Using a fleet of some 200 pilotless balloons, Austria launches what is considered history’s first remote aerial attack on August 22, 1849. The blitz over Venice is part of a counteroffensive against the city, which had overthrown Austrian rule a year before and briefly gained independence as the Republic of San Marco.
Even though balloons had historically been used only for reconnaissance during war, the idea for deploying them as bombers came as the Austrian military found itself at an impasse in its war to retake Venice. It held the city under siege, but found it difficult to launch a coup de grace attack by land or sea that would force a surrender. That’s because the unique Venetian terrain—a series of islands set in shallow lagoons—offered excellent natural defenses.
So, a young Austrian artillery lieutenant named Franz von Uchatius devised the idea to craft balloons out of paper that could carry bombs with fuses timed to a half an hour. In March 1849, Scientific American quoted the Presse of Austria reporting that “they will be fired by electro magnetism by means of a long isolated copper wire with a large galvanic battery placed on the shore.”
According to Russell Naughton, research associate at Australia’s Monash University, each balloon carried 33 pounds of explosives. The plan was for the balloons to pop on their own over Venice, with the bombs dropping on those fighting below. Some did, but others actually blew back over Austrian lines by an unexpected wind shift.
Even so, historians noted, the balloons didn’t cause much damage, despite one landing in the city’s main public square, Piazza San Marco. But it may have had a psychological impact on the already besieged city, which soon surrendered.
In February 1863, a New Yorker named Charles Perley registered a patent for a hot air balloon that would drop a bomb after a timer expired, igniting its fuse at the same time.
Using balloons to deliver and drop bombs continued into the next century. During World War II, Japan attempted to send nearly 10,000 bomb-carrying balloons towards North America—an effort that resulted in a handful of civilian deaths.
When Japan Launched Killer Balloons in World War II
Japan’s bizarre WWII plan to bomb the continental U.S. by high-altitude balloons claimed its first and only victims—an Oregon church group in 1945.
Japan’s bizarre WWII plan to bomb the continental U.S. by high-altitude balloons claimed its first and only victims—an Oregon church group in 1945.
