[Observer1940]

Hello Ed

Balloon Squadron ORBs and neighbouring Squadrons, surviving Balloon Command files (incl Policy files), including balloon collision / impact / balloon cable / wire / balloon policy files of the Air Ministry, including the collision and policy files of Fighter Command, the Admiralty and Bomber Command were checked. The numerous collisions do appear on a tabulated lists.

However what was discovered was that when Bomber Command received all the Bomber collision Reports with balloon cables, not all Balloon Collision Reports were entered onto their AIR 14 collision file and just one single sentence in the whole of the AIR 14 file reveals that some of the bomber collision Reports with balloon cables were being passed to Bomber Command G/Capt Ops [in charge of Bomber Operations], as though it was some problem of the Bomber Command Operations Directorate to deal with and not primarily caused by the balloon cable itself.

AIR 14/341 "Damage Caused to Aeroplanes by Balloon Barrage" on the cover was photographed. No Minute Sheets appear to have been changed and there are no Balloon Command Reports refering to the two Whitley crashes that morning and no suggestion or reference that the Reports were ever placed on the file either in 1940! The two Whitley bomber 15.8.1940 Collision Reports from Balloon Command were never placed on AIR 14/341 and therefore could not have been removed. There is not even the slightest reference on the Minute Sheets (index) at the front of the Bomber Command file AIR 14/341 to the two Collisions or the two Reports from Balloon Command.

The primary cause was not the balloon cable, but something else and that is confirmed by the changes to (4 different) Cause codes on the Accident Card.

Out of some 50 or so War Diaries of AA Units, only the AA Brigade, Division and Corps have a one sentence reference to a Whitley bomber hitting a balloon cable at Eastleigh.

The most reliable record are the surving Logs of the Observer Corps who are commended for their plotting by Fighter Command, with the last 16 miles of the Whitley with all the turns, also that they could not determine the engine sound and that the Observer Corps Centre had been given the height as 10,000 feet and how the aircraft lost height and crashed into the balloon barrage at Eastleigh.

Mark