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WWII Barrage Balloon Sites

  • Thread starter Thread starter Phil Bonner
  • Start date Start date
Balloon

I worked at Metro Cammell for years and worked with a bloke whose father fell out of a balloon,and died he was manning it in Witton lakes,has any body got records of this.

Mossy???
 
WWII Barrage baloon sites

A bit late but I've only just joined the Webring.
There was a site in a playing field by the old 37 bus terminus on Stratford Rd. at the Birmingham/Shirley boundary. I can remember pieces of ice coming off the cable and landing in our garden in Baldwins Lane.

Eric
 
Phil, I was born in Oakhill Crescent Acocks Green in 1940. At the back of the house is/was a large field with anti Aircraft guns stationed there. Also I remember a barrage balloon. A lot of the field was set out as allotments and after the war it slowly got used more and more as a sports field for Severne Road and Pitmaston Rd schools. I hope this is of some use to you.
 
Thanks to everyone who continues to contribute to the thread. Sorry for the lack of replies, but have not been able to keep up with the research for various reasons.
I reckon I've now been able to track down about one third of the Birmingham sites.
Hope to get the research completed by late August, the 70th anniversary of when the squadrons were embodied.
 
Mossy,

Thanks for the report about the possible casualty at Witton. I can find no reference to that death. I can only find a reference on a different balloon site to an airman who got caught up in the cables, but did not get lifted up, and did not die.

I have a list of all the casualties from the Birmingham balloon sites. if you can send me a PM with a name, I'll check it against the list.

Phil
 
There was a balloon site on the schools playing fields in Henry Rd, Yardley, it was a fenced off part of Oaklands Rec and was near to the Battery of 3.7in AA Guns on Oaklands Rec, Church Rd, former Oaklands Rec entrance. Len.
 
Thanks lencops

Hi lencops

Thanks for your 2 posts. Concerning the book on the Hull Balloon Squadrons, I have seen the website and met the author of the book. He has helped me a lot in my research. I hope to produce a similar book for the Birmingham & Coventry Squadrons.

Phil
 
Hi! Phil,
Just been talking to mum about this as I can remember standing in the back garden watching men jump from baskets beloew the balloons.Tthis would have been in the early 1950s and living in Walmley.These ballons would have been at Castle Bromwich.

Mum tells me that there was a a balloon depot between Rectory road and Whitehouse Common Road (St Georges Barracks) Sutton Coldfield

You asked for reminicenses. this too from Mum who used to live in Berwood Road, Walmley.

There was a surface shelter in the garden where Mum was sleeping one night to be woken in the morning by the sound of heavy boots. on looking out of the shelter she found several military men. On being asked what they were doing in her garden they said that they had come to collect their balloon.

Seemingly the Windy ridge balloon as it was known locally had broken free and the steel cable was wrapped round a tree at the bottom of the garden.

Mum said that that it looked like an elephant at the bottom of the garden
 
Maggie,

Thanks for the comments. The balloon centre at Sutton Coldfield was Number 5 Balloon Centre, responsible for 911, 912 & 913 Squadrons and the north Birmingham balloon barrage.

Can you check with your Mum exactly where the balloon site was, and the approximate date when the balloon had broken free.

The RAF used balloons with baskets suspended below them for parachute training up until about 1990.

Regards

Phil
 
My cousin Frederick's (also a forum member) dad from Leamington Road, Sparkbrook, Fred Ford, was in the RAF attached to a group that during WWII looked after barrage balloons, but he got stationed in Kent not Brum.

Graham.
 
Hi! Phil,

Just sent a text to Mum so I'll let you know when she gets back to me about the break away balloon.

Mum is 86 now but still very 'with it' her memory of the local area during the war years amazes me.
 
Whilst searching for information on Nonsuch Farm in Bartley Green, I came across this:

"14/10/1941 Tiger Moth T8199 of 19 EFTS hit a balloon cable and spun in at Nonsuch Farm, Stonehouse Lane, Woodgate Valley, Birmingham. Pilot Cpl Thompson was injured."
 
Hi! Phil,

Spoke to Mum this morning. With regard to the escaped balloon all that she can remember is that it occurred during the major bombing of the area and that it would be prior to December 7th 1942 which is when Mum enlisted in the army. Apparently I even have a picture of the tree that the balloon attached itself to as it is on Mum and Dads' wedding photograph.

With regard to the Windy Ridge/ Cats Hill balloon. Looking at a modern map there is a rough triangle of Eachelhurst Road on one side-Walmley Ash Road on another with Orton Avenue and Ashurst Road forming the base. The balloon would have been in this triangle.

Eastleigh Croft which is a cul de sac had not been built at this time but the balloon would have been sited more or less at the bottom of the gardens of the houses at the bottom of the cul de sac- hope that makes sense.

We moved into the house on Eastleigh Croft as a new build in the early 1950s. Mum tells me that when Dad was making the garden the air was blue because his spade kept hitting yards of steel rope of which there was so much he couldn't remove it. Dad who wasn't a local man was rather puzzled by this but Mum always thought it most likely that the offender was a steel hawser from a barage balloon.
 
Maggie May,

Thanks for checking the location with your Mum.

Printmeister,

Thank you for your post. I'm collecting details on friendly aircraft that got tangled in the balloons, and I don't think that was on my list. I believe 19 EFTS was at Elmdon (now B'ham International Airport) which was opened in 1939. The aircrew were responsible for staying clear of the balloons but that was not always possible in cloud. In the end they fixed radio beacons on some of the balloons to warn aircraft, and these balloon sites were known as 'squeekers'.

Lencops,

Grateful for the gun sites. The balloons and guns were co-ordinated, but not always co-located, so that there was no danger that the balloons would be in the line of fire of the guns.
Regards

Phil
 
Phil,

Did you ever finish your work on the Balloon Sqns? I am currently researching a NCO who served with B Flight, 915 Sqn. I have his medals, AAF Embodiment Form, 2 x Xmas menus from 1939 with the Flight's signatures on and his Service and Release Book. I just wondered where B Flight was based?

Rgds

Jonny
 
I have a photo of my mum with a barage balloon behind her on the ground. She says this was Cannon Hill Park. Will try to attach photo: They were born in 1940 so I think the photo would have been taken 44/45 Also I have found a mention of Raddlebarn Road Recreation ground having them too.

View attachment 44797
 
Hi

There was a large Anti aircraft gunners and Barrage Ballon site in Perry Barr Park over the Walsall Rd. side by the boating lake, there used to be a lot of long wooden huts to house the troops.

I don't have any knowledge of what Sqd. was based there.

Ray
 
hi i remeber when we cleaned our church cellar out we had to move out old WW2 search lights i was 10 or 12 at the time and one of the elders said that the ballon was positioned over the school hall and the winch was what is now the stage. the lights were massive and heavy
steve
 
My grandfather was in sq 912, and was in france in 1940 - can you give me the site you are referring to as I'd like to look at it?
Many thanks
 
I remember my father telling me there were barrage balloons and gun emplacemenhs on the high recreation ground between Coventry Road,Church Road,Hobmoor Rd and Wash lane Yardley. Up untill 10 yrs ago there were green nissan huts in Church Rd between the Swan and Yew Tree. Angela
 
Thanks Dennis,the map is very interesting,i see the balloons were where the Sedgmere Club is now. I am surprised so many bombs were dropped in such an unindustrialised area or was intimidation the whole point. My dads family lived in Wash Lane and a bomb dropped on the front steps of the corner house 50 yds away,the concrete slabs flew over and crashed through the roof of the house next door to theirs. Angela.
 
I have spoken to my sister today and asked her about barage balloons. She was born in 1932 and she said there was an AA gun behind our house on the Chester Road where the sandpits were and she is almost sure there was a barage balloon there too. I can remember my mother saying the same thing to me about forty years ago.

Humph
 
When the Harborne Cricket Club was swept by a metal detector a few years back, at the behest of the groundsman rather than treasure seekers, a number of fascinating historical items from 1300 to recent times were recovered.

The haul included posts of the Barrage Balloons, shrapnel (several bombs fell on Harborne apparently as well as the wing of a Heinkel) and a few bullets.

Lencops map shows a Gun emplacement in Welsh House Farm (Rd?) which is only 0.5miles from the Club https://maps.google.co.uk/maps?f=d&...559,0.031543&g=52.455905,-1.9696&ie=UTF8&z=16 and there was I believe a Home Guard unit around the corner on Tennal Road to operate them
 
I was a 11yrs old when WW2 started and a Battery of 4, 3.7inch calibre Anti Aircraft Guns were sited on Oaklands Recreation Ground, Church Rd, Yardley, the wooden huts i which Gun crews lived were on the r/hand side of the entrance to the Rec, the Gun emplacements were on the Rec as it sloped down to Hob Moor Rd, there were no Nissan huts on there, there was a small Chapel to the left of the Rec, the entrances were guarded, we kids at the time ran errands for the Artillerymen, for a lot more info type in search "Wartime Yardley". Len.
 
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