Do you know that if you inflate a balloon with hydrogen and launch it somewhere not far from the border in the Chernihiv, Sumy, Kharkov regions, then this balloon will fly deep into Russia? And if you launch from the coast of Britain, it will fly towards Germany.
The top-secret air operation, codenamed Outward, began on March 20, 1942. On this day, a special detachment of the Royal Navy of Great Britain launched the first two hundred balloons towards the mainland occupied by Germany.
Every day, 200-300 balloons were launched from the territory of the golf club in Felixstowe. In July 1942, a second launch site was opened near Dover, followed by a third at Wexham.
By the end of 1942, the number of balloon launches reached almost 2,000 per day, which were launched within three to four hours.
Latex balloons had a diameter of about 2.4 m and a load capacity of 8.4 kg, equipped with a simple mechanism for synchronization and height control. Several payload designs were created and named “wire”, “beer”, “jelly”, “socks”, “lemon”, and “jam”.
The “wire” is a 1.6 mm thick wire that hung from a low-flying balloon and shorted out power lines.
“Beer”, “jelly” and “socks” were incendiary ammunition. “Beer” was a tin container, which contained 7-8 bottles of grenades filled with white phosphorus and a special chemical igniter. “Jelly” was a jar filled with an incendiary mixture – napalm in the form of jelly. Each can contained 4.5 liters of the mixture and was equipped with an inertial igniter that fired during a collision with the ground or other obstacle. “Sock” – really looked like a canvas sock filled with incendiary material weighing about 2.7 kg. Each balloon could carry three “socks”.
“Lemon” was a small land mine, and “jam” was a propaganda load of leaflets scattered over German territory.
From March 20, 1942 to September 4, 1944, the British launched 99,142 balloons towards Germany. Of these, 54 thousand were equipped with “wire”, 26 thousand with “beer”, 7 thousand with “jelly”, 10 thousand with “socks”, 1.5 thousand with “lemon” and “jam”.
From March 1942 to the end of January 1943, 520 serious accidents were recorded on German high-voltage lines. In occupied France, there were 4946 cases of power outages. The greatest success was achieved on July 12, 1942, when a balloon armed with “wire” hit a high-voltage line near Leipzig, causing a devastating fire at the Belen power station.
The damage caused by balloons to the German economy amounted to about 100 million Reichsmarks, or 10 million pounds in then prices. The PzKpfw V “Panther” tank then cost about 117 thousand Reichsmarks, and the Bf.109C fighter – about 210 thousand. For the British, the launch of one balloon cost one and a half pounds. The entire balloon bombing program thus cost Britain less than £100,000. That is, every pound invested in Operation Outward brought up to 100 pounds of damage to the enemy, entering the ranks of the most cost-effective military projects of that time. The British command admitted that in some months balloons had done more damage to the German economy than carpet bombing of industrial centers.
… The wind is blowing towards Russia …
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Important
Don’t be a coward. We, Ukrainians, are changing the course of the history of the whole world. Feel the taste of these words
