SILVER SENTINELS

Bay of Plenty Beacon, Volume 2, Issue 244, 2 December 1940, Page 8

SILVER SENTINELS

THE BALLOON BARRAGE

KEEPING AIRCRAFT AT HEIGHT

Riding proudly overhead in their coats of silver, the barrage balloons have become a familiar war-time sight over London, and an ever-in-creasing number of British cities, towns and villages, says the Times. A menace to those who seek to destroy, they are trusty, silent sentinels by night, Avatching over the sleeping millions below, and the same dependable friends to the busy throngs by day.

Though inclined to be capricious and a little unceratin in temper when the fancy (or, to be more :iccurate, the wind) takes them, they never tire in their well-doing. Winter and summer, cold or hot, rain or shine, they remain patiently on the alert. When the enemy seeks to cheat us of our food by sinking our convoys, they keep him at bay; when he would dive low over our war factories and ourh omes they hold him at a distance. Their primary duty is not to bring down raiders, though they- have dona so. They are designed to keep attacking aircraft at a height at which our guns and our lighters ..can get at them tmd from which no enemy, however skilled, can bomb with accuracy. In this they have succeeded handsomely. A German pilot who would dive through the barrage is reckless indeed; he stands in grave peril of colliding with a cable which will tear tlie wings from his aircraft, sending it crashing to destruction.

Nobody has ever pretended that a balloon barrage, is a defence against indiscriminate bombing such as is the fate of London, but its presence does undoubtedly prevent raiders from selecting the targets they would like to hit. But for its balloons, London would have suffered far more grieviously from the thousands of bombs which have been rained on it during the last month. That the Germans regard a balloon defence as a serious obstacle in their air activities is proved by the number of occasions on which lighters have been sent over on special errands to destroy them,. They have been shot down, but as fast as one lias been lost another has soared up to replace it. The importance attached to this form of defence is shown by the fact that almost every week sees an extension of the ! scheme. Soon every vulnerable, area! will have this comforting safeguard.