BALLOONS TO LEND

Greymouth Evening Star, 15 August 1942, Page 7

BALLOONS TO LEND

NAVY’S THAMES ACTIVITY,

The naval “balloon seller” has his pitch down river, where he can keep a sharp look-out for customers. The customers may be anything from a 10,000-ton convoy ship to a grimy little 900-ton coaster. Kite Balloon Section is the name of one of the Royal Navy’s many lesser-known activities. Since the first six months of the war it has supplied kites or balloons- to British, Allied and neutral merchant ships for their protection against dive-bombing or low machine-gunning attacks by enemy aircraft at sea. Their balloons or kites fly from big and little ships thoughout the seven, seas, (says “P.L.A. Monthly.” Kite balloons are the smaller sisters of the barrage balloon, but Nazi pilots have learned to respect them just as much. These balloons flying from merchant ships have already accounted for at least six German aircraft and have protected ships from attack in more than 200 instances. Masters of merchant ships, traditionally conservative towards new devices, have learned the worth of the Navy’s balloons, and most of them would now hate to sail without such protection. Three services work together in the Kite Balloon Section. At the Balloon Wharf a naval officer is in charge, hie keeps a lookout for ships handing in or requiring balloons. The R.A.F. make, maintain, repair and inflate the balloons, and naval ratings take them in drifters to the merchant ships, which heave-to in midstream just long enough to receive them. Any ship may have a balloon for the asking_ There is no formality or fuss. An Aldis lamp winks from a coaster in the river. “Here’s my jamjar.” it says. “Can I have my balloon?” “Balloon coming out,” is the signalled reply. A Belgian fishing drifter, which escaped from Ostend, casts off to take the skipper of the coaster his balloon. The balloon, fully inflated but surprisingly light, is taken on a handing line and secured to the drifter. A few minutes later the drifter noses alongside the coaster in midstream, lhe skipper, a Newcastle man, leans, over the bridge and remarks, “Wouldn’t go without one.” He has good reason. Last time out he was attacked by a German aircraft. It made four runs ■fo machine-gun the balloon before it shot down in flames. By that time the ship’s machine-gunners were getting in some telling bursts. The aircraft had had enough. It flew off. Another time the little ships m company with him came alongside and sheltered under his balloon. The old man’s all right now,’ said a leading seaman of the drifter, “but you should have heard him not so long ago when his balloon looped ( the loop around his wireless aerial.” A single merchant seaman links the balloon wire to the wire which is rove through a fitting . on the coaster’s foremast. The drifter casts off.’ The whole operation has taken five minutes. Before the drifter is back at the balloon wharf the coaster is already on her way downstream, her balloon flying aloft At another port, some days later, this ship will hand in her balloon for retopping and draw another one. So the Navy looks after the little ships.