Novel research: Barrage balloons

Barrage balloons, used to confuse attacking planes, were raised and lowered by winch from the backs of lorries. These enormous silver spheres, about 18.3 metres wide, were fixed on wire cables and deployed around bombing targets to protect them. Knowing their aircraft could be seriously damaged if they flew into the balloons, pilots were obliged to fly above them and thus had to drop their bombs from a greater height and with less accuracy.

Aircraft could maneuver around barrage balloons, but the later pilotless VI rockets could not, and the balloon cables managed to destroy 279 of these in between June and September of 1944.

At the height of the Battle of Britain, about 1500 balloons were in use. Many WAAF (Women’s Auxiliary Air Force) served in the Balloon Command, which was established in 1938 and disbanded in 1945.