CHAPTER VII.BALLOONS.

When Stephen Montgolfier and his brother Joseph, in November, 1782, sent a sheep, a rooster, and a duck into the sky, lifted by a paper bag inflated with hot air, these Columbuses of ballooning could scarcely foresee the importance that their invention was to have in the great war 135 years later. To the humble observation balloon in France rather than to his dashing hero of a cousin, the airplane, must go the chief credit for that marvelous accuracy which long-range artillery attained during the great struggle.

The balloon itself was spectacular enough once its true character was known. The fact that the American production of observation balloons during our 19 months as a belligerent was a complete 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 their ascent, two friends of the brothers, M. Pilatre de Rozier and Girond de Villette, essayed to be the first human beings to take an aerial flight, ascending to a height of 300 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 limited use of captive 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 overcome 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 a cable or propelled by a portable engine. It was obvious, however, to military experts that a stationary observation post anchored thousands of feet in the air would be ideal in war operations; yet for all of this obvious need, until the great war military science had perfected nothing better than the spherical balloon. The spherical, anchored to a cable, bobbed aloft in the gales and zephyrs as a cork does on the ocean waves. Although there had been some experimentation with kite balloons before 1914, it was not until the great war had been in progress for some months that theprinciples of streamline shape were applied to the captive balloon; and the kite balloon, the well-known "sausage," made its appearance, to be the target for enemy aerial operations and the chief dependence of its own Artillery.

The term "kite balloon" effectively describes the captive observation balloon as we knew it in the war. It rides the air on the end of its cable much in the manner of an ordinary kite, and some of the early "sausages" even flaunted steadying tails such as kites carry. These principles applied to the captive balloon gave to its observation basket a stability unknown by the pioneer aeronauts under their spherical bags.

In the first stages of the war the Artillery relied principally upon airplanes for firing directions. But, while the airplane observers could locate the targets fairly well, 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 airplane 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, reciprocated with an efficiency beyond anything known before in the history of warfare.

Sitting comfortably aloft, the observer in the kite balloon basket had the whole panorama of his particular station spread before him. His powerful glasses could note accurately everything transpiring in a radius of 10 miles or more. He was constantly in touch with his batteries by telephone and not only could give by coordinated maps the exact location of the target and the effect of the bursting shell, but could and often did supply most valuable information of enemy troop movements, airplane attacks, and the like. He was a sentinel of the sky with the keen, long-range vision of the hawk. He played a part less spectacular than the scout airplane with its free and dazzling flights, but his duties were not less important.

Nor did he suffer from ennui during his period aloft. When a kite balloon went up it became the subject of alert attention by the enemy, because it was up there on hostile and damaging business. Long-range high-velocity guns turned their muzzles on it, and planes swooped down upon it from dizzy heights, seeking to pass through the barrier of shell from antiaircraft guns and get an incendiary bullet through the fabric of the gas bag, an eventuality which meant the ignition of the highly inflammable hydrogen gas, the quick destruction of the balloon and perhaps of the luckless occupants of the basket as well, unless they could get away in their parachutes.

Only quick work could save the men in the basket in such a case. From the time the gas leaped into flame until the explosion and fall of the balloon there was an interval of rarely over 15 or 20 seconds.The pilot of the airplane could dodge and slip away from the guns, but not so the pilot of the kite balloon anchored to a windlass from 2 to 5 miles behind his own lines. He had to take what was coming to him without means of defense. He must carry on his scientific calculations unconcernedly and in his spare moments experience the questionable pleasure of watching on some distant hill the flash of an enemy gun trained upon him and then of waiting the 20 or 30 seconds for the whizzing messenger to reach him, the while he pondered on the accuracy of the enemy gunner's aim.

While the artillery on both sides paid considerable attention to the observation balloons, the fact was that few of them were brought down by direct shell hits. The diving airplane with its incendiary bullets was a far more deadly enemy to the balloon than the ground artillery. Certain pilots in all the air services made a specialty of hunting sausages, the nickname given to kite balloons because of their shape. In the 17 days between September 26 and November 11, 1918, our Army lost 21 balloons, of which 15 were destroyed by enemy planes and 6 by enemy shell. But it may be noted that our aviators and artillery exacted a toll of 50 German balloons in the same period and on the same front. Of 100 balloons lost at the front, an average of 65 were destroyed by enemy attacks and 35 by natural wear and tear.

The German general staff so strongly appreciated the work of the allied kite balloons that in its system of rating aviators it ranked a balloon brought down as the equal of one and one-half planes.

The average life of a kite balloon on an active sector of the western front was estimated to be about 15 days. Some of them lived only a few minutes. One American balloon passed unscathed through the whole period of American activity on a busy sector. While ordinarily five or six months of nonwar service will deteriorate the balloon fabric, there are many cases of useful service longer than this.

When the war broke out Germany is said to have had about 100 balloons of the kite type. France and England had few of them. The German balloon was known as the Drachen. Its gas cylinder of rubberized cotton cloth was approximately 65 feet long and 27 feet in diameter, the ends being rounded. To give it a kite-like stability in the air a lobe, which was a tube of rubberized fabric, of a diameter approximately one-third of the diameter of the main balloon, was attached to the underbody of the gas bag as a sort of rudder, which curved up around the end of the balloon. This lobe was not filled with gas, but the forward end of it was open so that when the balloon rose the breeze filled the lobe with air. The inflated rudder then held the Drachen in line. The lobe automatically met the emergency. In calm, windless weather the balloon needed no steadying and the lobe was limp. Let the gale blow, and the lobeinflated and held the nose of the Drachen into the wind. As a further stabilizer three tailcups, with mouths open to the breeze, were attached 10 feet apart on a line descending from the rear of the balloon. In a strong wind these helped to keep the contrivance from swinging.

The tail-cup was made of rubberized fabric, circular in shape, about 4 feet in diameter, and about 2 feet deep when inflated by the breeze. It looked like an inverted umbrella, and was attached to the tail end of the balloon for exactly the same purpose and with the same effect as the tail attached to a kite.

The Drachen type of balloon was still in the experimental stage here and in France and England when the Germans swept over Belgium. The Drachen balloon was clumsy and relatively unstable in high winds, yet its importance to the Artillery could not be ignored by the allies. The results of its work daily became more apparent. The first effort of the allies was to improve the Drachen to give it greater stability and permit it to go to higher altitudes. While this work was going on, Capt. Caquot, of the French Army, produced a kite balloon so superior that it quickly superseded what had been in use. Germany clung to the Drachen for a time, but finally abandoned it for the Caquot principles of design.

The earlier balloons of the sausage type had been merely cylinders with hemispherical ends. Now for the first time, in the Caquot model, appeared a captive that was sharply stream lined. Stream lines are lines so curved as to offer the least possible resistance to the medium through which a mobile object, such as a yacht, an automobile, or an airship, moves. The Caquot gas bag was 93 feet long, as compared with the Drachen's 65 feet of length, yet its largest diameter was only 28 feet, being but a foot thicker than the pioneer German type. The Caquot, as all balloons developed in the war, was made of rubberized cotton cloth. Its capacity of 37,500 cubic feet of hydrogen gas lifted the mooring cable, the basket, two observers, and the mass of necessary equipment, and in good weather the balloon could ascend to a maximum altitude of over 5,000 feet.

The principal innovation in the design of the Caquot balloon was the location of the balloonette or air chamber within the main body of the gas envelope. This chamber was in the forward instead of the rear part of the bag and along the bottom of the envelope. It was separated from the gas chamber by a diaphragm of rubberized cotton cloth, which was sewn, cemented, and taped to the inner envelope somewhat below the "equator" or median line from the nose to the tail of the gas bag.

CAQUOT, TYPE R, CAPTIVE OBSERVATION BALLOON.This balloon is 93 feet long and 28 feet in diameter. Its gross lifting power is 2,600 pounds.

CAQUOT, TYPE R, CAPTIVE OBSERVATION BALLOON.

This balloon is 93 feet long and 28 feet in diameter. Its gross lifting power is 2,600 pounds.

BALLOON CONTROLLED BY WINDLASS ON A MOTOR TRUCK.

WINDLASS FOR CAQUOT BALLOON MADE BY JAMES CUNNINGHAM & SONS.

When a balloon of the Caquot type is fully inflated, the diaphragm rests upon the underbody of the gas envelope, and there is no air in the balloonette. Then, as the balloon begins to ascend, at the higher levels the surrounding air pressure is reduced and the gas in the balloon expands. This expansion would normally burst the envelope when the balloon is at a high altitude, except for a safety valve which pops at the danger point and relieves the pressure. Also, when the balloon is anchored it gradually loses gas, since no fabric can be made entirely gas-tight. A flabby balloon in a gale of wind is dangerous to the men in the basket. This flabbiness might be expected to increase, too, as the balloon was hauled down into the heavier air pressures.

It was to overcome this flabbiness that the interior balloonette was first invented, but the new location not only accomplished this end but increased the stability, lessened the tension on the cable and allowed an almost horizontal position of the balloon itself. As the balloon rises the wind blows into the balloonette through a simple scoop placed under the nose of the balloon. This forces up the diaphragm and compensates for any loss of gas from the envelope above. If the day is calm and no air is driven into the balloonette, there is no danger from a flabby balloon anyhow, and hence no need for the air chamber. The thing is automatic.

The Caquot was equipped with lobes of rubberized fabric to act as rudders. These lobes, which were spaced equidistantly around the circumference of the rear third of the balloon, filled with wind when wind was blowing and there was need of rudders. In calm weather the lobes, particularly the two upper ones, hung loosely, resembling elephant ears. On account of this characteristic the Caquots were nicknamed "elephants" by the soldiers.

The Caquot maintained its stability without tailcups, and its construction caused it to ride nearly horizontally and directly above its mooring, regardless of winds. In this position it put much less strain on the anchoring cable than the old-fashioned sausage. This balloon has been operated successfully in winds as high as 70 miles an hour, so that apparently no gale could keep it on the ground.

When we went into the war both our Army and Navy were practically without observation balloons, and we knew little about their construction, although we had been watching the developments in Europe. One local National Guard organization had taken to the Mexican border a locally designed captive balloon, the gift of the Goodyear Tire & Rubber Co., of Akron, Ohio.

In April, 1917, the total production capacity of the United States was for only two or three military observation balloons in a month. But when the emergency came the various concerns whose plants were adaptable to this class of manufacture—the list including the Goodyear and Goodrich organizations at Akron, the United States Rubber Co., the Firestone Tire & Rubber Co., the Connecticut Aircraft Co., and the Knabenshue Manufacturing Co.—all joined wholeheartedly with the Signal Corps to solve our balloon problems.

One of these problems was the production of balloon cloth, for which there had never been any commercial call in this country. Such cloth obviously must be of cotton, for in cotton we had our largest supply of textile raw material. The cloth must be closely woven, smooth, and strong, to serve as a base for the rubberizing process. The standard balloon cloth should have a weave of approximately 140 threads to the inch both ways. In our vast cotton industry only a few mills had ever made such a cloth, and then only in small quantities. In fact we found only a few looms in existence capable of weaving such cloth, which must be from 38 to 45 inches wide. A single loom could turn out only an average of ten yards of this cloth in a day. Our balloon program was to call for millions of yards of high-count cloth, and this meant the construction of thousands of new looms, as well as the training of hundreds of weavers.

Naturally our cotton manufacturers were reluctant to undertake such a production, and their fears were justified when we found that the earliest deliveries of balloon cloth were frequently as high as 67 per cent imperfect. By the middle of 1918, however, the mills had so perfected their methods that the wastage amounted to only 10 per cent of the cloth woven. This wastage was largely caused by "slubs," knots, and other imperfections which prevented an even surface for rubberizing. Because of the lives which depended upon having perfect balloon cloth, the fabric was literally inspected inch by inch, and hundreds of men and women had to be educated especially in this inspection work.

The development of the new art of weaving balloon cloth was an achievement of no mean degree. In April, 1917, all of our cotton mills put together could produce only enough cloth to build two balloons a week. In November, 1918, our looms were turning out cloth sufficient for 10 balloons a day, an expansion in the industry amounting to 3,000 per cent in 19 months. This expansion proceeded at a rate that always kept us a little ahead of the military schedule. To produce 10 balloons a day the cotton mills had to turn out 600,000 yards of special cloth a month. In addition to the small army of weavers, this production called into service 3,200 looms.

Had the war continued another year, we would have reached our goal of 15 complete new kite balloons produced every day. Our complete project of balloons and dirigibles of all types called for a total output of 20,000,000 yards of balloon cloth. Had we reached the quantity production planned, we would have been able to supply not only our own needs but also all of the balloon needs of the allies in Europe. America had the raw materials necessary for the whole anti-German balloon program.

CUTTING AND CEMENTING BALLOON PANELS IN THE GOODRICH PLANT AT AKRON.

SPREADER ROOM AT THE U. S. RUBBER CO. FACTORY, SHOWING MACHINES THAT RUBBERIZE THE CLOTH.

FINAL BALLOON ASSEMBLY ROOM AT GOODRICH FACTORY.

As it was, we supplied to France and England a considerable number of balloons when the materials shortage in those countries was becoming acute. The foreign users of this American made equipment reported that it was equal to the best European product. It should have been. No war material was ever manufactured more conscientiously than this. In addition to the painstaking care of the producers, from start to finish a large force of inspectors watched every step in the construction of each balloon, and when America sent a balloon to the front it was right for the work it had to perform.

The weaving of the cloth was but the first step in the production of the balloon fabric. The fabric of the balloon envelope resembles a sandwich in its construction, there being a thin film of specially compounded rubber between two plies of the cotton cloth. The outer ply of the cloth is cut on the bias. This method prevents any long straight tear down the grain of the fabric. The threads of the inner ply are set at an angle of 45° to those of the outer ply, thus distributing strain sufficiently to stop a "snag" practically where it starts.

The cotton cloth alone can not resist the seepage of gas, and, therefore, it is necessary to rubberize it, the rubber film being really the gas-resisting envelope. In this rubberizing process the cloth must be run through the spreading machine 30 to 35 times in order to build up the thin rubber film without a flaw in it of any kind. The outside ply of the balloon fabric is "spread," that is, painted with a rubber compound containing a coloring matter. This compound makes the fabric waterproof; it gives also protective coloring to the balloon when in the air, making it less visible to the enemy; and, finally and most important, this coloring absorbs the actinic rays of the sun which are so fatal to the life of rubber. In some of the fabric the rubber film itself was colored to withstand both the heat and ultra-violet rays, thus both protecting the rubber and reflecting the heat which would otherwise expand the gas in the balloon.

While in general we adopted the European standards of construction, we had to develop our own rubber compounds and cures as well as our various fabrication processes. The latest reports we received from the front stated that the American fabric not only was successful, but that it had an added characteristic which was a direct means of saving life. It was discovered that the American fabric burned more slowly than the European balloon fabric, giving the men in the observation basket more time to get away in the parachutes when the balloons were destroyed by hostile attack.

When we went into the war we had never built a windlass for a kite balloon. The ability of the American manufacturer solved this problem as it did almost every other problem in the development ofwar instruments. Steam was the motive power first used for windlasses, but before the fighting came to an end America had developed both gas and electric windlasses which were thoroughly efficient.

The best known type of gasoline windlass was that having two motors, one to turn the cable drum controlling the balloon's ascent and descent, and one for moving the windlass itself along the road. A record pull-down speed of 1,600 feet a minute, or more than three times the speed of the fastest passenger elevator, has been attained by the gasoline windlass.

The electric windlass, while pulling down the balloon at the slower rate of 1,200 feet per minute, was smoother in operation. The mobile windlass would move on a road under its own power at 20 miles an hour and could tow the balloon in the air at the rate of 5 miles an hour, or even faster if necessity demanded.

To play on the safe side at the start, we adopted a satisfactory windlass that had been developed in France. It was difficult to manufacture this entirely French machine with American materials and methods; yet James Cunningham, Sons & Co., of Rochester, N. Y., succeeded in obtaining a delivery of four complete windlasses per week.

In addition to this windlass we designed two of our own. One of these was the product of the United States Army Balloon School and was manufactured by the McKeen Motor Car Co., of Omaha, Nebr.; the other windlass was designed and manufactured by the N. C. L. Engineering Co., of Providence, R. I. Both were put into quantity production, assuring us a sufficient number of the best windlasses ever manufactured.

The first cable used to hold the balloon captive was approximately a quarter-inch in diameter, weighed 1 pound for each 8 feet of length had a breaking strength of 6,900 pounds, and was made of seven twisted strands of plow-steel wire, containing in all 133 separate wires. This cable, while it accomplished the original purpose, was early seen to have fine possibilities of development. The observers in the basket must be kept in constant communication with the Artillery and their own windlass and this communication could best and most efficiently be obtained by means of the telephone. The balloon telephone, as first used, was an entirely individual unit with its own separate cable from the basket to the ground. In this way communication was indeed established, but only at the cost of a decrease in possible altitude, increased cable resistance, and the necessity of an extra windlass for winding and unwinding the telephone cable.

BALLOONISTS READY TO ASCEND.The picture shows balloonist with telephone equipment, also a parachute on side of basket.

BALLOONISTS READY TO ASCEND.

The picture shows balloonist with telephone equipment, also a parachute on side of basket.

BALLOON PACKED FOR OVERSEAS SHIPMENT.

BALLOON IN GOODRICH FACTORY INFLATED TO BE SUBJECTED TO AIR TEST.

NURSE BALLOON CONTAINING 5,000 CUBIC FEET OF GAS.It is used in the field to replenish kite balloons with hydrogen.

NURSE BALLOON CONTAINING 5,000 CUBIC FEET OF GAS.

It is used in the field to replenish kite balloons with hydrogen.

Previous to the entrance of the United States in the war, preliminary experiments in France were being made with the view of putting the telephone wires in the center of the main cable, thus doing away entirely with the second cable and windlass. But there had never been developed a satisfactory cable of this construction. American inventiveness at the John A. Roebling Sons Co. and the American Steel & Wire Co. was set to work on this problem with the result that not only was a satisfactory cable developed but a steady production was attained, 50,000 feet per week being delivered regularly by the John A. Roebling Sons Co. alone. This new cable consisted of 114 separate wires of special steel besides the telephone center of 3 copper wires properly insulated and armored. The specifications demanded a breaking strength of 7,200 pounds while the actual test of the finished Roebling cable showed 8,250 pounds.

Another of the balloon problems was the supply of hydrogen gas. Before the war only a little hydrogen was used in this country, the element being a by-product in the manufacture of commercial oxygen. We met the additional demand for millions of cubic feet of hydrogen for our balloons by establishing Government gas plants and expanding privately owned plants already in existence. There were two methods of supplying hydrogen to our balloon units at home and abroad. One of these was by furnishing portable plants which would generate hydrogen at the place where it was to be used. The other was to take the hydrogen from the stationary plants, condense it by pressure in steel cylinders, and ship it to points of demand. By far the greater part of the gas which we used not only in this country but in France was produced at the permanent supply stations and shipped in cylinders. Each cylinder held about 191 cubic feet of gas under a pressure of 2,000 pounds per square inch at 68° F. temperature. When the war ended we had placed orders for 172,800 of these cylinders, of which 89,225 had been delivered and were in use. We developed a manifold filler which would take the gas from 12 to 24 cylinders at the same time and quickly inflate a kite balloon, a speed of 23 minutes for a complete inflation having been reported from one training camp.

In the production of portable hydrogen generators we had to produce not only the machine but the chemicals required in the process. We adopted the ferrosilicon and caustic soda process by which it was possible to produce 10,000 cubic feet of hydrogen per hour in a field generator. There was plenty of caustic soda to be had, but high grade ferrosilicon, a production of large electrolytic furnaces, was scarce, because of its heavy consumption in the steel industry. We procured, however, 2,482 tons of it for our generators, of which over 2,360 tons were supplied by the Electro-Metallurgical Sales Corporation alone.

An interesting feature of the gas supply in the field was the use of "nurse balloons." The nurse balloon was simply a large rubberized-fabric bag with a capacity of 5,000 cubic feet of gas. It was used for storage of gas, and the observation balloons were fed from it. We have not received the exact figures of the quantity of gas used bythe entire Balloon Service; but, as one item alone, private manufacturers previous to the signing of the armistice produced and delivered 17,634,353 cubic feet of hydrogen and were in position to meet practically any demand for the gas. This figure is only a small part of the total, since it does not include the hydrogen produced in the permanent Government stations or by the field generators.

Hydrogen itself, while the lightest of cheap gases, and therefore the one universally used in balloons, has the grave fault of being dangerous to the balloonist. When mixed with the air it is highly explosive, if touched off by a spark of fire or electricity. For years balloonists have dreamed of a gas light enough to have great lifting power, but which would not burn nor explode. There was such a gas known to chemistry, and this was helium, discovered first in spectroscope examinations of the corona of the sun, but later found by chemists to exist rather freely in the atmospheric envelope of the earth. Although one of every 100 parts of air is pure helium, it was not until comparatively recent years that this light nonexplosive gas was discovered in our atmosphere.

Now helium was rare and expensive, and until the United States entered the war no one had considered its production as a commercial possibility. Up to two years ago the total world production of helium since its discovery had not been more than 100 cubic feet in all, and the gas cost about $1,700 per cubic foot.

It had been discovered that certain natural gases issuing from the ground in the United States contained limited quantities of helium. The question was whether we could extract this helium in sufficient quantities to make its use practical. The Signal Corps, the Navy, and the Bureau of Mines combined in a cooperative plan to develop a practical helium production. By adopting a method of obtaining the helium from liquefied gas produced in the processes of the Linde Air Products Co. and the Air Reduction Co., and also by the Norton process, we attained astonishing success in this enterprise.

On the day the armistice was signed we had at the docks ready for loading on board ships 147,000 cubic feet of helium. At its prewar value this gas would have been worth about $250,000,000. On November 11, 1918, we were building plants which would produce helium at the rate of 50,000 cubic feet per day, and the cost of obtaining it had dropped from $1,700 per cubic foot to approximately 10 cents.

None of this gas was actually used in the war, but its production by our chemists was hailed as the greatest step ever taken in the development of ballooning. It now seems to have opened a new era in lighter-than-air navigation. In war helium will nullify the incendiary bullet which destroyed so many balloons and airships. In peace it brings the possibilities of new types of construction of dirigibleairships, since its use eliminates entirely all of the frightful dangers from lightning, static electricity, or sparks and flames from gasoline engines or any other source.

The Army and Navy cooperated in the production of balloons. The Army furnished the balloon cloth to the Navy. Navy balloons had two automatic safety valves for the expanding gas, one on each side of the balloon a third of the way back from the nose and just above the equator; while the Army held to the French and British idea of a single valve in the nose itself. The Navy adopted a Caquot-type balloon which rides at an angle of about 25° to the horizontal and is somewhat smaller than the Army model. The Navy used these balloons as spotters for submarines and mines. They were towed on cables from the decks of war ships, and were connected with the ships by telephone.

The use of parachutes with balloons is a comparatively recent development, the man who first successfully descended to earth in a parachute being not only still active and enthusiastic over aerial development, but being in fact the chief inspector of all United States Army balloons and parachutes. This is Maj. Thomas S. Baldwin, known the world over as Capt. "Tom" Baldwin, hero of innumerable aerial exploits of all kinds under all conditions and in all parts of the world, and at present chief of the United States Army balloon inspection. The Yankee balloon observer in France went up to his observation post in the security of knowing that the equipment on which his life depended had been O. K.'d by men who knew the business from beginning to end.

The parachute as it is known at the county fair and the parachute used in the recent war were far apart in type, the latter embodying all the improvements that the world's aeronautical experts could add to it. The need for parachutes developed when hostile aviators began shooting down the sausages. At first the one-man parachute was used exclusively, the men in the basket leaping overboard the instant their balloon was fired over their heads. Any delay on their part would be fatal, since the entire bag would be consumed in 15 or 20 seconds and the observer would then be unable to leap out of the falling basket. When the individual parachutes were used, the maps and records in the balloon basket were usually lost.

To overcome these difficulties, the designers invented the basket parachute. This was considerably larger than the individual parachute, and to operate it the balloonists pulled a cord which cut the basket away from the balloon entirely. The spreading parachute overhead then floated the basket, with the men themselves and all else it contained, safely and quickly to the ground.

Although hundreds and even thousands of parachute jumps occurred during the war, there were few fatalities from this cause.During all the time our forces were at the front only one of our men was killed as the direct result of a parachute drop. In that particular instance the burning balloon fell on top of the open parachute, setting it on fire and allowing the observer to fall unprotected the rest of the distance to the ground. One of our observers was known to make four jumps from his balloon on the same busy day, and another leaped thrice in four hours. In the Argonne offensive 30 balloon jumps were made by our men.

As to the safety of our parachute equipment, the only complaint from the Yankee balloonists at the front was that they were too safe. The man who is escaping from a German airplane nose-diving at him with a machine gun spitting fire is in a hurry and does not wish to be detained by a parachute which floats him too slowly to the earth.

In the rigging of each kite balloon there are about 2,000 feet of rope of different sorts. There was a shortage of proper cordage in the United States at first, and the French thought they could furnish this rigging to us. But this attempt proved to be unsuccessful, and we were forced to develop a cordage manufacture in this country of high quality and great quantity. We did this so swiftly that there was no serious delay to the balloon production.

Up to November 11, 1918, we produced over 1,000 balloons of all kinds, 642 of these being of the final Caquot type which we adopted. This production included many propaganda balloons for carrying printed matter over the lines into the enemy's country. We supplied several target balloons for gun practice on our aviation fields. We developed new types of parachutes and built acres of canvas hangars for balloons. We produced 1,221,582 feet of steel mooring cable. These are only the major items in the balloon enterprise, and do not include hundreds of others of less importance.

The balloon production was one of the most important and successful of all our war projects. Although we had a limited 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 been in existence for many years. Once our production actually started, we never had any shortage of balloons for our own Army; and soon we would have been in a position to produce the observation balloons for all of the armies fighting Germany, if called upon to do so.

[30]Target.

[31]Spherical.

[32]Propaganda.

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