With their national perversity toward galloping from the rabid to the ridiculous, the Japanese endeavored in the last months of the war to combine the discoveries of the years 1776 and 1783 with a few diabolic refinements of 1945 and create havoc in our western States by using explosives attached to unguided free balloons.
The first balloon was found in the fall of 1944, and “they then came over in increasing numbers,” reported Lyle F. Watts, Chief of the United States Forest Service. The Navy and War Departments have revealed that the balloons were made of five layers of gray, white, or greenish-blue paper, the first substance used by the Montgolfier Brothers who are credited with inventing the balloon in 1783. The lifting element, according to Chief Watts, was hydrogen, which brings in the discovery made by Cavendish in 1776, and each globe, said to be at least 35 feet in diameter, was capable of transporting several hundred pounds. The Fourth o’ July toy was given a malevolent touch by a contraption comprising a metal ring on which was mounted a box, a second metal ring, a collection of sandbags for ballast, and a supply of incendiary bombs released by a robot mechanism.
These blind bombers were launched on their course in much the same way we would christen a plane at a bond rally and send it off to war; then the airtight paper globe traveled a route considerably like that of a patron on an amusement park roller coaster, a route in which the weather elements assisted the balloon to carry out its mission. In explanation, Chief Watts said,
From 25,000 to 35,000 feet above the Pacific there is a layer of air which travels constantly from Japan to the United States. The Japs sent these balloons up to the top of this stratum of moving air. Then as the globe started moving east it began to lose altitude; when it descended to 25,000 feet, a barometric pressure switch dropped a sandbag. Still traveling eastward, the paper bomber went up again to 35,000 feet; this process was repeated until the balloon reached the American coast some three to five days later. If the Japs calculated correctly, the last sandbag would then have been dropped, and at this point a second robot took over operations.
The second pressure switch did not function until the balloon had descended to about 2,500 or 2,700 feet. When that point was reached, an incendiary missile was released and up went the balloon again. Each time the paper bomber came close to the earth, another bomb was dropped. This vertical zigzagging would continue—so the Japanese hoped—until the devilish contraption had traversed most of the United States, dropping incendiaries at intervals and leaving behind a swath of devastating blazes. When the final fire-tube had been loosed, a fuse became ignited. Then if everything went as planned, a demolition charge destroyed the paper globule and every person near by; the balloons which were picked up were found to carry faulty demolition charges, but there was always the chance that one might be found which needed only a touch or kick to set it off.
A radio-equipped gas bag found 50 miles off San Diego, California, gave the first hint that something new was in the wind; the hint became an actuality by the discovery of a bomb-toting balloon near Kalispell, Montana, on December 11, 1944. In March, 1945, the peak of the balloon attack was reached and then began dribbling away. The total number of contraptions launched by the Nips cannot be known for many months— may never be known—but, according to the Navy Task Force report in the Aleutians, hundreds were sighted in a single day, high in the sky, drifting along like diseased germ spores-—headed for California. At that time the United Nations Conference was in session and the wind was “just right” to carry the balloons to San Francisco, but as far as can be ascertained none of these blind bombers ever reached the buildings now made famous in history as the headquarters of the Conference. A final count of the balloons which arrived, compiled from discoveries of the globes or their shattered remnants, shows that by guess, good luck, and good weather some 230 gas bags traveled the stratosphere to our shores. The count may increase and measures are being taken to find out for certain.
With the lifting of censorship it was disclosed that none ever landed in a city or war plant as the Japanese intended, although several came close to the Hanford atomic bomb factory in south-central Washington state; one hung itself uselessly on a Bonneville Dam power line—the power to the Hanford project was cut off only momentarily. Near Detroit, Michigan, a close-call was in the air for that city until something went awry. Illinois State Police Captain Donald S. Leonard was heard to report that on the eventful August 15, 1945, an incendiary bomb fell within 10 miles of Detroit and burned itself out. A breakdown of “bomb balloon misses” puts one or more gas bags down in Washington, Oregon, California, Montana, Wyoming, Idaho, North Dakota, South Dakota, Nevada, Kansas, Texas, and Michigan. One each was found in Alaska and Mexico, and sharp-eyed Canadians also spotted paper globes landing in British Columbia, Alberta, Saskatchewan, and Manitoba.
The Navy and Army quickly set up a joint operations center from which planes were dispatched to shoot down balloons that were sighted; “recovery teams” composed of military, state, and local authorities were stationed throughout the danger areas who pursued and recovered the wandering paper globes. Those found were dispatched to the aerological laboratories at Anacostia, D. C., where they were studied.
At the same time, the Navy and War Departments clamped the lid on news related to the balloons. No one was permitted to divulge the control measures in use, but it was the conviction of the two Departments that “the saving of even one American life through precautionary measures would more than offset any military gain accruing to the enemy from the information that his balloons have landed.” Therefore, the editors and broadcasters who had been so co-operative with the Bureau of Censorship in keeping details from the enemy were allowed to reveal a few facts so as to assist the military agencies in a nationwide educational program relative to Japan’s futile rambling balloon barrage of our western and midwestern states. The cooperation of the schools and civic organizations was also enlisted for dispensing information.
There were minor fires but no great property damage, according to the War Department; however, during a press conference, Undersecretary of War Patterson disclosed that a mother and five of her children were killed by a bomb from one of the balloons. He said that the six were victims of an unexploded bomb which had been dropped; the fatal accident occurred during a fishing trip in an unnamed western State (later identified as Lakeview, Oregon) when one of children began playing with the deadly cylinder. In another instance, in the state of Washington, a child had a narrow escape, it is reported. With that mechanical curiosity in all growing boys, he turned the arming device on a live bomb until fate stepped in and stopped him-—just a thread’s width from death. A sixteenth of an inch farther and the bomb would have exploded in his hands. The 33-pound fragmentation bombs found attached to the balloons have been known to spew jagged steel over a quarter of a mile. The inhabitants of a certain small town also shudder when they recall the time a sheep-herder drove along nonchalantly in his auto dragging a balloon attached to the rear of the car—bombs and all.
The end of hostilities unfortunately has not ended the possible danger from the airborne menace. A joint Navy and War Department statement has pointed out that unexploded bombs may still be found lying in isolated spots, concealed in wooded areas or even buried in melting snow. Because of this hazard, coupled with the probability that some of the gas bags may have landed unseen, the military agencies plan to institute extensive searches in sections where balloons have been found. The search parties will attempt to back-track the air path of the bag, aided by detailed meteorological data, to seek out unexploded incendiary and fragmentation bombs that may be strewed about.
Although reassuring the public that the bombs constituted no military menace, the joint statement advised that it was to the advantage of the nation to be on the alert for forest fires started by incendiary bombs, and everyone, especially those living west of the Mississippi River were warned not to touch “or approach any unfamiliar object.” Forest Service Chief Watts, in a broadcast of information about the bombs, emphasized the assertion that the balloons were not a dire threat and concluded with the facts that not only had the Forest Service increased its air patrol and parachute jumpers to fight fires, but also they were “less worried about this Japanese balloon attack than they were about matches and smokes in the hands of good Americans hiking and camping in the woods.”