Icare9:-
Any way, I'm filling a bit of space in before Skip returns from SSQ
Ha, Ha! No more than the rest of us, Icare, and you raise some interesting points. Why was a Barrage Balloon there anyway, and where did it come from? No mention of any Balloon Command presence at Wartling here :-
Stations-W
and the Command's Organisation page in Wiki gives little away either :-
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/RAF_Balloon_Command
a more generic page though tells of a similar incident (the October Incident) on a much larger scale in 1942 in North America, which in turn led to a typical British wheeze, Operation Outward. I've certainly never heard of it before and suspect it was of very limited effect. It recalls though the Japanese balloons launched against the US West Coast :-
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Barrage_balloon
an interesting site here about aircraft brought down by barrage balloons :-
http://www.bbrclub.org/Barrage%20Bal...0in%20WWII.htm