Fu Go Bombs - Born out of desperation and perhaps even a little ingenuity, the Imperial Japanese Army released an estimated 9,300 "balloons of fire" over the Pacific Ocean in November 1944.
Would complete the journey. But the Japanese hoped that falling balloons would destroy buildings, set fires, and instill fear among the American civilian population in this random campaign of terror.
Fu Go Bombs
"The Great Balloon Bomb Invasion," a 1 hour and 37 minute documentary currently airing on Discovery+, explores the history of the balloon bomb, known by the Imperial Army as the code name Fu-Go.
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"Thousands of potentially deadly bombs have been scattered across the United States," write the makers of "The Great Balloon Invasion" in a press release. And for the first time in more than 75 years, historian and author Martin Morgan "conducted a high-tech hunt for unexploded remains and an investigation into the secret history of this attack."
As the story of fu-go bombs progresses from the past to the present, the documentary features never-before-seen archival footage alongside expert interviews and eyewitness accounts.
Author Daniel B. Moskowitz writes that the weapon itself is "a giant balloon made of four layers of impermeable mulberry paper." "Each measured 33 feet in diameter, inflated with 19,000 cubic feet of hydrogen, and carried ammunition—usually four 11-pound incendiaries along with a 26-pound incendiary or 33-pound high-explosive bomb."
The Japanese fired unique weapons up and out through the jet stream and equipped their fu-go grenades with devices that would evacuate hydrogen when they rose above the jet stream and eject ballast when they fell below it. Those who had successfully covered 6,200 miles across the ocean would eventually begin dropping their bombs.
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When the balloons began to fall on North American soil, they were greeted by a largely non-panicked but curious public.
According to Moskowitz, the US government's public disclosure response went through three distinct phases that changed with knowledge of the attempted attacks. The first stage of public reaction was to accept this uncertainty. But after it became clear that these were Japanese weapons, World War II began as the government tried to control public knowledge of the devices. The phase has begun. But after six people were killed when a balloon-borne bomb met Bly, Oregon, the government's public disclosure policy changed again; In phase III, the authorities warned citizens about the dangers of the devices.
In April 1945, the Japanese abandoned this effort without the knowledge of government officials, not knowing the extent of the damage they had caused. However, large numbers of balloons attached to their dangerous incendiaries were and still are uncommon in the United States.
As the viewer follows Morgan in his search for these potentially deadly fu-go bombs, it is the largely unexplored history behind these attacks that captures the viewer's attention.
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From interviews with Japanese women (who were just school children at the time) who helped sew balloons for the Imperial Japanese Army to the history of the all-black airborne unit (the 555th In the fires along the Pacific coast maps the "Great Balloon Invasion" a brilliant but ultimately ineffective Japanese terror operation.
The story went like this: “Japan was left in the dark about the fate of the fantastic balloon bombs because the Americans proved that they could keep their mouths shut during the war. Beware of Japanese Balloon Bombs: History Department During World War II, the Japanese targeted thousands of wind-blown explosives in North America. Until now, many have not been taken into account.
A few months ago in Lumby, British Columbia, about 250 miles north of the US border, some foresters came across a 70-year-old Japanese balloon bomb.
The contraption below was one of thousands of balloon bombs launched towards North America in the 1940s as part of a secret plan by Japanese saboteurs. To date, only a few hundred devices have been found, and most are still unknown.
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The plan was diabolical. Sometime during World War II, scientists in Japan found a way to exploit a vibrant air current flowing eastward over the Pacific Ocean—to send silent and deadly devices to the American mainland.
The project, called Fugo, called for sending bomber balloons from Japan to "set fire to the great forests of America, especially the forests of the Pacific Northwest. The US war effort," explained James M. Powles in the 2003 issue. of the magazine
. Balloons or "envelopes" designed by the Japanese military were made of light paper made from the bark of trees. Bombs were attached, consisting of sensors, powder-filled tubes, trigger devices and other simple and complex mechanisms.
"Envelopes made by gluing hundreds of traditional handmade paper pieces together with glue from a bulb is really cool," says Marilee Schmit Nason of the Anderson-Abruzzo Albuquerque International Balloon Museum in New Mexico. "The control frame is truly a work of art."
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As described by J. David Rodgers of the Missouri University of Science and Technology, balloon bombs were "33 feet in diameter and could lift about 1,000 pounds, but the deadliest part of their cargo was a 33-pound anti-personnel fragmentation and a 64-foot long fusion intended to burn 82 minutes before detonation. bound bomb."
Weighted down with disposable sandbags, some of the ingenious incendiary devices made their way from Japan to the US mainland and Canada. The journey took several days.
"The spread of the bombs was quite large," says Nason. They appear from northern Mexico to Alaska and from Hawaii to Michigan. “It is said that when launched in groups, they look like jellyfish floating in the sky.
At the end of 1944, aerial bombing began in the western United States. In December, people in a coal mine near Thermopolis, Wyo., saw a parachute in the air with flakes burning in the air and after hearing a whistle. Around 6.15pm there was an explosion in a drawer near the mine and they saw smoke," writes Powles.
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A few days later, another bomb was spotted near Kalispell, Mont. According to Powles, "An investigation by local sheriffs determined that the object was not a parachute, but a large paper balloon tied with ropes together with a gas relief valve, a long wick attached to a small incendiary bomb, and a thick rubber cord. The pieces were taken to Butte, [Mont.], where FBI, Army and Navy personnel carefully investigated everything.
Finally, American scientists helped to solve the puzzle. As a result, the Japanese army probably fired 6,000 or more nasty guns. Several hundred people in the United States were seen in the air or found on the ground in the United States. To prevent the Japanese from monitoring the success of their betrayal, the US government asked American news organizations not to report on balloon bombings. So we will probably never know the extent of the damage.
We know of one tragic outcome: In the spring of 1945, Powles writes, a pregnant woman and five children were killed by "a 15-pound high-explosive antipersonnel bomb dropped from a falling Japanese balloon" on Mount Gearhart near Bly. Erz reported, these were the only documented losses from the plot.
Another balloon bomb hit a power line in Washington state, cutting power to Hanford Engineer Works, where the US runs its own secret project that produces plutonium for use in nuclear bombs.
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Over the years, explosive devices have appeared here and there. In November 1953, a balloon bomb was detonated by an army crew in Edmonton, Alberta.
Author and researcher Bert Webber found 45 balloon bombs in Oregon, 37 in Alaska, 28 in Washington and 25 in California. Webber said a bomb dropped in Medford, Ore. "He just made a big hole in the ground."
Henry Proce of the Royal Canadian Mounted Police said the bomb, which was recently found in British Columbia in October 2014, "had been in the ground for 70 years".
So how was the situation handled? "They put some C-4 on both sides of this thing," Proce said, "and they blew it to pieces." A group of young Japanese women sat on their knees on the floor of a gym, carefully gluing together three squares of mulberry leaf paper. with kon-nyaku paste. Some who were hungry ate pieces of edible paste and some smuggled home to their families at night. Squares of mulberry leaf paper were then glued into larger sheets wrapped in a sphere—a hydrogen balloon ten feet in diameter and capable of lifting 1,000 pounds in an unmanned basket suspended below. Dozens of gyms and warehouse floors worked the same way on eastern Honshu, Japan's main island.
Drones With Incendiary \
Elsewhere, under the command of the Imperial Japanese Army
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