Salt Lake Tribune | 1917-09-02 | Page 13 | "Sausage" Balloon One of Army's Eyes

"SAUSAGE" BALLOON ONE OF ARMY'S EYES Carries a Single Observer Who Sits Up in Sky Taking Notes and Watching. BEHIND BRITISH LINES IN FRANCE, Aug. 15. (Correspondence of the Associated Asso-ciated Press). The "sausage," or observation obser-vation balloon. Us one of the eyes of the army. It is not unlike a huge sausage in appearance, a sausage with a kimc In the middle, and it usually carries only a single observer. There it sits all day up In the sky noting and watching, and what it sees and notes it telephones down to the guns below. If you are in a front line British trench and take the trouble to sit on the fire step with your back to the German line, you will sec, right, left, and, in fact, all along tlio British line, hundreds of these sausages. They sit serenely there, up in the morning, tugging all day at their cables, ca-bles, down at night, apparently with no other thought than a pleasant day in the air. Nothing troubles them ; they go up at their leisure, they come down at their ease. Their nonchalance almost leads one to believe that there ts no such thing as war in the world. They are confident ! and happy because, to put it shortly, there is no need to be otherwise. This is what is known as "mastery of the air." But if you rise on the fire step and prop you rsel f a g: i n s t the back of i h e trench, periscope to eye, you may look in vain along the German line for any similar simi-lar line of sausages. Scarcely ever is a single sausage to be seen. Any air- iplar.es? Pel haps an odd one, well back. But anywhere near the British lines? Not I often. . Along about noon one may sometimes see a sausage rise agitatedly over the 1 Gernian trenches. It goes up, as it were, I by jumps, as though it is a little afraid oi" its own bravado. Us rise Is slow, un- certain. It fears it is being seen. Listen, Lis-ten, and before it is 200 feet up. a familiar fa-miliar roar may be heard somewhere behind be-hind the British lines. A glance upward shows that a fleet of aircraft is already on the wing. A British balloon has seen its German brother begin its rise, there has been a prompt message and a few minutes later a squadron of British aircraft is up and out for a meal. The British machines offer no pour-pailers. pour-pailers. They co straight for ft. It rocks once or twice, then drops downward, an inarticulate mass. That kind of Germ.i.i obseivation has ceased for the day, for never another will rise that day. "What better me.il for' an honest British plane than a Gernian sausage?" asks the squadron commander as lie returns to land.