Bernard Oliver (1898 – 1983) had a radio business in Maidstone. He and his wife Alice had two children, Ross (who was an analytical chemist and sadly died young) and Marjorie.  But we can’t talk about Uncle Bernard for long without mentioning his career in World War 1.

In his later years he put together a memoir, Looking Back Sixty Years, 3 years service in balloons of the Royal Flying Corps in Ypres Salient. He gave photocopies to many museums and others interested, fortunately including his relatives.

I’ll quote freely (in italics) from the memoir, as I can’t improve on his lively narrative.

He had tried to enlist before, but his father refused to allow it because he was under age. But in 1915 he saw an advertisement: Recruits wanted for Kite Balloon Sections of the Royal Flying Corps… that did it.

He and two other young men arrived together in Whitehall:
We went in together to sign up for the duration. Mason got through – Sheffield and myself were turned away and told to grow up. We went outside the building and grew up in five minutes. Back we went aged 19 and we were in.

There were two months of “square bashing” (military drill), then he and Mason were sent to a balloon factory to be trained as riggers.

After two weeks of intensive training of rope and wire splicing – sewing by hand and electric machines and general Balloon manufacture we were passed out as Balloon riggers….

My parents came from very strict Wesleyan folk, who looked upon the demon drink as the greatest of Satan’s sins. We had it preached day and night of its evil effects and poison to the body.

The night before our going overseas to the western front, I and my fellow Balloon boys indulged in a few bottles of Bass. Next morning, slowly with guilty conscience I looked in the mirror expecting to see a bloated face poisoned beyond recognition.Behold there I was, quite normal. Had I been conned?

On March 6th 1916 they crossed to France. and after a gruelling journey by cattle truck and lorry they took over manning no. 2 KBS (Kite Balloon Section). They moved about a bit without seeing much sign of the enemy, but this was not to last.

Now the war was coming closer. German planes came near to our Balloon and two parachutes were attached to the basket, but no means of using them. Observers did not wear a harness, so we riggers got to work with rope, webbing and sewing machines to make some kind of safety gear using the bough of a tree to hang on…

The time came when German tracer bullets caught the Balloon on fire. Our harness and parachute worked… Now the Germans were shelling the Balloon in its bed at night, so the gardens we had planted by our huts were replaced by dug outs. What possessed us to build our camp so near to the Balloon.

So what did the Balloon Corps actually do in WW1? The Kite Balloons were so called because they were tethered like a kite. The sausage shape was much easier to manoeuver and stronger that the shape we see now in hot air balloons. They might ascend to heights of up to 41,000 feet (about 12.5 kilometres). An Observer in the basket, with his detailed maps and high quality field glasses, could look out across the front line, and constantly watched for enemy positions and movement.

This picture shows a parachute hanging ready outside the basket; the sheath knives carried were to cut yourself loose from your harness after reaching the ground.

The Observer would report by telephone to the General Staff on the ground, who could add up all the information, discover an attack was coming and take counter measures. Or he might report the exact position of a German gun emplacement, which could then be shelled.

A telephone message might go the other way – the Observer might hear “Enemy plane sighted – prepare to jump!” Quite a few balloons were destroyed by daring German aviators. Ordinary bullets would generally pass harmlessly through the skin and only need a small repair later, but tracer bullets would often set fire to it: the balloons were filled with hydrogen, which when pure would not burn, but as soon as it mixed with oxygen in the air it was easily set on fire.

Both sides used observation balloons in WW1 – these sausage-shaped monsters were apparently a constant sight above the trenches of the Western Front. The German army map below shows the positions of British balloons near Ypres marked in red, with Uncle Bernard’s No.2 marked in yellow near the bottom. (How did he obtain the map? Best not to ask.)

A new balloon bed was being made in an advanced position. The war was really coming closer now, as we moved near to the lines… For the next years of the war, we were cut off from all civilians, and seeing only ruins about us. I was now a sergeant, having been a rigger for a year…

One windy morning on walking the Balloon up to the flying position, we lost it. Shame on us. Flight (Sergeant) and myself were on the carpet but, as the Balloon south of us blew away a the same time and took two of the crew up a few hundred feet before they could get loose and dropped off and were killed, we were not charged with neglect.

Soon Uncle Bernard was transferred to another section, where he had a rather unhappy time – but then after two years of ground work, as there was a shortage of skilled Observers to go up in the balloons he was given the opportunity to train as an Observer.
This was my day. I was delighted. Most of my time I was in the chart room learning my job, reading up instructions and map reading. Learning morse code and balloon observation. My morale was so good…

He took up his duties as Observer, and he describes a flight with a Captain he particularly admired –

… Up we went to about 4000 feet. Suddenly a mighty crash and a flash of an exploding shell very close. Captain coolly remarked “That’s the German gun on rails – 9.2 weighs a ton… report any damage to us, I’ll carry on with the observation.”… My word, he didn’t bat an eyelid.

In casual terms I reported the shell fire and its position in relation to our Balloon. This went on for well over an hour, everything appeared to be in order. Then I noticed we had dropped about 500 ft, no doubt about it, we had lost gas… It was evident that the wind was keeping us up as a Kite…

Headquarters then phoned with a warning of trouble, very high tension on the cable –
Reluctantly Captain Machin told the winch to haul us down, as we were still being shelled…
(This was slow and difficult because of the tension.)

When we were down to about 1000 feet hardly any wind blew so the Balloon crumpled up and down we came. It was impossible to parachute, so Captain Machin told me to climb the rigging to break our fall. The basket fell on a clump of trees, through which (it) landed gently on the ground, with us safely hanging above. After climbing from the Balloon, we walked a distance away from the escaping gas and had a smoke. It seemed a long wait before the crew arrived. I shall never forget how they very cautiously looked in the basket to see the state of the bodies.

On his next flight he had to use his parachute, when they were attacked by planes of “Richthofen’s Flying Circus” (nickname of a famous wing of the German airforce, led by Manfred von Richthofen “the Red Baron”). In 1918 official parachute harness was finally supplied to replace the homemade versions. This is Uncle Bernard wearing his, and a Sidcot flying suit –

By August 1918 he had officially qualified as an Observer and proudly wore his badge. The tide of the war was turning, and the Allied armies were advancing very quickly. It was difficult for the Kite Balloons to keep up, as they were moved by hand at walking pace, their ropes held by 50 men on the ground. (The personnel required for one kite balloon was at least 100, including riggers, cooks, telephonists, radio operators, winchmen and officers  – Uncle Bernard became a sort of honorary officer when he qualified as an Observer.)

On coming to overhead telephone wires, which were numerous on the road, we slung one guy rope over at a time, transferring the crew from each one to the guy (rope) we had got over. Being ten guy(rope)s to manipulate separately, this was too slow. Many times a high ranking officer on horseback came up to find out why there was a traffic jam … In future we decided to move only at night with the Balloon up at 100 feet or so … My job was up in the Balloon during these night trips. Instructions were to throw instruments over and jump by parachute when reaching a safe height, if by chance the cable was hit and broken by shell fire. Fortunately this did not occur.

For some time now they had been using French-designed Cacquot balloons, an improvement on the Drachens which were based on a German design.

In November the war came to an end, and in January Uncle Bernard was discharged. Like many other soldiers in WW1, he had used a small camera to take (illegal) photographs. Before going on leave for the last time, he collected them all up and took them home. Such unauthorised pictures are now an invaluable part of the historical record.

For many years members of the Royal Flying Corps Balloon Section (who sometimes called themselves the Balloonatics) would meet up regularly in London, and also make trips back to the battlefields in Belgium. In 1975, finding that very little attention had been paid to their role in WW1, he produced his memoir (which is really part memoir part scrapbook). It is a fascinating insight into a little-known part of the “Great War”.

I thank my cousin Rose for telling me about the book Voices in Flight: Conversations with Air Veterans of the Great War, by Mauriel Joslyn and Anna Malinovska (2006). One of its chapters is an interview with Uncle Bernard in his later years.

Next