[13], Fu-Go carriage, with labeled ring, electrical circuits, fuses, ballast, and bombs, Top view of carriage assembly, with control device removed, Altitude control device, with central master aneroid barometer and backups, Reconstructed balloon at the moment a blowout plug is detonated, Changing pressure levels in a fixed-volume balloon posed technical challenges. In December 1944, a military intelligence project began evaluating the weapon by collecting the various evidence from the balloon sites. By then, the balloons would be expected to reach the mainland; an estimated 1,000 out of 9,000 launched made the journey. 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. On September 19, two Americans spoke with Lieutenant Colonel Terato Kunitake and a Major Inouye. 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. [1], The balloon bomb concept was developed by the Imperial Japanese Army's Number Nine Research Laboratory (also known as the Noborito Laboratory), founded in 1927. Japan's balloon bombs remain little known 70 years after the end of World War II for several reasons. Copyright 1996-2015 National Geographic SocietyCopyright 2015-2023 National Geographic Partners, LLC. The balloons not only required engineering acumen, but a massive logistical effort. This process would repeat until all that remained was the bomb itself. total war effort mindset preached by the Japanese Empire, an interview with Stephane Groueff in 1965, Fu-Go: The Curious History of Japan's Balloon Bomb Attack on America, Japans World War II Balloon Bomb Attacks on North America. The project was stopped by 1935 and never completed. The Sentinel reported that a bomb had been discovered in southwest Oregon in 1978. Elsie called to her husband back at the car. Mitchell was later kidnapped from a leprosarium while he and Betty were serving as missionaries in Vietnam; 57 years later his fate remains unknown). A hydrogen balloon measuring 33 feet (10m) in diameter, it carried a payload of four 11-pound (5.0kg) incendiary devices plus one 33-pound (15kg) anti-personnel bomb, or alternatively one 26-pound (12kg) incendiary bomb, and was intended to start large forest fires in the Pacific Northwest. "Distribution of the balloon bombs was quite large," says Nason. Aerial reconnaissance later located two nearby hydrogen production facilities, which were destroyed by B-29 bombing raids in April 1945. How a zoo break-in changed the life of an owl called Flaco, Naked mole rats are fertile until they die, study finds. (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. Upon retrieval, they noted its Japanese markings and alerted the FBI. (Tribune News Service) Right around New Year's Day, 1945, the Japanese army released an unmanned balloon from the east coast of the main island of Honshu. The Japanese used the jet stream to send a barrage of . In 1987, a group of Japanese women who were involved in Fu-Go production as schoolgirls delivered 1,000 paper cranes to the families of the victims as a symbol of peace and forgiveness, and cherry trees were planted around the monument on the fiftieth anniversary of the incident in 1995. Eventually American scientists helped solve the puzzle. Sightings of the airborne bombs began cropping up throughout the western U.S. in late 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. Atmospheric uncertainty made for an uncontrolled attack. Vengeance Balloon Bombs in World War II. an exhibit in Japanese on the Fire Balloons. 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. 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. While the balloons failed to be an effective weapon, they were a product of wartime scientific innovation. The memorial commemorating the six Oregonians killed by a Japanese "Fu-Go" balloon bomb during WWII near Bly in the Mitchell Recreation Area. Made of processed paper, the 33 1/2-foot bag bore on its side a small incendiary bomb, apparently designed to explode and prevent seizure of the balloon intact. Archie and Elsye had taken them on a Sunday school picnic up on Gearhart Mountain. For two years the military produced thousands of balloons with skins of lightweight, but durable, paper made from mulberry wood that was stitched together by conscripted schoolgirls oblivious to their sinister purposes. The girls, however, would not be told what they were making. When there were no reports of actual damage in the US, the Japanese media had made up fake stories about the weakening of American resolve. Privacy Statement In a snow-covered, heavily forested area southwest of the Montana town, two woodchoppers found a balloon with Japanese markings on it. ", "Japan's Secret WWII Weapon: Balloon Bombs," by Johnna Rizzo, On a Wind and a Prayer, a film by Michael White, "Japan's World War II Balloon Bomb Attacks on North America," by Robert C. Mikesh, Fu-go: The Curious History of Japan's Balloon Bomb Attack on America by Ross Coen, ------------------------------------------------------------------------------. In the aftermath of the explosion, the small, lumber milling community would bear the added burden of enforced silence. Not according to biology or history. According to this interview, the Japanese Army had known that it would not be an effective weapon, but pursued it for the morale boost. They were the only Americans to be killed by enemy action during World War II in the continental USA. [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. Copyright 2022 by the Atomic Heritage Foundation. They launched over 9,000 of them into the jet stream hoping they would land all over the United States. In addition, B-29s had bombed the Showa Denkochemical plant, which heavily limited Japans hydrogen resources. Those who forget the past are liable to trip over it. He can be found online at www.christopherklein.com or on Twitter @historyauthor. We do know of one tragic upshot: In the spring of 1945, Powles writes, a pregnant woman and five children were killed by "a 15-kilogram high-explosive anti-personnel bomb from a crashed Japanese balloon" on Gearhart Mountain near Bly, Ore. In November 1953, a balloon bomb was detonated by an Army crew in Edmonton, Alberta, according to the Brooklyn Daily Eagle. The . Japan launched more than 9,300 paper balloons carrying bombs over the Pacific Ocean from late 1944 to early 1945 to attack the United States, including Iowa, in an attempt to instill fear and terror during World War II. Flashes of light, the sound of explosion, the discovery of mysterious fragmentsall amounted to little concrete information to go on. When the balloons made landfall, there were no obvious clues as to where they originated. They wouldnt have been if that tragedy hadnt happened, Betty Mitchell told Sol in an interview. [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. The effects of that moment would reverberate throughout the Mitchell family, shifting the trajectory of their lives in unexpected ways. 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.. Since the 13th century when a pair of cyclones foiled the fleets of Kublai Khans Mongol invaders, the Japanese had long believed that the gods had dispatched divine winds, called kamikaze, to protect them. 1. "Japan was a logical guess," said Tewksbury. The last few set sail around this time of year,. 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. [37], By mid-April 1945, Japan lacked the resources to continue manufacturing balloons, with both paper and hydrogen in short supply. Follow me @NPRHistoryDept; lead me by writing to lweeks@npr.org. "An awful lot of this was just 'put them up there and see what happens,' " said Dave Tewksbury, a member of the geosciences department at Hamilton College, New York. Tests of the design in August 1944 indicated success, with several balloons releasing radiosonde signals for up to 80 hours (the maximum time allowed by the batteries). 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.