by Jim Bates

The history of "modern" emergency parachuting -- using this century as a time frame -- generally attributes such self-rescues not with development of the airplane but with earlier aircraft -- balloons.
Powered heavier-than-air flight became successful with the Wright brothers' 12-second flight of their "power- machine" on December 17, 1903 at no higher than ten feet above the sands of Kill Devil Hill, at Kitty Hawk, in eastern North Carolina. Besides both brothers, there were only five persons present to witness, as the brothers wrote in September 1908: "_a flight very modest compared with that of birds, but it was, nevertheless, the first in the history of the world in which a machine carrying a man had raised itself by its own power onto the air in free flight, had sailed forward on a level course without reduction of speed, and had finally landed without being wrecked."
There were other flights that same day, the Wright brothers noting: "The second and third flights were a little longer and the fourth lasted fifty-nine seconds, covering a distance of 825 feet over the ground against a twenty-mile wind."

Warfare was changed radically when airplanes of opposing national military forces appeared in the skies over Europe during the "Great War" of 1914-1918 (later known as "World War One").
But it was not until late in that war that the Germans began permitting airmen to use parachutes to rescue themselves from disabled planes. They had learned that skilled pilots and other skilled crewmen were a valuable resource that should be given first consideration -- rather than primarily trying to save a more easily replaceable flying machine.
High-ranking officers of Allied air services were equally reluctant for some time to provide parachutes to their airplane flight personnel.
However, early on, European military air services observation balloons were provided with static-line parachute assemblies with which they could bail out from the crew basket of a destroyed gasbag. Observers who did not have the option of safely lowering a blazing or collapsed balloon. So the high muckety-mucks rapidly decided that lives needed saving.

Early Aerial Weapons
Before the engine-powered fighter and bomber aircraft of the Great War -- that quickly spread throughout Europe, ultimately drawing the United States into the raging conflict on April 16, 1917 -- balloons and dirigibles were the weapons of choice for the prewar concept of aerial warfare.
In 1909 Sir Hiram Maxim, eminent as a scientist and inventor and known as a practical, hard-headed, logical thinker and analyst, delivered a lecture before the Society of Arts in London, England in which he charged the British nation with having a dangerous lack of interest in the possibilities of aerial warfare.
England's high-ranking military and naval forces had not been at all interested in the warnings of people of their own services nor visionary civilian authorities who sounded alerts about warlike matters going on in countries on the continent.

Dirigible Balloons and Aeroplanes
In that same year, more than three-quarters of a century ago, an American named Henry B. Hersey (Inspector, United States Weather Bureau), in an article titled "The Menace of Aerial Warfare," warned of Britain's peril by attack dirigible balloons of the Zeppelin type:
"Isolated by seas from all foes, their shipping protected in all quarters of the globe by the frowning Dreadnaughts of a navy whose strength, according to plan, must exceed that of the combined navies of any two possible enemies, they have felt a sense of security. But now a new danger in war arises against which they are not prepared. These silent cruisers of the air, hovering like vultures over cities, harbors, and fortifications, dealing, with hawk-like swiftness, death and destruction, and then disappearing as suddenly, only to strike at some other unexpected point, are most certainly a menace which must be taken into account."
In August 1909, C. Dientsbach and T.R. MacMechen wrote the article "The Aerial Battleship," published in the British McClure's Magazine. They began their account with:
"In the fall of 1908 the third airship built by Count Ferdinand von Zeppelin was bought by the German government, officially commissioned as a warship, and given a military aircrew. On May 29, 30, and 31 his fifth and and last ship, the Zeppelin II, made, without landing, a flight of thirty-six hours, covering 850 miles. This flight would have carried it from German soil to London, Paris, Vienna, or Stockholm, and back again. In secret trials by the German government during March, a rapid-firing gun, capable of throwing nearly sixty 1.9-inch shells a minute, was fired with entire success from the deck of the Zeppelin I. This means the end of armies within the next ten years. The situation, about which there is now the densest popular ignorance, should be understood."
The Germans did, in fact, successfully use engine-powered large dirigibles to drop bombs on London, though more psychological harm was inflicted on the citizens than physical damage to persons or property.
(Dienstbach and MacMechen were mistaken in their belief about "the end of armies." No such thing happened in their predicted ten years. Moreover, approaching the end of the 21st century almost 90 years later, all major and most minor countries continue to maintain armies of ground forces. Die-hard air advocates have long espoused (even boasted) that aerial forces alone could subdue a country. Air forces can count greatly in tipping the scales of battle but it still takes young armed soldiers standing on contested ground to decide victory.)
Hersey went on to detail credible plans for coast-to-coast foreign attacks on the U.S. noting: "Bases of operation could be established in Canada or Mexico, either by agreement or by force, from which aerial fleets could be operated; also aerial sorties could be made from ships fitted up specially for the purpose. With a suitable base established in the vicinity of Montreal, attacks by dirigible balloons of the Zeppelin type could be made on Boston, or New York, or the inland cities of the nearby States."

Hersey also stated in his article: "Within the last year another great invention has entered the field of aerial achievement. I refer to the aeroplane, which has attracted the attention of the world by its mechanical flight. Henry Farnam, an English resident of Paris, was the first to demonstrate publicly its success; but since then our own Wright brothers of Ohio, who had been able to preserve a degree of secrecy in regard to a long series of experiments, have so far eclipsed the work of all others in this line that they are in a class by themselves. The European governments have promptly taken up this invention. Russia and France through their agents have secured the rights to the patents of the Wright brothers for their respective war departments. How extensive the field is for aeroplanes in military work cannot be determined now, for it must be remembered that their operators are at present only fledglings, mostly standing on the edge of their nest, while a few of the venturesome ones are essaying short flights to strengthen their young pinions, others recovering from the sore bruises of falls, and others lying still in death. But, undaunted, the little band will continue to win success, flight by flight, until the conquest of the air is complete."
Mr. Hersey was correct in his prediction for the "little band."

World's Oldest Aviation
Balloons are said to be "the world's oldest aviation." The de Montgolfier brothers Joseph Michel and Jacques Étienne, of Annonay, France, followed a lot of experimenters in the search for a balloon with which humans could rise above the earth's surface and safely return to the ground.
The two brothers made aviation history on November 21, 1783 when their huge 54-foot diameter balloon, with a capacity of 55,000 cubic feet of heated air, soared into the sky above Paris with two men aboard as passengers, traveled about five miles, and dramatically landed with both passengers safe. Their spectacular successes gave impetus to widespread development of balloons in many countries and greatly encouraged development of parachutes as a life-saving alternative in case of aerial emergencies.
Hot-air balloons were used in Union service late during the 1861-1865 Civil War between the American states as a means of observing Confederate troop and gun positions.
But it was not because of visionary army generals that a new military weapon was developed. A Yankee balloon experimenter, Thaddeus Lowe, of New Hampshire, was given valuable support by Abraham Lincoln after the president had been given a demonstration.
In August 1861, Thaddeus Lowe, later known as "America's One-Man Balloon Corps," received approval to proceed with construction of the first official balloon for the U.S. Army. In four weeks the balloon was made and named "Eagle." It acquired the distinction of being the first aircraft in history to be designed specifically for warfare.
For two years Lowe directed artillery fire, gave detailed reports of troop positions and movements, and trained other balloonists. Sight of his aerial observation post quickly drew Confederate ground fire and Lowe earned the title of the "most-shot- at-man" in the Civil War.
Thaddeus Lowe also has been cited by aviation historians as the "Founding Father of the United States Air Force" because of his military balloon experimentation and techniques he developed during the Civil War, over a century and a quarter ago.
That aerial experiment was remembered by military planners a half century later when World War One occurred.

Spherical Balloons
Balloons as an American military weapon came into consideration again during the Spanish-American War. Hersey commented: "_the simple spherical balloon is of great value for use on naval vessels. It can be inflated and sent to a height of five hundred or a thousand feet as a captive balloon from a ship, with one or two officers in the basket. From this altitude a splendid lookout can be maintained, and being equipped with telephones, any information secured can be promptly communicated to the commander of the fleet. If our fleet at Santiago had been provided with such a balloon and the necessary equipment, it could easily have determined whether the Spanish fleet was in the harbor during that trying period of uncertainty preceding the land operations of the Santiago campaign."
Craig S. Herbert, American military balloon historian, also reported that "F.A.Post, a Russian colonel, flew an observation balloon from a cruiser at Vladivostok in the Russo-Japanese War of 1904-05." Post later served as an instructor for the U.S. Army's Signal Corps Balloon School formed soon after America got into World War One.

The Great War / World War One
With the onset of the Great War, the Allied nations facing Germany -- and Germany as well -- wasted no time in putting balloons, with passenger baskets suspended below them, to use for general observation of opposing troop locations and movements and artillery positions.
German artillery efficiency was greatly improved through use of balloon observation. Much damage was inflicted on French installations and troops and many gun batteries were put out of action.
When the French counterattacked it was started with a well planned operation against enemy observation balloons, planes attacking them with incendiary rockets, shooting down five balloons in flames.

Initially, Germany briefly used free (untethered) spherical balloons for observation, but only when wind conditions would assure that balloons and passengers would land safely in friendly territory.
At the start of the war, the German air service was bolstered by Fraulein (Miss) Käthe Paulus turning over three of her own spherical balloons to her country. Miss Paulus was an ardent balloonist and, for her aerial safety, had long before developed her own parachute. She also used her safety device to make some 70 exhibition descents up to August 1914.

Ground-tethered spherical balloons, inflated with flammable hydrogen gas, were the next types to lift military personnel into the sky to search for enemy targets.
European military balloon units discarded round balloons for sausage-shaped "gasbags" with greater lifting capacities. French-designed Caquot "kite balloons"proved to be the most suitable configuration, using, at the rear of the length, a ventral fin underneath and angular left-side and right-side fins to stabilize the gasbag in windy conditions. The Germans, after capturing an Allied Caquot-type balloon, designed a new version and designated it the "AE" balloon. It incorporated many of the Caquot features and had a capacity of 850 cubic meters (30,017 cubic feet), could lift an observer to 1,500 meters (4,921 feet), and could be flown in winds up to 50 miles per hour.

American Balloon Corps
When America entered World War One in early 1917, the military services were totally unprepared for conflict -- and the observation balloon section was almost nonexistent. However, in the first two months 300 men of the Signal Corps were sent to Omaha, Nebraska to open a Balloon School in a large abandoned steel hangar. Earliest training was with tethered spherical balloons; there was also free balloon training and solo cross-country flights so pilot licenses could be earned, followed by commissioning as army officers.
Goodyear Rubber Company later supplied several sausage-shaped balloons that were supposedly aerodynamically stable by having trailing "tail cups" serving as stabilizers to steady rocking, swaying motions of the gasbags in windy conditions. But tail cups proved to be an unsatisfactory solution and such balloons were quickly replaced with Goodyear-made copies of the French Caquot (Types M and R) observation balloons.

The Eyes of the Army
The 2nd Balloon Company entered front line duty in France on February 26, 1918, gaining the honor of being the first complete American Air Service unit to operate against the enemy on foreign soil in U.S. history. (The first heavier-than- air unit arrived in France on April 15th.) Lt. Frank M. Henry, 2nd Balloon Company, held the record of 163 hours, 14 minutes perilous aerial observation duty on the front.
The superior reconnaissance work done by the balloon units won them the undisputed title of "Eyes of the Army."
The large gasbag, with its dark coloring and "ears" at the sides and a dangling ventral appendage, quickly earned those aerial devices the nickname "seeing- eye elephant."

Welcome Parachutes
When balloons were put to use in more widespread general warfare, they more rapidly led to proving the worth of parachutes as life saving devices.
The high-floating gasbags, usually tethered by a thin steel cable to the winch of a truck - the truck used for fairly quick mobility -- soon became "clay pigeons" to enemy gunners on the ground and in the air. Riflemen and machine gunners only fired on gasbags when they were at altitudes up to about 500 feet, so it became the task of airplanes to be "balloon busters."
Those daring pilots -- of both sides -- would, with machine guns blazing, fly headlong at an enemy's observation balloons, the planes themselves roaring through curtains of rifle and machine gun fire, as well as exploding antiaircraft shells, fired upward from the ground to shield the gasbags from attack.
At other times unsuspecting observers would suddenly find their balloons being viciously attacked by a lone fighter plane -- or perhaps a string of them -- roaring in from the direction of the sun or from the cover of nearby clouds.
Observation balloons were prime targets. Each time one was destroyed airborne eyes were eliminated until a replacement gasbag and one or two observers could be sent aloft; and replacement was ordinarily a slow process.

Early in the European war, British and French balloonists prudently made use of static-line parachutes to save themselves.
The Germans also rapidly made use of parachutes. However, many German balloon observers were killed before the Paulus-type parachute began being mass- produced in 1916. About 7,000 parachutes were manufactured by the time of the Armistice on November 11, 1918.

American Balloon Service Emergency Parachute Jumps
American observers made 125 emergency parachute jumps in front line duty, 61 from burning balloons and 64 from balloons that did not burn.
Enemy aircraft burned 35 gasbags with incendiary machine gun fire, but another 38 were shot down and did not burn. Planes in those attacks apparently used regular "ball" ammunition instead of incendiary bullets, but still damaged balloon fabric severely enough to collapse, forcing observers to escape by parachute.
Interestingly, 12 observation balloons were destroyed by enemy artillery. Many balloons were scrapped because, though landed safely, they were rendered useless by bullets, antiaircraft direct hits or shrapnel, or were torn apart in storms.

For the American Balloon Service, Lt. Frank M. Henry, 2nd Company, had the record of 163 hours, 14 minutes in the air on the front.
An unusual event occurred when an American balloon of the Second Balloon Company, piloted by a 1st Lieutenant and with a major of artillery on board as an observer, was shot down by German fighter plane and the two officers saved themselves by parachuting from the burning craft. The attacking Fokker was immediately shot down by an Allied airplane and the German pilot leaped from his doomed craft and parachuted safely to earth. It was the first time that an aviator -- of either side -- was known to make an emergency parachute jump from an engine-powered flying machine in aerial battle.
The wartime "Final Report of the Chief of Air Service," by Major General Mason M. Patrick, to the Commander-in-Chief of the A.E.F. (Allied Expeditionary Force) paid tribute to the valorous American Balloon Corps, stating, in part:
"It is doubtful if the combat troops of any other arm of the service have operated so continuously at the front."

It was that four-year period of 1914-1918 that provided aviation history with a starting point for "modern" emergency parachuting. The high number of personnel saved by parachute during Allied and German wartime balloon service proved beyond doubt the value of parachutes as life-saving devices. It was unfortunate that it took a terrible war to do so.