Operation Outward - Deployment

Deployment

After a lengthy bureaucratic struggle between the opponents in the Air Ministry and proponents in the Admiralty, the British Chiefs of Staff gave the go-ahead in September 1941 and a launch site was set up at Landguard Fort near Felixstowe in Suffolk. The first launches took place on 20 March 1942. Within days, the British were receiving reports of forest fires near Berlin and Tilsit in East Prussia.

Intercepts of Luftwaffe communications soon showed German fighters were trying to shoot down balloons. This encouraged the British as it was felt that the harassment value on German air defences alone justified Operation Outward. It cost the Germans more, in terms of fuel and wear and tear on aircraft, to destroy each balloon than it cost the British to make them.

In July, a second launch site was set up at Oldstairs Bay near Dover. On 12 July 1942, a wire-carrying balloon struck a 110,000-volt power line near Leipzig. A failure in the circuit breaker at the Böhlen power station caused a fire that destroyed the station; this was Outward's greatest success. In August 1942 launches reached 1000 per day. Most of the personnel employed were from the WRNS, with up to 140 women being employed in balloon operations against Germany.

Balloon launches continued, though they were frequently suspended when there were large air-raids on Germany as it was feared the balloons might damage Allied bombers. Also, they continued to cause damage in neutral countries - on the night of January 19–20, 1944, two trains collided at Laholm in Sweden after an Outward balloon knocked out electrical lighting on the railway.

In the lead-up to D-day invasion, balloon launches became more sporadic. The last balloons were launched on 4 September 1944.