BALLOON OBSERVERS.

New Zealand Herald, Volume LV, Issue 13967, 28 September 1918, Page 2 (Supplement)

BALLOON OBSERVERS.

I SOME DEEDS OF BRAVERY. I

"OVER THE EDGE" AT 6000 FEET. "Qojsa over the edge" is the act of stepping out of tho basket of a military, balloon from two thousand to six thousand feet up, dropping into space, trusting to the parachute to open and check the descent, writes Henry Woodhouse, editor of "Flying" in Everybody's Magazine. When an aviator— or Boche— makes a dash for a kite balloon and fires incendiary bullets into it, the observer or observers— balloons having two—hasten to go over the edgj. The friendly , anti-aircraft guns often help to remove , any passing doubt as to the advisability j of taking the stop by their volleys—fired . against the airplane, of course, but as the | airplane is so close to the balloon that ; shrapnel seem to buret only a few feet j from the huge gasbag, the pilot goes over , the edge. I Airplane pilots with many air fights to I their credit say that they would prefer to ' tight half a dozen Boche aviators single- I handed over the German lines, with the ' German four-inch anti-aircraft batteries i popping shrapnel at them at even' oppor- , tnnity, than to "go over the edge." The > balloon pilot does not agree to that and j points out that it you are up in a military j balloon spotting artillery fire, and all at , once you hear the sharp staccato of a I Boche airplane gun, and your own anti- j aircraft batteries start a barrage fire just over your head, to bring down the Boche, J you are not apt to stop to figure out ; which is bursting shrapnel from the " Archies" and which is an incendiary J bullet from the Bcche. Over the edge j you go as fast as you can fasten the para- . chute to your harness. | If you have seen the Boche coming and , you telephoned down to the winch crew , to haul down the balloon, and they are j doing so when the Boche begins to fire . tTacer bullets, it is up to you to decide j whether you'll stay in the basket and take ' the chance of seeing the bag— ; twenty thousand cubic feet of hydrogen- | explode over your head, or jump out and [ take the chance of being blown off over . "no man's land" or over the German , lines. It all depends on how the wind blows. The parachute will open after you have shot down a few hundred feet and will check the fall. The descent is then slow, ; and if the wind is blowing toward the | enemy lines you have no choice. The • wind is the controlling factor and you j drift with it. ' I If there is no wind the pilot will come ! down almost straight—and may see his j own balloon dash by aflame and the shat- i tered Boche plane hurtling down, a flaming evidence of the good marksman- ' ship of the men behind the anti-aircraft > guns. j This is one of the reasons why the , allies must maintain their supremacy in ' the air on the various fronts. The bal- j loons are of extreme value to direct artillery fire, and take photographs and ob-; servations of the enemy lines, so they must : be protected from Boche attacks. This j protection consists of airplanes anc I Archies (anti-aircraft guns). As there are i hundreds of kite balloons in use, the work . of protecting them is extensive and few Bocnes succeed in getting by them. Observers Who Refused to Quit. A number of allied artillery observers have received the Victoria Cross, the Dis- j tinguished Service Order, the Military Medal , the Croix de Guerre, the Medaille Miiitaire with palms, or been made I Chevaliers de la . Legion d'Honneur for I bravery under fire. The story of their deeds is told briefly in the official report. Lieutenant Henri Peltier, a well-known French technical writer, now balloon observer,, turned tables on the German "ace" Hermann lopp, whose specialty was shooting down allied balloons. lopp had attacked balloon No- 71 several times, and each time succeeded in damaging it before its crew could bring it to earth. Kite balloon, No. 71 was up three thousand four hundred feet when lopp's Albatross appeared in. the sky. Lieutenant Peltier ordered the balloon down, and bad been lowered to one thousand eight hundred feee when lopp approached to less than one hundred feet and opened fire. Lieutenant Peltier replied with his rifle— had the satisfaction of seeing the German plane' fall in a mass of fire. He had hit the Boche's gasoline tank. A letter ready to mail in lopp's pocket told of his having brought down eight balloone and his expectation of bringing down his ninth that day. As it takes five balloons destroyed to become an " ace," lopp was the German "ace of aces" in the balloon-destroyers' class. Over the Edge without a Parachute. Lieutenant B—also tells the following story of an officer who forgot and went oyer the edge without a parachute i "He was a well-known man in England and hie name a byword," said Lieutenant — "Further than that I do not care to go. He had been ap along with another chap in the observation balloon doing his work for about two hours before we saw the storm coming. It looked like wind and, as at that time we were tot so sure of our rigging and cable as we are now, orders had been given to haul down before the storm arrived.

"It was a near thing, though everything would have been alright, had not the mix-up at tie winch occurred. JusS as the, crew got hold of the handling guys, the winch should have stopped. However, the brake refused to work and the metallic vee was drawn into the winch, crushing the cable. One observer had got out of the basket and the other had taken off his parachute. Just then the wind Btruck and with a wrench, parted the cable where it had been crushed. The gas immediately lifted the crew off the ground, and they, of course, let go. The wind was toward the Boche and as the balloon rose it drifted toward tha German lines. "He, for that ia all I can call him, very coolly commenced to get rid of hid instruments and maps by throwing them overboard, and he was not more than three thousand feet up when the last of them came out. As is usual when a balloon nears the ground, the observers release themselves from the parachute. My friend done bo. It is only the work of a moment to fasten on the parachute again, but after getting rid of his instruments he forgot that he had taken off his parachute and stepped over the edge without it. That was one of the cases where a single slip of the memory means the difference between life and death. "He came down like a stone and was unrecognisable when he struck the earth. Thus died a most capable officer and one of the warmest-nearted friends I ever had —all through forgetting just once." Modern Improvements. Great improvements have been made in . the construction of kite balloons in the past two years. The old design based on the original German drachen balloon was sausage-shaped and could stand little wind above thirty miles per hour. The present design used by the allies, and to some extent by the Germans, is based on the. design of Captain Cac'qou, of the French army. It Is pear-shaped on one side and has three huge fins, one on each side and one underneath the aft end of the gasbag. On the ground these fins give it the appearance of a huge elephant. This type of military balloon is much steadier and 6afer than the old type and can stand a wind of up to sixty miles an hour. They are from seventy to eighty feet in diameter, and have a hydrogen capacity of from twenty thousand to thousand cubic feet. The French and British have a crew, of about one hundred and twenty-five men and three officers for each balloon. Neither the allies nor the Germans use sheds or hangars for kite balloons. They dig "beds" In the ground, and hide the balloon! by covering them with canvas and tree branches,.