In April, 1917, the total production capacity of the United States was for only two or three military observation balloons in a month. But when the emergency came the various concerns whose plants were adaptable to this class of manufacture—the list including the Goodyear and Goodrich organizations at Akron, the United States Rubber Co., the Firestone Tire & Rubber Co., the Connecticut Aircraft Co., and the Knabenshue Manufacturing Co.—all joined wholeheartedly with the Signal Corps to solve our balloon problems.
One of these problems was the production of balloon cloth, for which there had never been any commercial call in this country. Such cloth obviously must be of cotton, for in cotton we had our largest supply of textile raw material. The cloth must be closely woven, smooth, and strong, to serve as a base for the rubberizing process. The standard balloon cloth should have a weave of approximately 140 threads to the inch both ways. In our vast cotton industry only a few mills had ever made such a cloth, and then only in small quantities. In fact we found only a few looms in existence capable of weaving such cloth, which must be from 38 to 45 inches wide. A single loom could turn out only an average of ten yards of this cloth in a day. Our balloon program was to call for millions of yards of high-count cloth, and this meant the construction of thousands of new looms, as well as the training of hundreds of weavers.
Naturally our cotton manufacturers were reluctant to undertake such a production, and their fears were justified when we found that the earliest deliveries of balloon cloth were frequently as high as 67 per cent imperfect. By the middle of 1918, however, the mills had so perfected their methods that the wastage amounted to only 10 per cent of the cloth woven. This wastage was largely caused by "slubs," knots, and other imperfections which prevented an even surface for rubberizing. Because of the lives which depended upon having perfect balloon cloth, the fabric was literally inspected inch by inch, and hundreds of men and women had to be educated especially in this inspection work.
The development of the new art of weaving balloon cloth was an achievement of no mean degree. In April, 1917, all of our cotton mills put together could produce only enough cloth to build two balloons a week. In November, 1918, our looms were turning out cloth sufficient for 10 balloons a day, an expansion in the industry amounting to 3,000 per cent in 19 months. This expansion proceeded at a rate that always kept us a little ahead of the military schedule. To produce 10 balloons a day the cotton mills had to turn out 600,000 yards of special cloth a month. In addition to the small army of weavers, this production called into service 3,200 looms.
Had the war continued another year, we would have reached our goal of 15 complete new kite balloons produced every day. Our complete project of balloons and dirigibles of all types called for a total output of 20,000,000 yards of balloon cloth. Had we reached the quantity production planned, we would have been able to supply not only our own needs but also all of the balloon needs of the allies in Europe. America had the raw materials necessary for the whole anti-German balloon program.
CUTTING AND CEMENTING BALLOON PANELS IN THE GOODRICH PLANT AT AKRON.
SPREADER ROOM AT THE U. S. RUBBER CO. FACTORY, SHOWING MACHINES THAT RUBBERIZE THE CLOTH.