Making History has had several queries about barrage balloons. David Jenkins of Plymouth asked how many of them there were and what effect they had. Kelly Shannon, a wartime balloon operator, described the difficult and dangerous business of operating a barrage balloon, and John Christopher from Cumbria, who is writing a book about the use of the balloon in the war, discussed its effectiveness. It was in 1938 that Balloon Command was set up with the job of creating a barrage of huge balloons aimed at protecting our towns and cities, and key targets such as industrial areas, ports and harbours. They were intended to protect everything at ground level from the terror of the time - low-flying dive-bombers. Barrage balloons, which were set at heights of up to 5,000 feet, would force these aircraft to fly high, making them less accurate, and bring them within range of the anti-aircraft guns, or ack-ack. Balloon crews, which could be as many as 16 strong, came mainly from the Women's Auxiliary Air Force. It was their job to put up these huge balloons, which were tethered at various heights on steel cables. The working conditions were difficult and dangerous. By the middle of 1940, there were 1,400 balloons, a third of them over the London area. By 1944 the number had risen to nearly 3,000. Later in the war, the barrage balloons were moved to combat the V1 'flying bomb'. The balloons were huge, lolloping things that were put up from balloon sites or from the back of lorries with a winch. Kelly Shannon, who joined the WAAF when she was 17, was one of the many operators who worked night after night during the height of the Blitz. By 1944 the balloons were moved to make up a ring around south London to combat the V1 'flying bomb' menace with a fair degree of success - as many as 100 V1s snagged themselves on the balloons' cables. It was not all plain sailing, however. Some of the balloons were struck by lightning while others were shot down - as many as 50 were shot down in one day when they were set up round Dover. The balloons were filled with hydrogen and flown from winch lorries used at static sites, but their mobility became essential when the barrage was moved to face the V1 menace. The Scottish physicist Arthur Vestry (1869-1959) devised a method for protecting barrage balloons from lightning. Smaller balloons were suspended low, tethered by cable, over the landing craft on D-Day, protecting the allied troops from low-flying enemy aircraft which attempted to attack the men and ships. A barrage balloon was on average about 62 feet long and 25 feet in diameter. There was another, more secret kind of balloon, which was used as a weapon. These were smaller than barrage balloons. Ninety thousand of them were launched and left to float with the wind across the North Sea. Some contained propaganda leaflets, some strips of metal which, it was hoped, would land on power cables, and some carried incendiary chemicals. Source: http://www.bbc.co.uk/education/beyond/f ... g11d.shtml
Yes. A balloon that would be carried by the jetstream to continental America and release an incendiary bomb, aimed to start forest fires. Cheap to produce, potentially devastating... Here is some gun camera footage showing one of these balloons being shot down:
Went to see the RAF museum in Cosford today. Saw something that is related to this topic. Apparentally a cable cutter was developed that could be fitted to the leading edge of an aircrafts wing that would cut a barrage balloons cable. It sounded crackers to me but apparently it was used with some success by the RAF at the start of the war.
The Luftwaffe had a similar device. IIRC it wasn't intended that the cutters be used to deliberately ram balloon cables, more that it was a countermeasure incase the wing came in contact with a balloon cable.
