Today In History:  12 July  [0000]   --  A balloon from Operation Outward knocks out a power station near Leipzig.

Operation Outward was a British campaign of the Second World War that attacked Germany and German-occupied Europe with free-flying balloons. It made use of cheap, simple balloons filled with hydrogen and carrying either a trailing steel wire to damage high voltage power lines by producing a short circuit, or incendiary devices to start fires in fields, forests and heathland. A total of 99,142 Outward balloons were launched; about half carried incendiaries and half carried trailing wires.

PHOTO: Balloon launch for Operation Outward. Felixstowe, Suffolk, site.  From The National Archives of the United Kingdom: ADM 199/848.

Photo Attribution:  Public Domain  via Wikimedia.