Operation Outward came about mainly because of an accident. British Barrage balloons were gigantic
balloons filled with helium and tethered to the ground by steel cables. They were meant
for ground defense, making it hard for aircrafts to perform low flying bomb attacks. Overnight on
September 17th-18th, 1940, there was a raging storm. Gale-force winds ripped loose a bunch
of British Barrage balloons and carried them across the North Sea towards mainland Europe.
Within a few hours, there were several reports of electrical outages in countries such as Sweden,
Finland, and Denmark. The balloons’ trailing cables had struck power lines, disrupted railways,
and even knocked down the antenna for the Swedish International radio station.
A few days later, the British War Cabinet received a report about the incident. Previously,
in 1937 Britain had considered using balloons as offensive weapons of war but chose not
to pursue such a program. With accidental proof of how effective balloons could be,
Winston Churchill directed the use of free-flying balloons as a weapon of war be investigated.
During the winter of 1940 as Britain began to ponder using balloons, the empire was in
a precarious position. In June their only ally France had fallen to the Germans. Throughout
the late summer and into the fall the British Royal Air Force (RAF) had fought the Luftwaffe,
Nazi Germany’s air force, in several air skirmishes in what came to be called the Battle
of Britain. The British empire prevailed, serving Hitler his first major defeat. However, the cost
of the battle was enormous in both manpower and resources. If Britain was going to invest in a
balloon offensive project, it needed to be worth their while. It would be around 6 months before
Britain gained another ally in the Soviet Union and close to a year before the USA joined the war.
As luck would have it, the balloons were the perfect low-key weapon to wreak havoc on Germany.
Britain has favorable weather conditions for such a mission. High altitude winds generally blow from
west to east from the British isles. Even if the wind wasn’t blowing in the exact direction,
it didn’t matter. Since the Third Reich controlled much of mainland Europe,
the balloons didn’t have to be aimed at a target or even be especially accurate.
Furthermore, power lines in Germany were particularly susceptible to the balloons.
Prewar German electricity grids used slow-acting circuit breakers and Peterson
coils as opposed to the faster-acting circuit breakers, which could quickly isolate damage
used by the British. If a balloon cable drifted across two or more power lines,
it was highly likely to cause a short circuit or damage the power line enough that it would
most probably break in the future. Also, the British Royal Navy had a stockpile of 100,000
surplus latex weather balloons which made the operation cost-effective.
On March 20th, 1942, the first balloons launched from HMS Beehive, near Felixstowe
in Suffolk county not far from the southeast coast of the UK. It was a joint operation,
with 230 men and women from the Royal Navy, Royal Marine, Women's Royal Naval Service, the
RAF Balloon Command, and the Naval Meteorological Services working together. For security reasons,
the launch crews were given the cover story of being part of a "Boom-defense" unit.
The spherical balloons when inflated with hydrogen had a diameter of 8 feet (2.4 m). To
prevent escape, the balloons were inflated inside three-sided tents or windbreaks. During inflation,
the balloons were sprayed with water to avoid friction between the latex
balloon and the tent canvas; otherwise, the hydrogen might have accidentally ignited.
Then crew members conveyed the balloons by hand to a dispersal point, where a
payload was attached. It could be a dangerous job, and launch crews wore protective gear,
including fire-proof black gloves, during balloon handling. In several instances, members of the
launch crew required medical treatment for burns caused by exploding balloons or other mishaps.
The balloons were launched between 10 am and 4 pm when the wind and weather were suitable.
Just before launch, a slow-burning fuse was lit on each balloon. The length of the fuse
was determined by the estimated time it took the balloon to arrive over German-controlled
territory. Once released, the balloon rose rapidly. Around 25,000 feet (7600 m), an
internal cord would tighten and prevent further ascension by releasing some gas;
the balloon would then begin a slow descent due to the hydrogen gradually leaking away.
After a while, the slow-burning fuse would release a plug from a can of mineral oil;
as the oil slowly dripped out, the balloon's payload would lighten, moderating its descent.
The fuse was also used to release the balloon’s weapon. There were a number of payloads a balloon
might carry: trailing wire or explosives, which were code-named beer, jelly, and socks.
For the balloons that carried a trailing wire, the slow-burning fuse would melt through the cord
that held the wire, deploying it. The trailing wire itself consisted of 700 feet (213 m) of
hemp cord with a break strength of 40 pounds, that was attached to a tail of 300 feet (91 m) of wire.
The wire was dragged for about 30 miles (48 km) in the hopes it would encounter
a high-voltage transmission line and cause a phase-to-phase short circuit. After a while,
Germany switched to a new type of line conductor clamp and changed over-current protection settings
to better protect their transmission lines against trailing British balloons; it didn’t help.
One of the incendiary devices was code-named Beer. It consisted of an 8.5 inch (22 cm) in diameter,
9 inch (23 cm) tall metal canister. It contained 7 or 8 half-pint bottles that worked as SIP
(self-igniting phosphorus) grenades composed of white phosphorus, benzene, water,
and raw rubber. The canister was attached to the slow-burning fuse. Once the fuse burned out,
the canister would tip open and drop the SIPs. On contact, they shattered and spontaneously ignited.
If SIPs landed on a city, they could damage buildings or cause mayhem.
If they landed in a forest or grassland, it could cause a large wildfire. Even the threat
of exploding balloons elevated the risk of fire; it forced the German government to form a citizen
group of fire observers whose job was to report any fire in nearby areas and try to extinguish
them. Combating wildfires sapped money, time and human resources from the war effort.
Another incendiary device was called Socks. Long thin canvas bags were packed with thin
wood shavings, bound with wire, and soaked in hot paraffin wax. The socks ended up weighing
about 6 lb (2.7 kg) each. Each balloon could carry three; they were bundled together and fuses were
inserted at each end. When deployed, socks formed a V‑shaped sausage designed to catch in the crown
of a tree. The fuses would ignite and burn from each end of the device for about 15 minutes.
Yet another explosive device was called Jelly. It was just that--a can about the
size of a small office trash bin filled with 1 imperial gallon (4.5 liters) of incendiary jelly.
It was equipped with a fuse and a release mechanism so it would detonate on the ground.
On ignition, it created a large fireball with a radius of about 20 ft (6.1 m).
After a little over two years of Operation Outward running, in May of 1944, the program
changed tactics because of increased allied aircraft activity. The mass balloon launches
were stopped and replaced with a "trickle" of balloons launched from three sites at ten-minute
intervals throughout daylight hours. Two new types of payloads, code-named lemon and jam,
began being deployed. Unfortunately, the specifics of these payloads have been lost to history.
Lemons were likely small yellow bombs leftover from Operation Albino, a trial balloon operation
previous to Operation Outward, which failed. Jam is thought to be a device that deployed leaflets.
The operation was considered a success. It’s hard to gauge the impact of the operation,
the British only sometimes received reports of damage from foreign news sources. It’s known
that the first set of balloons launched caused forest fires near Berlin and in East Prussia.
On 12 July 1942, a balloon trailing wire struck a 110,000-volt power line
near Leipzig, Germany. This caused the overload switch at the Bohlen power station to fail;
the station caught on fire and was destroyed. The balloons also caused damage in neutral
countries. During the night of January 19-20, 1944, two trains collided at Laholm, Sweden,
after an Operation Outward balloon knocked out electrical lighting on the railway. Another time,
a balloon accidentally drifted back to Britain and caused a power failure in the city of Ipswich.
The cost to run Operation Outward was fairly low. The balloons were mass-produced and cost
35 shillings each or about £98 ($133.70) in 2022. The cost in ammunition, inconvenience
and repairs were far higher for Germany. Initially, the Third Riech used Luftwaffe
fighter planes to shoot down the bombs, but they eventually stopped due to the high cost involved.
They also used anti-aircraft guns to shoot down the balloons, but that had limited success.
One might ask, why didn’t the Germans retaliate and use a balloon bomb offensive against Britain?
The wind conditions were never in their favour so any counter attack would just result in balloons
being blown back to the German mainland. Japan also had a balloon operation during
World War II. It was called Project Fu-go (fire balloon).
Initially, the 9th Military Technical Research Institute designed balloon bombs to be launched
from Japanese submarines stationed on the West Coast of America. However, the joint
army-navy research into this operation ended abruptly when Japan recalled all its submarines
for the Guadalcanal operation in August 1943. The institute switched its focus to designing a
transpacific balloon made to float across the Pacific Ocean on the winter jet stream. They
discovered it would take the balloons about 60 hours to travel some 5,000 miles (8,000 km) to
the west coast of America. However, the length of float time came with a big problem.
As the sun rose and set, the balloons would expand and contract with the temperature and ascend and
descend accordingly. Ultimately, the engineers were able to come up with a clever control
system driven by an altimeter to vent the balloon and also discard ballast as needed. Initially,
the balloons were made of rubberized silk, but when the balloons went into mass production,
a switch was made to washi, a paper made from the bark of the kozo tree.
The date of the first launch was chosen because it was an auspicious day:
November 3, 1944, the birthday of former Emperor Meiji. The launch process was difficult;
it took 30 minutes to an hour to prep one balloon for flight, and required about 30 crew members.
The main bomb-carrying balloons were 33 feet (10 m) in diameter and inflated with hydrogen. They
had to carry about 1,001 pounds (454 kg) of gear including explosives and ballast.
The Project Fugo program ran on a tight schedule. The balloons could only be
launched during certain wind conditions. In the months of November to March,
there were only 50 anticipated favorable days. Three balloon battalions launched a
maximum of 200 balloons per day from three launch sites on the east coast of Honshū.
Between November 1944 through April 1945, the battalions launched over
9,300 fire balloons. The operation expected about 10% of the balloons to reach their destination.
However, only about 300 balloons were known to have reached North America, with it being possible
that several more balloons landed in unpopulated areas. Balloons were found on the west coast,
as far north as the Yukon territory and as far east as South Dakota. The US military sent fighter
planes to intercept some balloons, but they were surprisingly tricky to shoot down, the balloons
flew high and fast. Ultimately US fighters destroyed fewer than 20. The Royal Canadian
Air Force also destroyed a handful of balloons. The US military created the Firefly Project,
utilizing 2,700 troops and working with the United States Forest Service to
spot and fight wildfires caused by Fu-go balloons in the Pacific coastal forests.
On March 10, 1945, a Fu-go balloon caused a short circuit in the power lines that
supplied electricity for the nuclear reactors cooling pumps at a production facility for the
Manhattan Project. Thankfully backup safety devices restored power almost immediately.
There was lots of curiosity and mild worry as the US public became aware of the balloons.
The government warned people to stay away and notify authorities if they found one.
After a few articles ran about people finding balloons, the US office of censorship asked
the press for a blackout on the topic. They didn’t want the public to panic,
but most importantly, they didn’t want Japan to think the balloons were an effective weapon.
Meanwhile, US military intelligence was able to collect information from fragments of a balloon
and eventually determine where it was produced. From there they performed aerial reconnaissance
which resulted in them locating two of the hydrogen production plants that produced
gas for the balloons. In April of 1945 B-29 bombing raids successfully destroyed the plants.
Weeks later, Japan ended Project Fu-go. They thought the operation was a failure. Additionally
it was expensive to run and the cost to rebuild the hydrogran plants would have been astronomical.
The only fatalities to occur from a balloon bomb happened on May 5,
1945. A church Sunday school group was picnicing in the forest near Gearhart Mountain in Southern
Oregon and saw a strange balloon on the ground. Suddenly there were two explosions and 6
people were killed. Later a bomb expert would suggest that one of the kids kicked the bomb.
In the years since World War II, people have occasionally discovered fragments of Fo-go
balloons and also still live bombs. Most recently in 2019 a hunter looking for mountain goats near
Mcbride, British Columbia found an exploded bomb. But ultimately the British balloon raids on the
German mainland stand as the most effective use of this tactic throughout the war.
During the 899 days of Operation Outward, nearly 100,000 balloons were launched; about half carried
incendiary devices and half carried trailing wires. At the peak of the operation, 1,500
balloons were launched a day leading to chaos and a noticeable damage to the German war effort.
A lowly Naval cook became a hero and helped to end segregation in
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