From: John Stepkowski <legion@MIRA.NET>
Date: Wed, 19 Aug 1998 02:43:13 +1000
Fwd Date: Tue, 25 Aug 1998 12:13:25 -0400
Subject: P-1947: US Spy Balloons Launched From UK In 50s

Source: The Daily Telegraph (UK) (8-10-98)

'US Spying Balloons Were Based In Britain - Public Records'
by Ben Fenton

Years before the first satellites were launched, the United
States Air Force used Britain as a base for vast camera-carrying
balloons designed to spy on Russia, top secret files recently
released at the Public Record Office reveal.

The Americans planned to release 3,500 balloons between 1955 and
1956 which would float at heights of up to 60,000 ft. above the
Soviet Union with sophisticated cameras suspended in a 'gondola'
below them.

They had to release the balloons from bases in Europe and then
pick them up when they had floated all the way to the Pacific,
either plucking them from the air with specially adapted planes
or sweeping them up from the sea.

The details of Project 119L have never been reported before in
Britain and the files show that the RAF was extremely interested
in sharing the information on Russia's geography and military
strength and even developing their own balloon-surveillance
project.

Project 119L was disguised as a scheme to gather weather
information.

When the Soviets protested about the balloons, exhibiting
several they had shot down, the USAF merely apologised that the
balloons had 'floated off course'.

Bogus press releases were written and only the most senior RAF
officers were told what the operation was really about.

The British base judged most suitable for the operation was the
Royal Naval Air Station at Evanton, north of Inverness. Although
the Admiralty allowed the USAF to use the base, the papers show
that the RAF did not tell its naval colleagues the true nature
of the exercise.

In a paper written for the Chiefs of the Air Staff, Sqn. Ldr.
F.H. Martin, the RAF's liaison officer with Project 119L, gave
some idea of the scale of this project and its importance to the
Pentagon.

'About $68 million [more than pounds 650 million at today's
prices] have already been spent on research and the production
of some 3,500 balloons for the attempted photographic cover of
the Soviet Union,' he wrote.

'The USAF have calculated that some 68 per cent photographic
coverage of Soviet territory might be achieved through the use
of the balloons.'

Sqn. Ldr. Martin explained that the 128 ft. wide balloons, as
high as 20-storey buildings, carried a 400 lb. gondola packed
with the latest photographic equipment.

The heights they reached were supposed to make them invulnerable
to attack by fighters of the Soviet Union or its satellites.
Each camera was able to take hundreds of pictures and in theory
other instruments on board would record the speed and track of
the balloon so that the terrain photographed could be identified
later.

To recover the pictures, USAF C-119 aircraft would have to find
and recover the gondolas, which were bright yellow and designed
to float on water, once they had cleared Soviet territory.

The gondolas carried VHF beacons to guide the aircraft to them.
Then, the C-119 would send a radio signal causing the gondola to
detach itself from the balloon.

The aircraft were, in theory, able to recover the gondolas
either as they descended by parachute or pick them up from the
sea.

In the modern era, with satellite imagery taken for granted, it
is hard to appreciate how important the pictures were for the
Allied military.

As Sqn. Ldr. Martin put it: 'If the expected success rate is
achieved, then a highly effective method of peacetime aerial
reconnaissance of a potential enemy's territory will have been
evolved.'

So RAF officers were sent to America to learn about
'balloonology'. Their reports are detailed in the files,
originally intended to be kept secret, but released under the
Open Government Initiative.

At the same time, a team of 100 American technicians went to RAF
Edzell, near Montrose in Tayside.

The trials were not successful, with most of the balloons
bursting at 80,000 ft., but other tests in Germany went better
and it was decided to move Project 119L into full gear.

Two bases in Germany and one in Turkey were also used, although
a fifth base in Norway was closed before it could get started
when the government in Oslo became worried that their point of
origin could be guessed by the Soviets.

As RNAS Evanton went into action, Maj Gen Roscoe Wilson,
Commander of the US 3rd Air Force, wrote to Sir William Dickson,
Marshal of the RAF, to emphasise the need for security and
telling him about the 'weather balloon defence'.

He wrote: 'It is believed that this cover story will be
acceptable in view of past publicity given balloon launchings by
the USAF.

'It is recognised that stray balloons may fall in Soviet areas.
In this eventuality, the balloons will be identified as USAF
meteorological research balloons.'

In fact, a lot of the balloons never made it across the Iron
Curtain, crashing close to their release points or blowing off
course. In their first two months of operation, the balloons
caused a spate of UFO sightings in Scotland and Germany.

But by Jan 1956, five had already been shot down by the Czech
air force, dashing the hopes that their balloons would be too
high for Warsaw Pact fighters to reach.

The Soviets displayed others, claiming that they represented a
concerted spying campaign.

In March 1956, however, the operation was scrapped. But the
reason for its abandonment was not embarrassment but the poor
results.

Air Vice Marshal R.B. Lees wrote to the Chiefs of the Air Staff,
saying: 'A total of 461 balloons was launched, just over half of
which were estimated to have penetrated airspace above Russia
and her satellites.

'Of the 123 which were thought to have crossed the Pacific, 56
were electronically separated from their gondolas and of these
42 were recovered. It is possible that some of the missing 14
camera units may yet be recovered from the sea.

'The recovery rate is 10 per cent of all successful launchings.
This contrasts with an expected rate of 33 per cent.'