the passage through a channel, or between sandbanks or other dangers, coloured light sectors are arranged to cover the dangers, white light being shown over the fairway with sufficient margin of safety between the edges of the coloured sectors next the fairway and the dangers. ”

“ The Board considers it the duty of every light keeper to stand by his light as long as the light-house stands, and that for him to desert it when in danger is as cowardly as for a soldier to leave his guns on the advance of an enemy. ”

“ These great regions of invisible lights are now being slowly and patiently explored. In time the great gaps which now exist will be filled up, and light-gleams, visible and invisible, will be found merging one into the other in unbroken sequence. ”

“ The obscurity of the night, to say nothing of the confusion which it must occasion among undisciplined troops, is certainly the best protection to a body of men engaged in an enterprise of this nature. Blue lights certainly render objects distinctly visible, but their light is glaring and uncertain, especially to men firing through loopholes. ”

“ For the rest, the right of way from Big Cloud, the divisional point, just East of the mighty blue-blurred, snow-capped range that towers to the skyline North and South—from there to the rolling, undulating country that reaches West from the base of the Sierras, the Hill Division is, without question, the most marvelous piece of track ever conceived by man, and it stands a perpetual and enduring monument to the brains and the genius, ay, and the manhood, too, of those who built it. ”

“ One's introduction into the war zone and into war-zone cities and villages, and one's visits "down the line" to the front by night, will always be filled with the thrill of the unusual because of the Lights of War. Where lights used to be, there are no lights now, and where they were not seen before the war, they are radiant and rampant now.
The first place that an American traveller notices this absence of lights is on the boat crossing over the Atlantic. From the first night out of New York the boats travel without a single light showing. ”

“ Lying outside the circle, in a larger, concentric ring, is the zone known as the Light Country. Entirely free from the equatorial storms, no direct rays of sunlight have ever penetrated its protecting cloud blanket. Here exists the highest state of civilization on the planet.
Beyond the Light Country, in another concentric ring, lies the Twilight Country. It forms a belt about the planet, beginning roughly at those points at which the sun would appear only a short distance above the horizon, and extending back to where the sun would be below the horizon. ”

“ Each group is separated by a longer period of darkness than that between successive members of a group. The flashes in a group indicating a figure are about 11/2 seconds apart, the groups being 3 seconds apart, an interval of 16 seconds’ darkness occurring between each repetition. Thus the number is repeated every half minute. Two examples of this system were exhibited by the United States Lighthouse Board at the Chicago Exhibition in 1893, viz. the second-order apparatus just mentioned and a similar light of the first order for Cape Charles on the Virginian coast. ”

“ At the blue pole, the lightness-effect springs from the resistant medium through which we gaze, a medium under the influence of gravity, while the darkness is provided by the anti-gravity quality of cosmic space, which as a 'negative' resistance exercises a suction on the eye's inner light. At the yellow pole it is just the reverse. Here, the resistant medium brings about a darkening of our field of vision, while the lightness-effect springs from a direct meeting of the eye with light, and so with the suctional effect of negative density. ”

“ Last week the Lightning Division underwent inspection by General Pershing. The review was held in Les Laumes, and I went over to see it. I had not realized before what an immense body of men an Army Division is. On the vast muddy field stood, motionless, ranks and ranks of khaki-clad soldiers, their protective [51] coloring blending with the green-brown of the field. Here and there the Stars and Stripes and the vivid blue and red of the Infantry and Artillery flags made bright spots on the monotonous brown scene. ”

“ For suppose any given area crowded with stars to be removed to a greater distance. The light of each star would be diminished inversely as the square of the distance. But the given area would also be diminished directly as the square of the distance, so we should have a diminished amount of light on an equally diminished area, and hence the intrinsic brightness, or luminosity of the area per unit of surface, would remain unaltered. ”

“ If light of one wave length is used, as red light, the regions of reinforcement and interference are shown by red and dark rings, while if white light is used, the ring where red light interferes, yields its complementary color, greenish blue. ”

“ Thence wandering onwards amidst darkness and uncertainty we issued from the town by a broad road, enveloped in a thick fog, for not a soul could now give us the least clue to the division; and it is impossible to convey an idea of the uncertain information in rear of an army. I have often been within half a mile of the division,101 without meeting a person who knew any thing of its march, and, without the least hesitation, people would give a totally opposite direction to that followed by the troops. ”

“ Accordingly, every lighthouse possesses some individual characteristic in regard to its light. As explained elsewhere, it may be a group flash, an occulting flash of a distinctive nature, a revolving light which completes a revolution once in a certain period of time, or a fixed blaze.
Fortunately, the men watching over the lights appreciate the gravity of their responsibility, and are reliable to an heroic degree. Each is a man picked for the duty, who is not appalled by loneliness, and is of unimpeachable precision. ”

“ KEEP THE LOWER LIGHTS BURNING. We must live as children of the light, not as children of the darkness. If we are dark and sorrowful, how is the world to know that we are children of peace, and joy, and gladness? Our determination must be to keep our lights burning. A few years ago, at the mouth of Cleveland harbour there were two lights, one at each side of the bay, called the upper and lower lights; and, to enter the harbour safely by night, vessels must sight both of these lights. These Western lakes are more dangerous sometimes than the great ocean. ”

“ The solar spectrum may be compared to a battle-field with an army drawn up upon it ready for action. In the centre we find the luminous rays, on one side the light troops which produce chemical effect, and on the other the heating rays, which may be compared to squadrons of heavy cavalry. Close by the light brigade are the magnetic rays, which are a corps of skirmishers, sometimes appearing, and at others hiding themselves from view in a very mysterious manner. ”

“ When the spectrum is formed by the sun’s rays, either direct or indirect—as from the sky, clouds, rainbow, moon, or planets—the black bands are always found to be in the same parts of the spectrum, and under all circumstances to maintain the same relative positions. Similar dark lines are also seen in the light of the stars, in the electric light, and in the flame of combustible substances, though differently arranged, each star and each flame having a system of dark lines peculiar to itself. ”

“ A privately maintained lighted aid has a light symbol and is accompanied by the characteristics and the usual indication of its private nature. Private aids should be used with caution.
A light sector is the sector or area bounded by two radii and the arc of a circle in which a light is visible or in which it has a distinctive color different from that of adjoining sectors. The limiting radii are indicated on the chart by dotted or dashed lines. Sector colors are indicated by words spelled out if space permits, or by abbreviations (W, R, etc.) ”

“ I soon perceived that a lighthouse, whose number was continually repeated with a blink, obscuring just half its light, would be seen without any blink at all distances beyond half its range; but that at all distances within its half range that fact would be indicated by a blink. Thus with two blinks, properly adjusted, the distance of a vessel from a first-class light would be distinguished at from twenty to thirty miles by occultations indicating its number without any blink; between ten and twenty miles by an occultation with one blink, and within ten miles by an occultation with two blinks. ”

“ The revolving light is produced by the revolution of a three or four sided frame, having large reflectors grouped on each side, with their axes parallel; and as the revolution exhibits once a minute, or once in two minutes, a light gradually increasing to the maximum, and then just as gradually decreasing to total darkness, its effect is remarkably impressive. ”

“ Where the transverse impulse, which is due to the varying degree of TrÃ1⁄4bung in the light-realm, is directed towards the latter's edge, the intermingling of the Dark-ingredient and the Light-ingredient, contained in that realm, is such that Dark follows Light along its already existing gradient, thereby diminishing steadily. Hence our visual ray, meeting conditions quite similar to those occurring when we look across the light-filled atmosphere into universal space, notifies us of the presence of the blue-violet colour-pole. ”

“ Apart from any theoretical explanation it is an experimental fact, that the abnormal rays of direct [15] sunlight, and some artificial lights, may be so modified by diffusion as to be available for a limited range of colour work. In the case of diffused north sunlight, when taken from opposite the sun’s meridian, the modification is sufficient to make it available as a standard white light. In the case of artificial lights, their use is, as yet, limited to visual matching (not recording) and arbitrary comparisons. ”

“ BEFORE MONS
When an entire continent has for eighteen months been convulsed by military operations on so vast a scale as almost to baffle imagination, the individual achievements of this division or of that division are apt to fade quickly out of recognition. Fresh scenes peopled by fresh actors hold the public eye, and, in the quick passage of events, the lustre of bygone deeds soon gets blurred. People forget. But when the deeds are such as to bring a thrill of national pride ”