Japanese Flower Code

**Ferhilt** · 02-10-2009, 07:43 PM

I had someone pose the following question to me, can anyone expand or verify this?

I was told that one reason the Japanese were rounded up and interred in this country, was because they were heavy into Plant Nurseries, and would plant their flowers, especially, with secret "directions" for Japanese attack planes, should they ever get close enough to the West Coast. Can you verify any of this?

I haven't been able to find anything on it.

Thanks!

**liverpool annie** · 02-11-2009, 02:10 AM

All I could find was this ..... think this could be what they're talking about ??

Two days later federal employment officials in Torrance fretted over a worker shortage, saying "there are more Japanese with farms than Americans willing to take them over." That same week a Japanese flower grower was arrested in Redondo Beach for violating curfew and accused of "making apparent signals with a flashlight" during an initial test blackout. The man said he was holding a flashlight while loading flowers into a truck

Asian American Empowerment - Japanese Americans Record Stories of WWII Internment

Annie

**Kyt** · 02-11-2009, 05:22 AM

Yes, I have heard the urban-myths about the use of flowers or other plants etc to use as aerial guides.

Well, I say urban-myths though they were ones believed my the US government too. I am trying to track down a story that appeared in Time magazine (in 1942 I think) that made a laughing stock of the US government because they believed they had found arrows pointing to an airfield, made up of hay bales. Turned out to be a coincidence, and one had to stare very hard to make out any arrows anyway.

**Kitty** · 02-11-2009, 07:10 AM

Heard similar in this country where partially harvested fields, which formed arrows, got the farmer into trouble as spotter aircaft had seen the 'arrows', which merely happened to point towards a near by airfield, and reported it.

Turns out the farmer had merely knocked off the harvest as the dew had risen. There was a lot of paranoia going on all over at the time.

**Ferhilt** · 02-11-2009, 12:15 PM

I read that same article Annie, and I'm sure it was all based off paranoia. I just wondered if anyone had heard anything more about it.

Thanks guys!

**Tiornu** · 02-11-2009, 04:03 PM

The Japanese had no plans for an aerial attack on the continental US. How would they accomplish such a thing? There were never any such prospects until after the Doolitle Raid when a single submarine sent a single floatplane to bomb trees in the Oregon woodlands.