Photo By James Andrews | Marines inflate an obeservation balloon at Marine Corps Base Quantico during World War I.... read more read more
Subscribe
Quantico’s first military balloon experience came not in the midst of the two world wars of the 20th century. Nor was it when a balloon squadron was assigned to the fledgling Marine aviation detachment of Quantico during the 1920s. No, Quantico’s first balloon experience was over a half century prior to the establishment of Marine Corps Base Quantico. The first balloon used in Quantico was in the midst of the American Civil War.
Professor T.S.C. Lowe, “aeronaut,” served the Union army as an aerial observer in the fall of 1861 and early 1862. His mission, simply put, was to locate and estimate the size of the Confederate force on what is now mainside Quantico. Beginning in September of 1861, Confederate forces had begun to blockade the Potomac River to block naval access to Washington D.C. While Union leaders knew that the bark of these gun positions was worse than their bite, the psychological affect cannot be understated.
Professor Lowe’s balloon would loft him up to around 1,000 feet on the Maryland side of the river. From there, he was able to eye the Confederate positions at Cockpit Point, Shipping Point, and Freestone Point. Senior officer housing actually resides today on the locations of some of these former batteries. This intelligence allowed Union planners to prepare an attack that would allow them to break the Confederate blockade of the Potomac River, which came in March 1862. Ultimately, the plans were moot since after Union forces landed they found that the Confederates had withdrawn following pressure from other theaters of the war.
In 1918, balloons would return to Quantico, though with a very different mission than Professor Lowe’s 50 years prior. On June 28th, 1918, a new balloon company was activated in Quantico to serve as an observation group for Marine heavy artillery. Composed of two kite balloons, 2 caquot (free) balloons, as well as 4 seaplanes of varying classes, the company aided in training new artillery units before they were shipped out for service in the First World War. Unfortunately for those Marines in the balloon company, they would be deactivated in July 1919 without having been deployed. However, the pilots of these balloons did have the honor of being the first Marines to conduct a flight from Quantico.
After the dissolution of the balloon company, Quantico went a few years without any balloon presence. Starting in 1921, several balloons were again attached to Marine Aviation and were designated Kite Balloon Squadron 1 (ZK-1). A single balloon initially made up the squadron, with several more in storage. By 1929, with the advances in aviation, balloons were then obsolete and their role of observation platforms replaced by planes, which could achieve the mission of observation of the enemy more rapidly and reliably.
Quantico went without a balloon presence again until shortly before America’s entrance into the Second World War. Then, in June of 1941, a new balloon school was created in Quantico named the Barrage Balloon Training School. The purpose of barrage balloons was to restrict aerial access to enemy aircraft’s ground attack operations which would otherwise occur relatively unimpeded. These balloons would be anchored to the ground via metal cables, making any close fly-bys on the part of the enemy potentially deadly.
These barrage balloons were used primarily by the Marine Corps for base defense. One squadron during World War II was deployed to the Panama Canal Zone, in cooperation with the Army to help defend against any possible Japanese attack. Another was deployed to American Samoa for the same reasons as Panama. A third was sent to Tulagi, which would ultimately lead to the end of the balloons.
By the time third barrage balloon battalion had left for Tulagi, Quantico’s balloon days were over. In September of 1942, the Barrage Balloon School was transferred to New River, North Carolina, and then again in January 1943 to the formative Camp Lejeune. As the school was being moved, the tactical environment showed that the use of balloons on the islands of the South Pacific was not conducive to achieving the mission against the enemy. As such, the balloon squadrons began to be armed with 90mm anti-aircraft cannons instead. And with their new weapons, the age of Marine ballooning came to a close. By the end of 1943 all of the barrage balloon squadrons would be dissolved and instead come to be part of those units responsible for base defense.
| Date Taken: | 05.11.2017 |
| Date Posted: | 06.01.2017 10:47 |
| Story ID: | 235950 |
| Location: | MARINE CORPS BASE QUANTICO, VIRGINIA, US |
| Web Views: | 202 |
| Downloads: | 0 |
This work, Balloon Aviation aboard Quantico, by James Andrews, identified by DVIDS, must comply with the restrictions shown on https://www.dvidshub.net/about/copyright.
No keywords found.
