The Memphis Commercial Appeal, Tuesday Morning, April 16, 1918

    RISES FROM RANKS TO SECOND LIEUTENANCY (Picture Lieut.Roscoe Turner)

            Enlisted as a private in the medical department in the regular
    army on June 2, 1917, and a month later was made sergeant, first class.
    He was transferred to the aviation section and commissioned as second
    lieutenant, signal reserve corps, on March 19, and is now at San Antonio,
    Texas.

    For an account of what Roscoe Turner may have experienced as an
    aerial observer in the balloon corps,  please reference this account:

    Excerpts from:

              THE COMPACT HISTORY OF THE UNITED STATES AIR FORCE
                           by Carroll V. Glines, Jr.
                     Colonel, United States Air Force (Ret.)

            Aerial observers and gunners received comparable training in
    their specialties.  An observer took a four-week course and was required
    to be able to send and receive eight words a minute by radio, take a
    dozen good aerial photographs, and locate and direct artillery fire
    against enemy batteries.... [p.80]

            An important element of the Air Service though often overlooked,
    because of the glorification of the airplane and its pilots, was the
    balloon service.  When the American military establishment was cut to the
    bone prior to the war, military ballooning had practically ceased.  But
    the static war of the trenches reinstated the use of the ungainly gas
    bags for observation just as during the Civil War.  Observers, swinging
    in their gondolas two to five miles from enemy lines and at altitudes up
    to a mile, covered every section of the front from the North Sea to the
    Adriatic.  One writer described the work and dangers of the balloonist as
    follows:

             For hours as a time the balloonist would ride in his basket
        with the enemy lines spread out before him and with the
        intelligence officers below in direct telephonic communication.
        The moment artillery action began on either side a new phase of
        his work opened.  If it were enemy batteries going into action,
        he would have to line out as nearly as possible their exact
        location, possibly in triangulation with other sources of
        information, and tell by their fire of what calibre and how many
        in number were the guns.  He was expected to know his front so
        well that no new battery could come into action without his
        spotting it immediately and furnishing the information that would
        lead to its demolition.  So also in case of his own batteries
        going into action, he had immediately to spot the efficacy of
        their fire and correct its accuracy.
             This work, of course, had its dangers.  Nothing afforded
        more attractive prey for the aviator than an enemy balloon, for
        there was excitement in penetrating its anti-aircraft defenses
        and satisfaction in seeing its clumsy and inquisitive form burst
        into a cloud of smoke.  At any moment 'hostile airplane overhead'
        was apt to come over the telephone wire, and the balloonist be
        forced to drop everything, climb over the side, and jump out, a
        mile above the ground, with only a slender parachute to save him
        from death.  If there were no hostile aviator, there might be a
        rain of shrapnel with the object of setting the balloon on fire,
        or of percussion shells aiming to blow up the windlass below and
        set the big bag adrift with a wind blowing across the enemy
        lines.
             Other difficulties also had to be met.  Ascents in
        thunderstorms were dangerous because of the lightning; rainstorms
        added to the weight of the balloon and consequently decreased its
        ascending power; heavy winds put a strain on the cable and
        considerable wear and tear on the windlass; occassional clouds
        were dangerous as hiding places for lurking enemy airmen, while
        general clouds rendered observation almost impossible.  The
        finding of a 'bed' for the big envelope also presented
        difficulties, especially as enemy airmen were fond of seeking out
        balloons as they lay on the ground.  As a rule beds were sought
        in the lee of a hill which would obstruct artillery fire or in
        the deceptive shadows of a near-by wood, with all the added
        precautions that the camoufleurs' art could give.  [Arthur
        Sweetser, THE AMERICAN AIR SERVICE ((C) New York: D. Appleton &
        Co., Inc., 1919), pp.287-288.  Report of Colonel Samuel Reber,
        Signal Corps. 1913.]

            Training balloon "pilots" and ground crews was similar to that of
    the heavier-than-air service.  Up to the end of hostilities 598 officers
    were graduated from schools located at Fort Omaha, Nebraska, Camp John
    Wise, San Antonio, and in Arcadia, California.  An additional 157
    officers were trained in a French school.  The total A.E.F. balloon
    program called for a total of 69 balloons companies with a total
    complement of 14,467 officers and men.  By November 11, 1,167 balloons
    were on order from stateside manufacturers and 507 had been delivered.
    The number actually sent overseas was 333, more than enough for American
    needs in the closing days of the war.
            The greatest achievement of ballooning during the war was not
    technique or tactics in the use of the bags but the production of helium.
    The search for a safe, non-inflammable gas to replace the dangerous
    hydrogen resulted in British and American scientists perfecting a method
    of extraction of helium from natural gases in Canada and the United
    States. [pp.84-86]

        Source:  Carroll V. Glines, Jr.  THE COMPACT HISTORY OF THE UNITED
                 STATES AIR FORCE, New and Revised Edition. New York, NY:
                 Hawthorn Books, Inc., May, 1973.


      Data transcription by: Milton Sandy, Jr.      April 13, 1993.