The Japanese used the jet stream to send a barrage of . The alleged balloon scrap could be evidence of a unique weapon in modern warfare: the Japanese Balloon Bomb. They were call Fu-Gos, or balloon bombs. [36], In late March, the United Press (UP) wrote a detailed story on the balloons intended for its distributors across the country. After several hundred tests, the Japanese released the first balloon bomb, named fugo, or "wind-ship weapon," on November 3, 1944. "Distribution of the balloon bombs was quite large," says Nason. Reportedly, these were the only documented casualties of the plot. The balloons rose to about 30,000 feet, where winds aloft transported them across the Pacific Ocean. [12] Two submarines (I-34 and I-35) were prepared and two hundred balloons were produced by August 1943, but attack missions were postponed due to the need for submarines as weapons and food transports. In December, folks at a coal mine close to Thermopolis, Wyo., saw "a parachute in the air, with lighted flares and after hearing a whistling noise, heard an explosion and saw smoke in a draw near the mine about 6:15 pm," Powles writes. Still largely unknown, these armaments were a byproduct of an atmospheric experiment by the Axis power. Each balloon was loaded with four incendiaries. In the aftermath of the explosion, the small, lumber milling community would bear the added burden of enforced silence. Is Sherman dead? Map by Jerome N. Cookson, National Geographic; source: Dave Tewksbury, Hamilton College. But the lack of a governed outcome was tempered by the fact that no Japanese troops were at risk. Japanese Balloon Attack Almost Interrupted Building First Atomic. Military personnel who arrived on the scene observed that the balloon had snow beneath it, unlike the surrounding area, and concluded that it had lain there undisturbed for weeks until discovered. During the day, heat from the sun increased pressure, risking the balloon rising above the air currents or bursting. The balloon bombs have been so overlooked that during the making of the documentary On Paper Wings, several of those who lost family members told filmmaker Ilana Sol of reactions to their unusual stories. "Code 'Fu' [Weapon]") was an incendiary balloon weapon (, fsen bakudan, lit. One of these bombs killed six . Lieutenant Commander Kiyoshi Tanaka headed an group that developed a 30-foot (9.1m) rubberized silk balloon, designated the B-Type (in contrast to the Army's A-Type). When Col. Sigmund Poole, head of the U.S. Geological Survey military geology unit at the time, was given sand from one of the balloon's ballast bags, he is alleged to have asked, "Where'd the damn sand come from?". ( looking east from Nebraska Highway 27) War, World II. The idea of the balloon bombs returned when Japan sought to retaliate after the Doolittle Raid, which revealed Japan to be vulnerable to American air attacks. Known as Operation Fu-Go, Japan first started toying with the idea of bomb-laden balloons in the 1930s, but the program began to take on a bit more urgency after April 18, 1942. Dottie McGinnis, sister of Dick and Joan Patzke, later recalled to her daughter in a family memory book the shock of coming home to cars gathered in the driveway, and the devastating news that two of her siblings and friends from the community were gone. All rights reserved. Vengeance Balloon Bombs in World War II. consternation and prevent the Japanese from discovering their mission's success. Which travel companies promote harmful wildlife activities? Between 1944 and 1945, the Japanese military launched more than 9,000 bomb-rigged balloons across the Pacific, counting on the wind to carry them over American soil, where they could cause damage. Another bizarre explanation is that it was a balloon bomb launched by the Japanese. [7], Also in September 1942, Major General Sueki Kusaba, who had served under Tada in the original balloon bomb program in the 1930s, was assigned to the laboratory and revived the Fu-Go project with a focus on longer flights. On November 3, 1944, Japan releasedfusen bakudan, or balloon bombs, into the Pacific jet stream. Cookie Policy 1. . All Rights Reserved. In January 1955, the Albuquerque Journal reported that the Air Force had discovered one in Alaska. Yet overall, the military concluded that the attacks were scattered and aimless. After lumbering up a one-lane gravel road, Mitchell parked his sedan and began to unload picnic baskets and fishing rods as Elsie, five months pregnant, and the children explored a knoll sloping down to a nearby creek. The balloons, or "envelopes", designed by the Japanese army were made of lightweight paper fashioned from the bark of trees. On March 13, 1945, two balloons returned to Japan, landing near, This figure includes 11 balloons shot down by the, "Japan's Secret WWII Weapon: Balloon Bombs", "How Geologists Unraveled the Mystery of Japanese Vengeance Balloon Bombs in World War II", "Military unit blows WWII-era Japanese balloon bomb to 'smithereens', Report by U.S. Technical Air Intelligence Center, May 1945, https://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Fu-Go_balloon_bomb&oldid=1142217578, Fu-Go balloon reinflated in California, January 1945, one Type 92 33-pound (15kg) high-explosive, or alternatively to the anti-personnel bomb, one Type 97 26-pound (12kg) incendiary bomb, containing three, This page was last edited on 1 March 2023, at 04:13. And thats really what the Japanese people went through., In August of 1945, days after Japan announced its surrender, nearby Klamath Falls Herald and News published a retrospective, noting that it was only by good luck that other tragedies were averted but noted that balloon bombs still loomed in the vast West that likely remained undiscovered. As one of the children reached down to touch it, the minister began to shout a warning but never had a chance to finish. On November 3, 1944, Japan released fusen bakudan, or balloon bombs, into the Pacific jet stream. He can be found online at www.christopherklein.com or on Twitter @historyauthor. [47], The remains of balloons have continued to be discovered after the war. That goal was stymied in part by the fact that they arrived during the rainy season, but had this goal been realized, these balloons may have been much more than an overlooked episode in a vast war. The Fu-Go balloon bomb. Most of the balloon bombs. The bombs were ineffective as fire starters due to damp conditions, causing only minor damage and six deaths in a single civilian incident in Oregon in May 1945. Hitching a ride on a jet stream, these weapons from Japan could float soundlessly across the Pacific Ocean to their marks in. Then, over the next four weeks, various reports of the balloons popped up all over the Western half of America, as Americans began spotting the cloth or hearing explosions. Finally, on the auspicious day of November 3, 1944, chosen for being the birthday of former Emperor Meiji, the first of the balloons were launched. Another balloon bomb struck a power line in Washington state, cutting off electricity to the Hanford Engineer Works, where the U.S. was conducting its own secret project, manufacturing plutonium for use in nuclear bombs. Between then and April 1945, experts estimate about 1,000 of them reached North America; 284 are documented as sighted or found, many as fragments (see map). In January 4, 1945, the Office of Censorship requested that newspaper editors and radio broadcasts not discuss the balloons. The Japanese government withdrew funding for the program around the same time that Allied forces blew up Japanese hydrogen plants, making the commodity needed to fill the balloons scarcer than ever. They were developed in strict secrecy by the Japanese military as its naval fleet suffered a crushing blow in 1944 and could no longer strike the United States. According to the two men interviewed, the Army had stopped the balloon program because of a lack of resources. To date, only a few hundred of the devices have been found and most are still unaccounted for. Advertising Notice They launched over 9,000 of them into the jet stream hoping they would land all over the United States. Seeking to deepen their newly planted roots, the Mitchells invited five children from their Sunday school classall between the ages of 11 and 14on a picnic amid the bubbling brooks and ponderosa pines of nearby Gearhart Mountain on the beautiful spring day of May 5, 1945. Warrant Officer Nobuo Fujita dropped two large incendiary bombs in Siskiyou National Forest in the hopes of starting a forest fire and safely returned to the submarine; however, response crews spotted the plane and contained the small blazes. Two days after the initial launch, a navy patrol off the coast of California spotted some tattered cloth in the sea. Just a few months ago a couple of forestry workers in Lumby, British Columbia about 250 miles north of the U.S. border happened upon a 70-year-old Japanese balloon bomb . Between 1944 and 1945, the Japanese launched an estimated 9,000 balloon bombs across the Pacific. 7777https://youtu.be . When 13-year-old Joan Patzke spied a strange white canvas on the forest floor, the curious girl summoned the rest of the group. A separate altimeter set between 13,000 and 20,000 feet (4,000 and 6,100m) controlled the later release of the bombs. In a snow-covered, heavily forested area southwest of the Montana town, two woodchoppers found a balloon with Japanese markings on it. According to this interview, the Japanese Army had known that it would not be an effective weapon, but pursued it for the morale boost. It was a tragic thing that happened, says Judy McGinnis-Sloan, Betty Mitchells niece. Mitchell Recreation Area is a small picnic area located in the Fremont-Winema National Forests, Lake County, Oregon, near the unincorporated community of Bly.In it stands the Mitchell Monument, erected in 1950, which marks the only location in the United States where Americans were killed during World War II as a direct result of a Japanese balloon bomb. Special thanks to Annie Patzke, Leda and Wayne Hunter, and Ilana Sol. Once aloft, some of the ingeniously designed incendiary devices weighted by expendable sandbags floated from Japan to the U.S. mainland and into Canada. For Reverend Archie Mitchell, the spring of 1945 was a season of change. Japanese fire balloon reinflated at Moffett Field, California, after it had been shot down by a Navy aircraft January 10, 1945. In the end, there would be about 300 incidents recorded with various parts recovered, but no more lives lost. I had been walking around on that stuff and they had not told me! Eventually American scientists helped solve the puzzle. The Fourth Air Force, Western Defense Command, and Ninth Service Command organized the "Firefly Project" with a number of Stinson L-5 Sentinel and Douglas C-47 Skytrain aircraft and 2,700 troops, including 200 paratroopers of the 555th Parachute Infantry Battalion, who were stationed at critical points for use in firefighting missions. What U.S. military investigators sent to the blast scene immediately knewbut didnt want anyone else to knowwas that the strange contraption was a high-altitude balloon bomb launched by Japan to attack North America. The 'extreme cruelty' around the global trade in frog legs, What does cancer smell like? The Japanese balloon bomb, in all its terrible splendor. She had baked a chocolate cake the night before in anticipation of their outing, her sister would later recall, but the 26-year-old was pregnant with her first child and had been feeling unwell. Few balloons reached their targets, and the jet stream winds were only powerful enough in wintertime when snowy and damp conditions in North American forests precluded the ignition of large fires. Though relatively simple as a concept, these balloonswhich aviation expert Robert C. Mikesh describes in Japans World War II Balloon Bomb Attacks on North America as the first successful intercontinental weapons, long before that concept was a mainstay in the Cold War vernacularrequired more than two years of concerted effort and cutting-edge technology engineering to bring into reality. It was meant to be "revenge" for the Doolittle raids on Japan. The American government, however, continued to maintain silence until May 5, 1945. Their deaths caused the military to break its silence and begin issuing warnings to not tamper with such devices. Toronto Star Archives/Toronto Star via Getty Images. Those who forget the past are liable to trip over it. The risk seemed justified as weeks went by and no casualties were reported. After that luck ran out with the Gearheart Mountain deaths, officials were forced to rethink their approach. "The envelopes are really amazing, made of hundreds of pieces of traditional hand-made paper glued together with glue made from a tuber," says Marilee Schmit Nason of the Anderson-Abruzzo Albuquerque International Balloon Museum in New Mexico. When the first balloons arrived in America, they technically became the worlds first intercontinental ballistic missile. Is Jay dead? The dastardly contraption was one of thousands of balloon bombs launched toward North America in the 1940s as part of a secret plot by Japanese saboteurs. The sand was unique enough to narrow the source down to two areas on the island of Honshu. Japans latest weapon, the balloon bombs were intended to cause damage and spread panic in the continental United States. [41] Furthermore, much of the western U.S. received disproportionately more precipitation in 1945 than in any other year in the decade, with some areas receiving 4 to 10 inches (10 to 25cm) of precipitation more than normal. But it shut down the plant cold, and it took us about three days to get it back up to full power again.. hide caption. "[30] The Imperial Army only ever learned of the balloon at Kalispell, from an article in the Chinese newspaper Ta Kung Pao on December 18, 1944. Cookie Settings, Photo courtesy Robert Mikesh Collection, National Museum of the Pacific War, Japans World War II Balloon Bomb Attacks on North America, a military bomb disposal unit had to blow it up, Kids Start Forgetting Early Childhood Around Age 7, Archaeologists Discover Wooden Spikes Described by Julius Caesar, 5,000-Year-Old Tavern With Food Still Inside Discovered in Iraq, Artificial Sweetener Tied to Risk of Heart Attack and Stroke, Study Finds, The Surprisingly Scientific Roots of Monkey Bars. The balloons were to be made of washi, a paper made from the bark of thekozotree, and schoolgirls from neighboring schools were to be the labor force, conscripted as part of thetotal war effort mindset preached by the Japanese Empire. The automatic altitude control device allowed the balloon to travel at 30,000 feet during the 3-to-4-day trip to the United States. Follow me @NPRHistoryDept; lead me by writing to lweeks@npr.org. Following the end of the war, a team of American scientists arrived in Tokyo in September to create a report on Japanese scientific war research. Just a few months ago a couple of forestry workers in Lumby, British. Archie Mitchell, and a group of Sunday school children from their tight-knit community as they set out for nearby Gearhart Mountain in southern Oregon. I ran to one of the cars and asked is Dick dead? Plus it was unclear whether the weapons were working; security was so good on the U.S. side that news of the balloon bombs' arrival never got back to Japan. Reverend Archie Mitchell and his pregnant wife Elsie (age 26) drove up Gearhart Mountain that day with five of their Sunday school students for a picnic. Look what we found,. How a zoo break-in changed the life of an owl called Flaco, Naked mole rats are fertile until they die, study finds. [20] The best time to launch was just after the passing of a high-pressure front, and wind conditions were most suitable for several hours prior to the onshore breezes at sunrise. They were the only Americans to be killed by enemy action during World War II in the continental USA. This prompted Army officers to contact military intelligence, commenting that the reporting included "a lot of mechanical detail on the thing, in addition to being a hell of a scare story". [38] In total, about 9,300 balloons were launched in the campaign (approximately 700 in November 1944, 1,200 in December, 2,000 in January 1945, 2,500 in February, 2,500 in March, and 400 in April), of which about 300 were found or observed in North America. Can we bring a species back from the brink?, Video Story, Copyright 1996-2015 National Geographic Society, Copyright 2015-2023 National Geographic Partners, LLC. In 1945, a Japanese Balloon Bomb Killed Six Americans, Five of Them Children, in Oregon The military kept the true story of their deaths, the only civilians to die at enemy hands on the U.S.. The team was co-headed byKarl T. Compton, a longtime scientific advisor to the US government, and Edward Moreland, a scientist hand-picked by General MacArthur. When inflated with hydrogen, the balloons grew to 33 feet in diameter. On November 3, 1944, Japan launched its first series of Fu-Go Weapon balloon bombs as a way of "invading" the US from afar and creating havoc among its citizens and government..
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