Tracing the Lighting Circuit
During the day the electricians would search out lighting stations, turn off lighting switches, test out circuits and do all minor repair work. At night after the main working force had knocked off, the electricians would muster in primary station number two, main lighting distribution station. Then a main distribution switch of either general lighting, police gangway, or police cabin lighting would be cut off. Emergency lighting was never cut out. The men would then leave in squads and make note of what lighting was cut out and what remained in; and in that manner the lighting control was traced down to such a degree of safety that at dusk all lights that might be visible to the enemy and at the same time provide sufficient lighting for reasonable comfort for the crew and troops could be controlled from one central lighting station and cut out in less than a minute’s time.
The proof of how successfully this was accomplished, is in the fact that during the entire period of the war, only one light was reported visible by the escort and that was due to the carelessness of a young officer who left a port open against orders.
Emergency lighting circuits were picked up by cutting out all general lighting circuits and then marking all remaining lights with a blue stripe. These circuits were then cut down to bring them to a safe carrying capacity of a 110 volt, 140 ampere storage battery, which was installed for additional safety in case of accident. These latter circuits were so arranged that if for any reason the main supply should fail a solenoid would automatically cut them in on the storage battery.