When discussing World War II, battlefields in Europe and Asia usually come to mind, but
lethal attacks and fighting took place in nearly all parts of the globe.
One of the few attacks on North America during World War II involved the use of fire balloons
or balloon bombs by the Japanese.
The fire balloons consisted of a simple hydrogen balloon that carried a variety of incendiary
devices or bombs.
They were a weapon that could be very cheaply produced in Japan and let loose to be carried
by the jet stream over the Pacific Ocean to North America.
The fire balloons intended targets were Canada and the United States where the bombs could
potentially kill people, destroy buildings, or set fires to cities, forests, or farmland
upon their arrival.
The jet stream that carried the balloons blew at a high altitude over the Pacific Ocean
and could carry the balloons to North America in just three days.
The hydrogen balloons stayed afloat by using an engineered control system.
When the sun would warm the balloon, the hydrogen would expand and the balloon would rise.
When the balloon cooled at night it would sink.
In order to keep the balloon within the jet steam’s altitude, an electrically fired
charge would cut loose sandbags if the balloon descended too low.
If the balloon rose to high, the system would activate a valve to vent hydrogen.
It would also vent if the balloon’s pressure rose too much.
Once the balloon reached North America after three days of flight, a flash of gunpowder
would release the bombs and a 64 foot or 19.5 meter fuse would light, causing the bomb to
explode.
The balloons were quite large as they had to carry about 454 kilograms or 1,001 pounds
of material.
The balloons were made of washi, a paper derived from mulberry bushes that was very tough.
They were assembled by workers, many of whom were teenage girls, by pasting together small
squares of the washi paper.
Over the course of six months, between November 1944 and April 1945, Japan launched over 9,300
fire balloons.
The balloons were released from the Japanese island of Honshu, and one or more eventually
found their way to the states of Alaska, Washington, Oregon, California, Arizona, Nevada, Idaho,
Montana, Utah, Wyoming, Colorado, Texas, Kansas, Nebraska, South Dakota, North Dakota, Michigan,
and Iowa, as well as British Columbia, Saskatchewan, Manitoba, Alberta, the Yukon, and the Northwest
Territories in Canada.
Some even reached northern Mexico.
361 of the balloons have been confirmed to have made it to North America.
Fighter pilots from the United States and Canada attempted to intercept a number of
the balloons, but had little success because of how high and fast the balloons traveled.
Fighters destroyed fewer than 20 of the balloons.
Sightings of the balloons and explosions from their bombs were witnessed across the aforementioned
states and provinces.
Several more were found in the ocean before arriving to the continent.
A number of fires were started by the balloons and remains of them were found in the streets
of Los Angeles and on the outskirts of Detroit.
One balloon even caused a short circuit in the power lines for a nuclear reactor that
was part of the Manhattan Project.
A safety device restored power almost immediately, however.
Although only a small number of the fire balloons reached North America, Japanese propaganda
reported great fires in the United States and an American public in panic, with several
thousand casualties.
In reality, the balloons caused little actual damage, but did a have a psychological effect
on the American populace.
The U.S. Office of Censorship tried to suppress knowledge of the balloons and the press at
the time largely cooperated by refraining to publish stories about the balloon bomb
incidents.
This changed, however, when a fire balloon ended in a lethal explosion in Oregon.
On May 5, 1945, Pastor Archie Mitchell had driven his pregnant wife, Elsie, and five
of their Sunday school students, aged 11-14, to the forest to have a picnic.
Elsie and children searched for a good picnic spot, while Archie went to park the vehicle.
They found one of the Japanese fire balloons laying on the ground.
As the group approached the object, the bomb attached to it exploded and the pregnant Elise
and the five children were all killed.
Archie and several members of a road construction crew witnessed the explosion and ran to the
scene, attempting to use their hands to extinguish the fire on Elise and the children, but they
could not be saved.
The press blackout on the balloons was lifted after this incident in order to finally spread
public awareness about the fire balloon attacks.
These six fatalities were the only known deaths caused by the fire balloons and the only known
deaths in the continental United States as a result of an enemy assault during World
War II.
A monument to Elise Mitchell and the children was later built at the spot of the explosion
in what is now the Mitchell Recreation Area in Lake County, Oregon.
Japanese civilians have subsequently visited the monument, planting several cherry trees
nearby as a symbol of peace.
A tree near the monument still bears the scars of the bomb explosion.
Remains of the fire balloons continued to be found even after the war’s conclusion.
Eight were found in the 1940s, three in the 1950s, two in the 1960s, one in 1978, and
even one in British Columbia in the 1990s.
One of the fire balloons shot down in 1945 is now owned by the National Air and Space
Museum in Washington, D.C. and remains of others are on display at other institutions.
The fire balloons remain one of the lesser known weapons employed during WWII, responsible
for one of the few successful attacks carried out on North American soil during the war.
It was also the first intercontinental weapon used in warfare.
Similar balloon attacks were used by the British against Nazi Germany in Operation Outward.
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