Harrisburg telegraph. [volume] (Harrisburg, Pa.) 1879-1948, 1919-09-03
No Wonder Germany Quit
By MAJOR FRANK G. MAHIN
OF the Army Recruiting Station

When Stephen Montgolfier and
his brother Joseph, in November,
1882 sent a sheep, a rooster, and
duck into the sky, lifted by a paper
bag inflated with hot air. these
Columbuses of ballooning could
scarcely forsee the Importance that
their invention was to have in the
great war 135 years later. ITO the
humble observation balloon in
France rather than to his dashing
hero of cousin, the airplane. must
go the chief credit for that marvel
GUS accuracy which long-range ar
tillery attained during the great
struggle. The balloon itself was
spectacular enough once its true
character was known. The fact that
the American production of obser-
vation balloons during our nineteen
months as belligerent was a COM
plete and unqualified success makes
the story of ballooning in France of
particular interest to the American
reader. After the animals of the
Montgolfier barnyard had made as
cent, two friends of the brothers, NJ.
Pilatre de Rozier and Girond de
Villette, essayed to be the first hu-
man beings to take an aerial flight,
ascending to height of 500 feet and
returning to earth sound of limb
and body. Thereafter and until the
great war in Europe the balloon
remained the awe of the circus and
country fair grounds and the delight
of the handful of sportsmen who
| took up the adventurous pursuit;
| but, except for a lifted use of cap
tive balloons in our Civil War and
in the siege of Paris, in 1870 and
1871, the balloon had no important
military use. The hot-air balloon
never could have become of great
value to armies. In the first place,
| it would descend when the balloon
| cooled off. This defect was over
come by the use of lighter-than-air
gas. Moreover, the free balloon was
subject to the whims of the breezes.
| To overcome this characteristic the
! balloon must be fastened by cable
or propelled by a portable engine.
1t was obvious, however, to military
| experts that a stationary observation
post anchored thousands of feet in
| the air would be ideal in war opera
| tions; yet for all of this obvious
| need, until the great war military
science had perfected nothing bet
| ter than the spherical balloon. The
| spherical, anchored to a cable, bob
bed aloft in the gales and zephyrs
| as a cork does on the ocean waves.
| Although there had been some eX-
perimentation with kite balloons be-
! fore 1914, it was not until the great
war had been in progress for some
months that the principles of
4 -. Gh a
| the captive balloon; and the kite
balloon, the well-known sausage"
made its appearance, to be the tar
! get for enemy aerial operations and
| the chief dependence of its own ar
| tillery. The term kite balloon" ef-
| fectively describes the captive OBJ
servation balloon as we knew it in
the war. 1t rides the air on the
end of its cable much in the manner
of an ordinary kite, and some of
| the early "sausages" even Haunted
steadying tails such as kites carry.
These principles applied to the cap
tive balloon gave to its observation
basket a stability unknown by the
pioneer aeronaut under their spher-
ical bags. In the first stages of the
war the artillery relied principally
could locate the targets fairly we'll,
upon airplanes for firing directions.
But, while the airplane observers
they frequently lost touch with their
batteries because of the difficulty OF
| sending and receiving wireless or
visual signals upon their swiftly
moving craft. This disadvantage
brought the captive balloon into use
gradually at first, but before the
end of the war on a scale which
had practically displaced the air.
plane as a director of gun fire. The
balloon came to be the very eye OF
the artillery, which. thanks to the
development of this apparatus, re-
ciprocated with an efficiency beyond
anything known before in the his
tory of warfare. The balloon pro-
duction was one of the most import
ant and successful of all our wal
projects. Although we had a limit.
ed knowledge of the subject in the
beginning, our balloons stood the
hard test of actual service and could
bear comparison in every way with
the best balloons of Europe, where
the art of balloon building had beer
in existence for many years. Once
our production actually started, we
never had any shortage of balloon:
for our own army; and soon we
would have been in a position t.
produce the observation balloons fol
all of the armies fighting Germany
( if called upon to do so.