Japanese Fugo Bombing Balloons on North America

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Japanese Fugo Bombing Balloons

Read more at the link: Japanese Fugo Bombing Balloons

In November, 1944, the Japanese began launching unmanned bomb-carrying balloons, which travelled on prevailing winds across the Pacific Ocean to North America. It was hoped that the balloons would start forest fires and cause general panic among the population.
The balloons measured about 33 feet in diameter and 70 feet from the top of the balloon to the payload at the bottom. They were first made of paraffined paper, and later from latex and fabricated silk, and contained hydrogen gas. The payload consisted of 36 sand-filled paper bags for use as ballast, 4 incendiary bombs and 1 33-pound anti-personnel bomb.

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[Kyt]

Originally Posted by spidge

Saw Wife and Five Children Killed by Jap Balloon Bomb

63rd Anniversary.

And another interesting link:

Oregon Responds to World War II: Bombs Fall on Oregon: Japanese Attacks on the State

[Andy M]

Hello There -

I remember seeing something about this on TV a few years back. I think someone had found the remains on a ballon that had landed someplace on the west coast. Not sure if the bomb was still intact or not.

A rather odd idea.

Andy

[Antipodean Andy]

Japanese balloons brought death in 1945: World at War - Cleveland Metro News – The Latest Breaking News, Photos and Stories from The Plain Dealer

On May 5, 1945, Rev. Archie Mitchell and his wife took a group of five children from their church on a tragic outing in the woods near Bly, Oregon.

Something strange -- a large deflated balloon -- dangled from a tree. One of the group grabbed hold and pulled it, setting off a fragmentation bomb, killing everyone except the pastor.

They became the only casualties of a Japanese attack on the U.S. mainland during World War II; their gravestones noting: "Killed by enemy balloon bomb."

From November, 1944, to April, 1945, more than 9,000 balloons were launched by the Japanese into high-altitude westerly winds, carrying anti-personnel or incendiary bombs over the North Pacific Ocean to land in the U.S.

An estimated 1,000 "Fu-Go" balloons completed the trip, and about 300 confirmed landings or sightings were reported across a wide area stretching from Canada to the U.S./Mexico border, and as far east as Michigan.

Seeking to avoid public panic and deny Japan confirmation of their successful efforts, U.S. officials persuaded the media to withhold news about the balloon bombs which generally landed in unpopulated areas, causing little damage or injury . . .

Until that deadly day in Oregon.

The incident not only prompted officials to alert the public about the balloons, but added urgency to the efforts of people trying to find and destroy the balloon launching sites. One of those people was Navy Lt. Junior Grade Dallas Barnett.

Barnett, 91, of Amherst, said he was an "aerologist" with the Naval Air Corps, one of many officers and civilians trained in meteorology at five universities to meet the Navy's pressing need for weather forecasters as its fleets and planes spread across the world.

The specialty was an odd match for Barnett when considering the required duty aboard ships, airplanes and hot-air balloons for a guy who was prone to seasickness, airsickness and acrophobia. "When we landed I was sicker than a dog," he recalled of his first balloon flight.

But the training did have its rewards. During his studies at the University of Chicago, he met a civilian meteorology student. Their hands met and sparks flew whenever she needed to borrow an eraser from him, which not-so-surprisingly turned out to be quite often. She later become his wife of 63 years, Georgia.

Barnett's role in the balloon-bomb investigation started when he accidentally received a classified report about one of the attacks. His superiors, figuring he'd already read the report, gave him top-secret clearance and the assignment of tracking the flights back to their point of origin in Japan.

The task involved studying wind patterns over the Pacific during the balloon flight, at a time when meteorological science was based largely on observational data, with none of the radar, satellites or computers now used to track global weather patterns.

At best his determinations were an educated guess, according to Barnett, who wet a fingertip and held it in the air to illustrate his point. "I never got any reports back saying, 'Yeah, they're there, we got 'em'," he said.

He was not alone in his search, however.

The 31-foot diameter, hydrogen-filled paper balloons were fitted with a control system that automatically maintained its altitude for the three-day ocean crossing by venting gas to decrease height or dropping ballast bags of sand to go higher.

American geologists, examining the sand in the ballast bags of fallen balloons, were able to narrow down possible launch sites to one area of Japan, where subsequent aerial reconnaissance spotted factories producing hydrogen for the balloons.

The factories were bombed but historians and authors say the project also was doomed by lack of publicity about the attacks in the U.S., that would have confirmed Japan's hopes of success and possibly led to launching even more balloons.

Barnett believes the intended impact of the attacks was largely psychological, to discourage American civilians and inspire the Japanese populace.

One hunch he developed during the war, but could never prove, was that ships or islands were being used as balloon launching points. The balloons just seemed to be coming from so many different directions and locations.

Barnett said that decades later, when he went to Japan on a business trip, he had dinner with a plant manager and fellow World War II vet who, as it turned out, had helped launch the Fu-Go balloons -- from a ship.

Since retiring, Barnett can relax and second-guess, sometimes even out-predict, weathercasters with their array of sophisticated radar and satellite imagery.

Nowadays, however, the stakes are far less grimmer than when he once tracked the paths of death from the skies.