Fu-Go balloon bombs

I first learned about Japanese Fu-Go balloon bombs as a kid and was fascinated by the whole history. 9,000 or so launched against North America, exploiting the recently discovered jet stream which stretched from Japan up towards the Arctic and then back towards North America.

They were never effective as a military weapon but had tragic consequences none-the-less.

On May 5, 1945, a pregnant woman and five children were killed when they discovered a balloon bomb that had landed in the forest of Gearhart Mountain in Southern Oregon. Archie Mitchell was the pastor of the Bly Christian and Missionary Alliance Church. He and his pregnant wife Elsie drove up to Gearhart Mountain with five of their Sunday school students (aged 11–14) to have a picnic. They had to stop at this spot near Bly, Oregon, due to construction and a road closing. Elsie and the children got out of the car at Bly, while Archie drove on to find a parking spot. As Elsie and the children looked for a good picnic spot, they saw a strange balloon lying on the ground. There were two explosions; the boys were killed immediately, and Elsie died as Archie used his hands to extinguish the fire on her clothing. Joan Patzke survived the initial blast, but died later. A bomb disposal expert guessed that the bomb had been kicked. They were the only people whose deaths were attributed to the balloon bombs deployed on American soil.

I just came across an article from five years ago indicating that apparently some are still being found on Canadian and American soil these many years later. From Military unit blows WWII-era Japanese balloon bomb to ’smithereens’ by B.C. Lumby from 2014.

Seven decades after thousands of "balloon bombs" were let loose by the Imperial Japanese Army to wreak havoc on their enemies across the Pacific, two forestry workers found one half-buried in the mountains of eastern British Columbia.

A navy bomb disposal team was called and arrived at the site Friday in the Monashee Mountains near Lumby, B.C.

"They confirmed without a doubt that it is a Japanese balloon bomb," said RCMP Cpl. Henry Proce.

"This thing has been in the dirt for 70 years .... There was still some metal debris in the area (but) nothing left of the balloon itself."

The forestry workers found the device Wednesday and reported it to RCMP on Thursday.

Proce, a bit of a history buff himself, accompanied the men to the remote area and agreed that the piece appeared to be a military relic.

The area was cordoned off and police contacted the bomb disposal unit at Maritime Forces Pacific.

It was a big bomb, Proce said. A half-metre of metal casing was under the dirt in addition to approximately 15 to 20 centimetres sticking out of the ground.

"It would have been far too dangerous to move it," Proce said. "They put some C4 on either side of this thing and they blew it to smithereens."

Between November 1944 and April 1945, the Imperial Japanese Army released more than 9,000 bomb-bearing balloons.

Assembled from bark and rice paper, in some cases by school children, the balloons were loaded with hydrogen and attached to a chandelier-type structure loaded with sandbags and incendiary bombs, said Andrew Burtch, director of research at the Canadian War Museum.

This one would have been equipped with two large bombs and four smaller ones that may have exploded on landing decades ago.

"It would go up into the jet stream and get pushed across the Pacific over the course of two or three days," he said.

"They were launched from beaches in Japan with the objective of creating havoc in North America, which had until then been relatively untouched by the war."

As hydrogen depleted, the balloons would lose altitude so the devices were rigged with barometers and timers to drop sandbags as necessary to keep the balloon aloft.

It is estimated that at least 1,000 made it over the ocean and as far inland as Michigan and Manitoba.