(Tribune News Service) In late 1944, the Japanese military began launching 9,000 unmanned bomb-carrying balloons across the Pacific to bombard the West Coast. They did not yet know the extent or capability or scale of these balloon bombs. On November 3, 1944, Japan releasedfusen bakudan, or balloon bombs, into the Pacific jet stream. The balloons rose to about 30,000 feet, where winds aloft transported them across the Pacific Ocean. According to this interview, the Japanese Army had known that it would not be an effective weapon, but pursued it for the morale boost. J. David Rogers, Ph.D., P.E., R.G., C.E.G., C.HG. They also learned that the campaign was designed to offset the shame of the Doolittle raid, Coen notes. 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. Flashes of light, the sound of explosion, the discovery of mysterious fragmentsall amounted to little concrete information to go on. [29], On January 4, 1945, the U.S. Office of Censorship sent a confidential memo to newspaper editors and radio broadcasters asking that they give no publicity to balloon incidents; this proved highly effective, with the agency sending another memo three months later stating that cooperation had been "excellent" and that "there is no question that your refusal to publish or broadcast information about these balloons has baffled the Japanese, annoyed and hindered them, and has been an important contribution to security. Left: A Japanese balloon bomb reportedly discovered and photographed by the U.S. Navy in Japan.Large indoor spaces such as sumo halls, sound stages, theaters, and aircraft hangers were required for balloon assembly. The 9thMilitary Technical Research Institute, better known as the Noborito Research Institute, was charged with discovering a way to bomb America, and they revived the idea of Fu-Go. The Japanese balloon bomb, in all its terrible splendor. These skeletons may have the answer, Scientists are making advancements in birth controlfor men, Blood cleaning? I got out there and I start tromping all over that thing and got all the gas out of it. Missouri University of Science & Technology. 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. The . Find many great new & used options and get the best deals for Peace Is a Chain Reaction: How World War II Japanese Balloon Bombs Brought. The silence meant that for decades, grieving families were sometimes met with skepticism or outright disbelief. They were the only Americans to be killed by enemy action during World War II in the continental USA. They would be telling someone about the loss of their sibling and that person just didnt believe them, Sol recalls. Omaha seemed relatively safe until one night in April when a Japanese bomb dropped in Dundee. Heres the technology that helped scientists find itand what it may have been used for. It was made of 600 pieces of paper. The Beatrice Daily Sun reported that the pilotless weapons had landed in seven different Nebraska towns, including Omaha. [19] The Army estimated that 10 percent of the balloons would survive the journey across the Pacific Ocean. Special thanks to Annie Patzke, Leda and Wayne Hunter, and Ilana Sol. at the best online prices at eBay! [19], The first balloons were launched at 0500 on November 3, 1944. I ran to one of the cars and asked is Dick dead? Your Privacy Rights According to a Dec. 14, 1944, newspaper article in the Thermopolis Independent Record, three men and a woman at the Ben Goe Coal mine west of Thermopolis saw a parachute lit up by flares. 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. After American aircraft bombed Tokyo and other Japanese cities during the Doolittle Raid of 1942, the Japanese military command wanted to retaliate in kind but its manned aircraft were incapable of reaching the West Coast of the United States. A Japanese Fu-Go balloon with bombs attached near Bigelow, Kansas, on February 23, 1945. consternation and prevent the Japanese from discovering their mission's success. According to the two men interviewed, the Army had stopped the balloon program because of a lack of resources. Most of the balloon bombs. Map of Fu-Go incident locations in North America. An analysis of the ballast revealed the sand to be from a beach in the south of Japan, which helped narrow down the launch sites. Prompted by the Doolittle Raid on Tokyo in April 1942, the Japanese developed the balloon bombs as a means of direct reprisal against the U.S. mainland. The balloons continued to be discovered across North America on a near daily basis, with sightings and partial or full recoveries in Alaska, Arizona, California, Colorado, Idaho, Iowa, Kansas, Michigan (where the easternmost of the balloons was found at Farmington), Montana, Nebraska, Nevada, North Dakota, Oregon, South Dakota, Texas, Utah, Washington, and Wyoming; as well as in Canada in Alberta, British Columbia, Manitoba, Saskatchewan, and the Northwest and Yukon Territories; in northwestern Mexico; and at sea by passing ships. While Archie was moving the car, Elsie and the children found the balloon and carriage, loaded with an anti-personnel bomb, on the ground. The memorial commemorating the six Oregonians killed by a Japanese "Fu-Go" balloon bomb during WWII near Bly in the Mitchell Recreation Area. The campaign was halted, with no intention to revive it when winds restarted in late 1945. Each measured 33 feet in diameter, was inflated with 19,000 cubic feet of hydrogen, and . Wikimedia Commons / National Museum of the Navy These massive balloons had to carry more than 1,000 pounds across the ocean, which was no easy task for technology at the time. Archie and Elsye had taken them on a Sunday school picnic up on Gearhart Mountain. Hitching a ride on a jet stream, these weapons from Japan could float soundlessly across the Pacific Ocean to their marks in North America. FACT CHECK: We strive for accuracy and fairness. Cookie Policy They were call Fu-Gos, or balloon bombs. Records uncovered in Japan after the war indicate that about 9,000 were launched. The Japanese military had been tinkering with the idea of a balloon weapon since 1933, considering designs which would drop bombs or shower propaganda leaflets behind enemy lines after flying a fixed distance, as well as a balloon large enough to carry a soldier. In the 1940s, the Japanese were mapping out air currents by launching balloons attached with measuring instruments from the western side of Japan and picking them up on the eastern side. The first balloon bomb was set free on Nov. 3, 1944. It is estimated . A captured Japanese Fu-Go balloon bomb photographed during post-war testing to evaluate its potential desctructive capabilities. When the first balloons arrived in America, they technically became the worlds first intercontinental ballistic missile. All rights reserved. Reports of fallen balloons began to trickle in to local law enforcement with enough frequency that it was clear something unprecedented in the war had emerged that demanded explanation. Two days after the initial launch, a navy patrol off the coast of California spotted some tattered cloth in the sea. 1. 2023 A&E Television Networks, LLC. [35] In both cases, the Office of Censorship deemed it unnecessary to censor the comic strips. Not according to biology or history. They called it Operation Fu-Go. The project named Fugo "called for sending bomb-carrying balloons from Japan to set fire to the vast forests of America, in particular those of the Pacific Northwest. Between 1944 and 1945, the Japanese military launched an estimated 9,000 bomb-rigged balloons across the Pacific Ocean. Advertising Notice [43] A bomb disposal expert guessed that the bomb had been kicked or otherwise disturbed. The incidents remind historians and Nebraskans of an incident that occurred in Dundee during World War II. Attached were bombs composed of sensors, powder-packed tubes, triggering devices and other simple and complex mechanisms. May 5, 2021. Japans latest weapon, the balloon bombs were intended to cause damage and spread panic in the continental United States. But forensic geology, then in its infancy, was able to pinpoint Japan as the point of launch. Named Fu-Go, the so-called 'balloon bombs' were 10 metres (33 feet) tall, with the ability to carry four 11-pound (5.0 kg) incendiary devices plus one 33-pound (15 kg) anti-personnel bomb. Atmospheric uncertainty made for an uncontrolled attack. [10], Engineers next investigated the feasibility of balloon launches against the United States from the Japanese mainland, a distance of at least 6,000 miles (9,700km). Vengeance Balloon Bombs in World War II. 7777https://youtu.be . Because the military worried that any report of these balloon bombs would induce panic among Americans, they ultimately decided the best course of action was to stay silent. OMAHA, Neb. [9], By March 1943, Kusaba's team developed a 20-foot (6.1m) design capable of flying at 25,000 feet (7,600m) for more than 30 hours. One killed six people in Oregon. In addition, the balloons could only be launched during certain wind conditions. They each carried four incendiaries and one thirty-pound high-explosive bomb. "That's when I saw the paper balloons come over. An estimated 1,000 were believed to have reached the U.S. Only around 300 were reported as landing on U.S.. The balloon bombs, however, presaged the future of warfare. In January 1955, the Albuquerque Journal reported that the Air Force had discovered one in Alaska. They designed balloon bombs to be launched from Japanese submarines on the West Coast of America. Launching proved to be difficult as it took 30 minutes to an hour to prepare one balloon for flight, and required approximately thirty men. Tiny Thermopolis in central Wyoming was among the first locations in the United States where a Japanese balloon bomb was reported after exploding. "balloon bomb") deployed by Japan against the United States during World War II.A hydrogen balloon measuring 33 feet (10 m) in diameter, it carried a payload of four 11-pound (5.0 kg) incendiary devices plus one 33-pound (15 kg) anti-personnel bomb, or . The balloon caused sparks and a fireball that resulted in the power being cut. 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. Japans bizarre WWII plan to bomb the continental U.S. by high-altitude balloons claimed its first and only victimsan Oregon church group in 1945. (U.S. Army Air Corps) Borne out of desperationand perhaps a touch of ingeniousnessthe Imperial Japanese Army in November 1944 began unleashing an estimated 9,300 "fire balloons" across the Pacific Ocean. 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. [b][23], Balloon found near Alturas, California, on January 10, 1945, reinflated for tests, Balloon found near Bigelow, Kansas, on February 23, 1945, Balloon found near Nixon, Nevada, on March 29, 1945, Aerial photograph of a balloon taken from an American plane, American authorities concluded the greatest danger from the balloons would be wildfires in the coastal forests of the Pacific Northwest during dry months. After several hundred tests, the Japanese released the first balloon bomb, named fugo, or "wind-ship weapon," on November 3, 1944. The balloon bombs were 70 feet tall with a 33-foot diameter paper canopy connected to the main device by shroud lines. All rights reserved. To this day, historians believe not all balloons have been recovered. [8], Each launch pad consisted of anchor screws drilled into the ground and arranged in a circle the same diameter as the balloons. There were barely any morekozotrees, which was needed for the paper production. It was scary," said Johnston in a 2017 interview. "When launched in groups they are said to have looked like jellyfish floating in the sky. Arakawa further found that the strongest winds blew from November to March at speeds approaching 200 miles per hour (320km/h). A National Geographic team has made the first ascent of the remote Mount Michael, looking for a lava lake in the volcanos crater. Japan launched nearly 10,000 such balloons from Nov. 3, 1944, to April 1945. All Rights Reserved. As more sightings occurred, the U.S. government, with the cooperation of the media, adopted a policy of censorship and silencing, to reduce the chances of panic among American residents and to deny the Japanese any information about the success of the launches.Discouraged by the apparent failure of their efforts (in the absence of any reference in the . A Japanese "Fu-Go" balloon bomb in flight during WWII . By late May, there was no balloons observed in flight. Archie Mitchell and his wife Elsie packed five children from their Sunday school class at the Christian Missionary Alliance Church into their car and headed out on a fishing trip. The bomb that exploded . How did this mountain lion reach an uninhabited island? 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. This also helped prevent the Japanese from gaining any morale boost from news of a successful operation. The downside to such secrecy was that American citizens didn't know what these weapons were. The Fu-Go balloon bomb. ( looking east from Nebraska Highway 27) War, World II. [44], A memorial, the Mitchell Monument, was built in 1950 at the site of the explosion. Japanese officers later told the Associated Press that they finally decided the weapon was worthless and the whole experiment useless, because they had repeatedly listened to [radio broadcasts] and had heard no further mention of the balloons. Ironically, the Japanese had ceased launching them shortly before the picnicking children had stumbled across one. His work has appeared in numerous publications, including The Boston Globe, The New York Times, and National Geographic Traveler. At some point during World War II, scientists in Japan figured out a way to harness a brisk air stream that sweeps eastward across the Pacific Ocean to dispatch silent and deadly devices to the American mainland. But it shut down the plant cold, and it took us about three days to get it back up to full power again.. It was meant to be "revenge" for the Doolittle raids on Japan. In a snow-covered, heavily forested area southwest of the Montana town, two woodchoppers found a balloon with Japanese markings on it. A relief valve was added to allow gas to escape when the envelope's internal pressure rose above a set level. On Nov. 3, 1944, Japan unleashed some 9000 balloon bombs over a five-month period, all destined for mainland over the Pacific. The Japanese Military Scientific Laboratory originally conceived of the idea of balloon bombs in 1933. 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 initial reaction of the military was immediate concern. During World War II, the military thought the winds could save them once again since its scientists had discovered that a westerly river of air 30,000 feet highknown now as the jet streamcould transport hydrogen-filled balloons to North America in three to four days. On Paper Wings shows them meeting face-to-face in Bly decades later. When does spring start? 129 McNutt Hall, 1400 N. Bishop Ave. Rolla, MO 65409-0230. Twice a week we compile our most fascinating features and deliver them straight to you. The Gordon Journal published the column, which said in part, "As a final act of desperation, it is believed that the Japs may release fire balloons aimed at our great forests in the northwest". The alleged balloon scrap could be evidence of a unique weapon in modern warfare: the Japanese Balloon Bomb. [32] Starting in February 1945, Japanese propaganda broadcasts falsely announced numerous fires and an alarmed American public, further declaring casualties in the hundreds to thousands. Additional launches followed in quick succession. Just a few months ago a couple of forestry workers in Lumby, British. The Army mobilized thousands of teenage girls at high schools across the country to laminate and glue the sheets together, with final assembly and inflation tests at large indoor arenas including the Nichigeki Music Hall and Rygoku Kokugikan sumo hall in Tokyo. The Winnipeg Tribune noted that one balloon bomb was found 10 miles from Detroit and another one near Grand Rapids. Schoolgirls were conscripted to labor in factories manufacturing the balloons, which were made of endless reams of paper and held together by a paste made of konnyaku, a potato-like vegetable. The balloons remained afloat through an elaborate mechanism that triggered a fuse when the balloon dropped in altitude, releasing a sandbag and lightening the weight enough for it to rise back up. Using that knowledge, in 1944 the Japanese military made what many experts consider the first intercontinental weapon system: explosive devices attached to paper balloons that were buoyed across the ocean by a jet stream. Fu-Go ([], fug [heiki], lit. 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. Or Joan dead? Investigators later determined the origin of the story was a discussion held in an open session of the Colorado General Assembly. In 1944, the Japanese military tried to instill panic in the U.S. by launching thousands of bombs carried across the Pacific by means of hydrogen-filled balloons. None of the balloons, however, had caused any injuriesuntil Mitchells church group came across the wreckage of one on Gearhart Mountain. When inflated with hydrogen, the balloons grew to 33 feet in diameter. A self-destruct system was added; a three-minute fuse triggered by the release of the last bomb would detonate a block of picric acid and destroy the carriage, followed by an 82-minute fuse that would ignite the hydrogen and destroy the envelope. 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. The firebombing of Japanese cities by U.S. B 29 four-engine bombers destroyed two of the three hydrogen plants needed by the project. In the winter of 1943 and 1944, meteorologists, with support from the engineers tasked to develop transpacific balloons, tested the winter jet stream. [24] Through Firefly, the military used the United States Forest Service as a proxy, unifying fire suppression communications among federal and state agencies and modernizing the Forest Service through the influx of military personnel, equipment, and tactics. The balloon and parts were taken to Butte, [Mont.] When the Irish Invaded Canada: The Incredible True Story of the Civil War Veterans Who Fought for Irelands Freedom, Strong Boy: The Life and Times of John L. Sullivan. In Bly, Oregon, a Sunday school picnic approached the debris of a balloon. These so-called balloon bombs were launched in great numbers during late 1944 and early 1945. Copyright 2022 by the Atomic Heritage Foundation.