Men of the 7th Heavy Illumination Company under the leadership of Captain Edison with assistance from the Army and Constabulary deploy their Searchlight along MacQuarie Street near Government House...
May 24th and the NSW Governor Sir Phillip Game announced the formation of several new NSW Government Para Military units which included 10 Heavy Illumination Companies. These were Companies in name only with each one being allocated a single Searchlight and comprising 21 officers and ranks. In fact the 9th and 10th Companies would initially lack their searchlight, they were due to arrive in the City of Sydney in early June! These Heavy Illumination Companies were created to be deployed in open spaces where unruly groups were rampaging in the darkness, it was expected that lighting these areas overnight would cut down on such activities.
Friday May 27 1932 Captain Edison deployed his 7th Heavy Illumination Company along MacQuarie Street near Government House. The Royal Botanic Gardens had from day one of the civil unrest caused by the dismissal of the Lang Government been a hotbed of discontent. There had been clashes between State Government forces and Unionists flying Red Banners, while members of the All for Australia League and the New Guard had made their presence known in scuffles with anyone they didn't like the sight of! Captain Edison's brief was to bring peace back to the Gardens!
Sunset that night the Company's Searchlight glowed and within minutes it was flooding the Royal Botanic Gardens with light, night turned to day! For hour after hour the men toiled sweeping the area they were designated to cover and at daybreak they rejoiced as there had been not a single disturbance in the Gardens. Captain Edison stood down his men and they left their Searchlight under the care of the Constabulary they would stand to again that evening at 5:00pm to repeat their efforts.
Around the Rocks during Saturday the 28th Marxists spruiked their cause against the Capitalist State Government and rallied men and women to them with the aim of storming the Royal Botanic Gardens that night...their work was rewarded and they headed off to the Gardens at the head of an excited and armed mob!
As the sun began to set while Captain Edison and his men prepared their precious Searchlight for another night's work the roar of a mob was heard and a crowd was seen advancing down MacQuarie Street toward their position! Edison promptly used his shiny new field telephone to summon assistance! This was not going to be another quiet night...
The Sarissa Searchlight...
I picked up the Sarissa Searchlight flat pack at Little Wars a couple of years ago for a fiver and finally got around to assembling it. A searchlight has always been 'to build' list and having had good experiences with Sarissa's buildings I picked this up (it was so cheap!). It is a pretty simple affair and I built it as instructed and added a few hex nuts for details and cover some joins. BUT (in my opinion) building the cylinder out of multiple rings didn't work and did not give a good finish! I ended up dumping the kits light and scratch built my own...by the way I toyed with the idea of putting a working light into this but quickly came to the conclusion the effect wouldn't be worth the effort as it would always be used in fully lit games!
Picture from Sarissa Ltd Site
My completed kit...
The diorama set up...
We'll be getting this scenario slotted into our Monday schedule soon so standby for the OOB and AAR!
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