This site is in the process of being migrated from its Mark I version (1996) to a new version as we end our 25th year online and gear up for 25 more. Thank you for your patience as we “build back better.” If you’ve written recently about content you accessed in the past, but cannot find now, trust that it will be restored in the coming months.
This site was last updated at 1400 hours on 11/28/23.
Unit History
The official history of the battalion, 1942-1945, from their training in the swamps of North Carolina, to their landing on Omaha Beach on D+9, to their dash across Northern France into the Rhineland and deep into Germany. The full text as published in Munich after the war and distributed to each member before returning home.
Their Story In Photos
Over 500 period photographs in 37 galleries taken by the Skylighters themselves, augmented by hundreds more chronicling the War in Europe from the Webmaster’s collection. Special albums are devoted to the airfields the 225th defended, the aircraft they guided home, and the stateside camps at which they trained.
The Men & Machines
Meet the 827 officers and enlisted men of the 225th, and get to know the tools of the trade, from ack-ack guns, to searchlights, to sound locators, to top-secret radar sets. Find out how all were used in combat to shoot down enemy aircraft – including jets and buzz bombs – and light the skies to save Allied ones.
Oral Histories
Read the stories of the men who were there in their own words, gathered over the course of a quarter-century of interviews conducted by the Webmaster at numerous unit reunions. Includes the previously unpublished diaries of several members, as well as articles published during the war about the battalion.
They Came This Way
Follow the Skylighters from an icy Winter in Fort Sheridan, Illinois, to a peaceful Summer in Munich, Germany, and scores of points in between. At times, the Skylighters were spread across three countries. Maps and then-and-now photography combine to trace the unit’s movements throughout the war.
The World At War
The Skylighters were just “a little part of the big war.” Check back to explore our World War II history section, including everything happening on the Homefront. Features the Skylighters WW II Pinup Gallery, one of the most popular sections of the site, spotlighting the girls – like Betty and Rita – that the Skylighters took to war.
Special Reports
“The Story of Antwerp X” will be available later this month. It’s the full history of how the Skylighters and their antiaircraft brethren, including British and Polish ack-ack units, helped defeat Hitler’s relentless V-1 rocket attacks on the Belgian port city of Antwerp. The main supply line of the Allied armies as they drove ever closer to Germany in the closing months of 1944, Antwerp was vital to coalition plans for the final assault on the Third Reich. The prime directive of the multi-national Antwerp X command was simple: The V-1s must be stopped!
“The Skylighters & The Night Fighters” – available in February 2022 – tells the little known story of the cooperation between the 225th and two U.S. Army Air Force night fighter squadrons, the 422nd and 425th. Not only did the Skylighters use their radar sets to vector the P-61s of both squadrons to enemy aircraft in darkness, they used their searchlights to create visual beacons called “light canopies” that aided the safe return of numerous three-man P-61 crews in bad weather and under other adverse conditions. Exclusive photos donated to the site by 425th veteran George Hoover are featured.
In August and September 1945, five sections of the 225th AAA Searchlight Battalion provided illumination of the Eiffel Tower during the United States Strategic Air Forces in Europe (USSTAF) Exhibition in Paris, commemorating the aircraft and support personnel, equipment, systems, and tactics used to win the war in the air. The full story will appear here in March, but several dozen photos of the event taken by the Skylighters and others are currently available here.