Chapter XX: Eyes of the Army

All military observation balloons are practically “the eyes of the army.” They are generally captive—always out of reach of enemy artillery fire. Of course, they may become the victims of surprise attacks from enemy aviators.

These sausage-shaped craft are very important adjuncts to the fighting forces, and they have regular habits. They go up every morning and come down every night. In this they are aided by the engine of some large auto-truck, which hauls them in or lets them go up, according to orders from the officer in charge. Their efficiency as posts of observation may be readily appreciated. There is nothing going on below for miles upon miles that cannot be distinguished through the use of powerful glasses in the hands of skilled lookout men.

With these fellows on watch very little can transpire that they are not likely to discover in a jiffy. The enemy tries to send a wagon train of ammunition to some point of advantage, when, bingo! some shells explode in their path—then it’s a case of jumping and running for their lives. Troop movements are subject to the same kind of attack, in fact, everything is an open book to the trained observers, lolling about in the high altitude breezes, alert, however, to every little thing going on.

It is most interesting to watch the work of the observation balloon, which always anchors close enough to the front to give it the advantage of seeing everything, yet far enough to the rear to protect it from being shot at by the enemy anti-aircraft batteries. It depends upon the contour and character of the ground, and at just what elevation the balloon officials can best observe. The great bag is held in place by a steel cable, and has direct telephone communication with the artillery field station.

This station is located so that all wires from the observation posts lead into it, as do also the wires from the field batteries along certain parts of the front. When anything transpires that seems of enough consequence to deserve a few shells, the observer phones the location as it appears on his chart, and a corresponding chart at the artillery bureau furnishes correct information to the officers in charge, as though they were looking at the very spot themselves. The range is computed and phoned to the battery that commands the particular location of the objective. The range is soon found and the firing begins.

It is then the duty of the gas-bag observers to inform the bureau the moment a shell explodes, setting forth the information that is necessary for corrections in the event that the shell missed; also whether it exploded before reaching the object or passed beyond. The moment this information is secured corrections in the range are immediately made, phoned to the battery, and the second shell is sent screaming on its way. After which corrections are again given, until finally the observer comes back with the word “hit.” They then have the range and can hammer away at the position until they have completed the necessary destruction.

So accurate has this system become that, with an observation balloon to govern and observe, artillery fire, after the second and third shot, will come uncomfortably close to its objective, if it does not make a direct hit. The accuracy of cannon-fire nowadays is remarkable, and, although batteries may be located in clumps of trees or even hidden by hills, they have reached a perfection almost beyond belief. Thus it may be readily seen that the observation balloon plays an important part in modern warfare. Because of these observation balloons, there has seldom been, if ever, such a thing as concentrations of large bodies of troops for attacking purposes, or unending streams of caissons bringing up shells or supplies without coming under the eye of the observer.

One day on the eastern front an artillery commander in our division started out on a tour of inspection. He arrived at a certain position, where a new battery was being located in a clump of woods just off the roadside. In preparation for the new battery some concrete work was being done on foundations.

Pulling up on the road in a clearing, the officer and his aide stepped out of the car, followed by the chauffeur, and entered the woods to review the work. At a distance, so small that it could scarcely be seen, was a German observation balloon. The party had no sooner entered the woods when they were attracted by the explosion of a shell in close proximity. This was soon followed by a second, which landed in the road, and then a third, which struck beside the front end of the auto they had just left and blew it into fragments.

One thing that comes under the eye of a person traveling along the military roads in France is the large number of soup kitchens that lie toppled over along the roadside. The reason for this is that there are always so many of these soup kitchens going to and from the front along roads that can be seen from enemy observation balloons, and they can be shelled with deadly and unerring accuracy.

It is a most rare occurrence for the drivers of these soup kitchens to be injured or wounded, for they can hear the shell coming and dive off of the kitchens into the roadside or run for their lives. Meanwhile the shell will make a direct hit and blow the soup kitchen to pieces.

Observation balloons are a hindrance to operations that the enemy desire to be unobserved; therefore aviators are dispatched against them and instructed to clear them from the skies. Of course, there is no means by which an observation balloon can resist successfully an attack by an aviator, even if equipped with a machine gun, because the aviator will always attack it from above.

The best opportunity to destroy observation balloons always comes on cloudy days, when an aviator can circle around in the clouds until he gets directly over the balloon, and drop, unobserved, upon it. Then, with a machine gun, or an incendiary bomb, he can put it out of existence. When the observers see that they cannot get away from the enemy aviator their only chance is to jump from the basket with a parachute, as the moment the bomb strikes the gas bag and the contents ignite, it becomes an “inferno.”

Two interesting incidents took place at Verdun in connection with observers and enemy aeroplanes after their gas bags had been struck and destroyed. In the first instance, the observer jumped from the basket, and was descending toward the earth suspended and swinging at the end of a parachute, like the pendulum of a clock.

The enemy aviator, for additional exercise and excitement, circled around and descended along with the parachute, shooting at the observer as he swung through the air, with his machine gun, until he got his man. But in so doing he descended closer to the ground than he had contemplated doing, and a well-directed shot from an anti-aircraft battery brought both himself and his plane tumbling to the earth.

The second instance was where a Boche aviator had dropped out of the clouds and an observer, seeing there was no chance to get away from him, quickly jumped from the basket of his balloon with a parachute. The bag was struck shortly after and burst into flames.

It must have been the intention of the Boche to have some machine-gun exercise with this observer, for he circled around and tried to get into a position to fire. Before he could accomplish this the observer, swinging through the air, drew an automatic revolver, and with a well-directed shot hit the aviator and killed him.

Observation balloon work is considered a very dangerous branch of the service, inasmuch as observers do not have an opportunity to protect themselves from enemy aviators and must rely chiefly on anti-aircraft batteries for protection.