25.1.15

An Uplifting History

     For thousands of years man looked upon the great birds of flight and envied their freedom of the air. Since birds could escape the limitations and confinements of the earthbound, man endeavored to reach the skies. Man is, however, an excellent innovator of death, and with the development of large balloons in 1780s France, the new technology was put to use, almost immediately, on the battlefield.
     The American Civil War in the 1860s strove to expand these innovations to their full potential. President Lincoln organized the Union Army Balloon Corps, originally, for cartography and, later, reconnaissance. Officers quickly realized the potential of air-borne craft and developed a system for balloon pilots to communicate with artillery to hit targets not visible to them. This long-distance precision aiming revolutionized the capacities of the balloon, the cannon, and the battlefield. A balloon on a barge in the Potomac River oversaw formation movements and is considered, by the United States military, the first aircraft carrier. The benefits were determined not to justify the cost of maintenance and equipment and the time transport and filling of the balloons took.
     By the 1880s, a hundred years after the original discovery, the British established a permanent balloon segment of the Royal Engineers which saw involvement in African colonization and the Boer Wars. World War I saw increased use and development of balloons for all purposes since balloon activity proved extremely useful for the static battlefield of the Western Front.
     Zeppelins, mobile balloon airships, were used by the Germans for bombing raids on London, Paris, and several smaller cities. The slow movement of these airships left them open targets once planes could be sent to attack; by the spring of 1915 the German fleet only had four airships remaining.
     World War I was the heyday for balloon warfare because of the stagnant nature of the conflict and the only recent development of airplanes. The late 1920s and and 30s saw gas-filled airships at the height of use and popularity. Trans-Atlantic travel was possible, and German Zeppelins carried passengers around Europe. The dangers of large volumes of flammable gas and the numerous crashes and explosions eventually lost the travel market to airplanes which were faster and safer. The Zeppelin airship company refunded all travel tickets in 1940.
     World War II saw some usage of balloons but as secondary weapons. The British hung long steel cables from balloons to crash low-flying aircraft during bombing raids ("blimps") and some balloons were used in reconnaissance but much reduced from World War I due to the increased capabilities of airplanes.
     One of the most effective offensive uses of balloons was the Japanese fire balloons (fu-go) during the later part of World War II. Over three-hundred balloons reached the American mainland drifting over three-thousand miles of ocean. Several balloons made it more than seven-thousand miles. Six deaths resulted in a single incident. The U.S. military ordered a press blackout to prevent the Japanese hearing of the success fearing that future balloons could carry biological weapons. The press blackout worked, and in April 1945 the Japanese cancelled the fire balloon strategy because of high cost and no known success.
     
     In current times balloons are used to monitor weather at high altitudes, and the U.S. still uses balloons for observation purposes in some of its many military involvements.
     The history of balloons reveals the innovative capacities for technology from maps to spies to travel bombers to bomb hindrance. Balloons played an important role in the development of modern warfare and the world. By enabling artillery to attack what was non visible, battle strategies changed. They made heroes, bombed cities, changed travel, and still impact the world today. Balloons are still up, useful, and rock the world, It will be a great loss to the history of the modern world if the impact of the balloon finally deflates completely and the balloon market bursts.

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Agatha Tyche

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