WWII: Terror From The Sky: Part Two "A"

Many military historians believe the Japanese Balloon attacks on North America was their military response to General Doolittle's 1942 Tokyo Raid. The Doolittle raid enraged the Japanese military command, and they searched for ways to reciprocate the feeling of vulnerability they felt as the Doolittle bombers dropped their ordinance. The Japanese military learned about the high altitude winds while sending balloons across China. They also knew about early balloon tests being done by the British. Both the Japanese and the British used the first balloons for propaganda delivery. Unfortunately for the British, early British balloons wandered into Sweden and Switzerland airspace before dropping the leaflets asking the finders to surrender. It was unfortunate because both Sweden and Switzerland were neutral at the time, and the entire incident became a British embarrassment. 

By 1943, the Japanese were concerned about creating their own international incidents; not with the Swedes or Swiss, but with the Russians. The Japanese had signed a nonaggression pact with the Russians at the start of the war, and although the Russians were now defending themselves against Hitler's "Operation Barbarossa," the Japanese did not want to encourage their own two front war by angering the Russians with balloons accidentally dropping munitions or propaganda on Eastern Russia. 

By 1942, the Japanese had a pretty good understanding about the Jet Stream and how it functioned throughout the year, and how it moved. By 1944, the Japanese had determined not only when the optimum time of year would be to launch the balloons, but also the best balloon size. Too small a balloon would never reach the 30-40 thousand feet in the stratosphere needed. Too large a balloon would take too many resources to make any large scale attack possible. In the end, Japanese scientists discovered a 61 foot balloon would be perfect for the trip. However, there were other problems.

During the day, the energy of the sun heats up balloons so that the balloon becomes more buoyant and floats higher into the sky. At night, the balloon cools and sinks. If it sank below approximately 28,000 feet, the balloon would leave the jet stream, slow its passage across the Pacific Ocean to the point it could not reach landfall before dropping its explosives. Consequently, the Japanese faced some extreme difficulties to overcome if they wanted the project to succeed. But these were the only problems. 

At first, the Japanese tried making their sixty-one foot Japanese balloon out of rubber. However, the rubber version had several problems: It took too long to rise to the required hight. Once it did make it to the correct altitude, the rubber had a tendency to leak. Last, the weight of the rubber cut down the weight of payload the ballon could carry. Consequently, the Japanese looked for other suitable materials to use to make their balloons.  Therefore, after much trial and error, the Japanese military planners settled on using paper, and the Japanese Paper Balloons were created. 

Now it should be pointed out that the Japanese Paper Balloons were covered in a resin, and the huge structures were glued together using a paste made of potatoes. Since the Japanese had plenty of paper and potato products, it made the overall cost of the balloons fairly cheap to produce. Eventually, the problem became how to manufacture the balloons, not what the balloons should be made of. The other problem was how to keep the balloon within the magic height needed to stay in the Jet Stream during the four days and nights needed to make the trip.  Finally, the Japanese came up with an ingenious solution to the problems.

Using a series of solenoids, altimeters, sandbags, and miniature explosives, and a large baffle, the Japanese managed to get their balloons to bob up and down through the Jet Stream no matter if it was day or night. As the balloon went up in height during the day, when the sun heated the gas inside the balloon, the altimeter released helium from the base of the balloon so it would not go to high. At night, as the gasses cooled, the balloon sank. When it reached approximately 28,000 feet, the altimeter fired off a small explosive that released a sandbag that acted as ballast. The balloon then ascended back into the Jet Stream and the balloon continued on its merry way. 

Japanese teenage girls built the paper balloons. Using their bare hands and silk gloves, they lovingly created the balloon's envelope. Other girls glued the panels, and still others looked for leaks. The balloon was then pressurized and checked for leaks. If no leaks were found, the balloon was put into service. If a leak was found, the young girls cried in shame and the leaks were fixed. The Japanese girls thought they were doing something important and honorable. It was not until the end of the war that they learned the truth. By then, their shame was complete. The girls and the Japanese people never learned during the war of the attack on Hawaii. Instead, they believed the Americans were the aggressors. Consequently, they worked very hard to do their part for the war. 

In all, those Japanese girls made 9,200 balloons before the project was cancelled. Of those balloons, most experts believe about ten percent, or 920, made a successful four day journey across Pacific to land on the North America. Of the 920, only 268 balloons were ever located. The Balloons were found in the Western half of the United States, Canada, and Alaska. Some historians and military personal believe the missing six hundred balloons may continue to pose a danger to people because most of the balloons had a payload of about 45 pounds of explosives including at least one incendiary bomb. 

in the Spring of 1945, a family took a trip into the mountains for a picnic. While there, the father of the family was parking the car as his wife and their five children walked to the picnic area. In the bushes, one of the children spotted something strange and went into the bushes for a closer look. He called for his mother. She and the other four children went up for a closer look too. As the father, a pastor at the local church pulled his car around, he heard and saw an explosion. Running to his wife and children, he found a crater and pieces of his family.  Onlookers agreed, there was nothing to be done except attempt to save one of the children by getting her to the closest hospital. 

Five days later, a mass funeral was held for the wife and five children. The pastor was not there. He was too grief stricken and was hospitalized for the trauma. As of this writing, they are the only known members to have died directly from any Japanese attack. However, experts warn that other balloons may continue to pose a risk to anyone accidentally stumbling across a balloon because the explosives may be truly unstable. Furthermore, if any of the balloons do exist, and they explode during the dry season, massive forest fires might erupt, precisely the what the Japanese military had hoped would happen when they released the balloons in 1944 and 45. 

This was a very short historical overview of the Japanese Paper Balloons. For further information, I suggest you review the following documents:

Robert C. Mikesh, Japan's World War II Balloon Bom Attacks on North America, (Smithsonian Institution Press, Washington, DC, 1972). 

Robert Webber, Silent Siege -- III: Japanese Attacks on North America in World War II -- Ships Sunk, Air Raids, Bombs Dropped, Civilians Killed, (Webb Research Group, Medford, Oregon, 1992).

Also available are two videos:

"The Japanese Paper Balloon Bomb," United States National Archives, ARC: 13084. This is original video of a real Japanese paper balloon bomb and how it worked, filmed during the war in 1945. It shows all the parts and how they worked together to keep the balloon aloft.  It is the military training film from the Department of Defense and can be ordered from WWW.acrchives.gov.

Michael White's, "On a Wind and a Prayer: The true story of the Japanese Balloon Bomb attacks on North America during World War II." Released in 2005 on Michael White Films and distributed by PBS, the DVD runs approximately 60 minutes and is a more modern look back at the balloon attacks and uses interviews with several historians and military experts to take a fresh look at the attacks from both the American and Japanese sides of the war. Filmed in color and using special effects, the video does a great job of making the balloon attacks accessible for the average lay person who knows little about the attacks. 

While the documents mentioned above give a very good overview of the attack, they also explain in great detail why the US and Canada military was so concerned about them. Additionally, with the exception of the archival footage, they also discuss a greater fear, the use of chemical and biological agents by way of balloon attack. 

By 1945, the Japanese were firmly on the defensive. The US military was getting closer and closer to the main Japanese islands, and US and Canada Intelligence Operations were convinced the Japanese would use whatever they could to extend the war, including that of biological and chemical agents. What the US and Canada military tried to do about it, is the subject of the next blog. 

WWII: Terrorism From The Sky? (Part 1)

WWII: Terrorism From The Sky?  (Part One)

In the winter and spring of 1944-45, the Japanese military sent 9,200 paper balloons to bomb North America. The best historical evidence guesses state approximately ten percent, or 920 made it across the Pacific Ocean and onto North America. However, according to United States National Archive records, only 268 balloon incidents were recorded, leaving more than six hundred balloons unaccounted. Historians familiar with the attack, however, now call the attacks the only intercontinental ballistic missile attack ever on North America,  in the time of war. Additionally, they state those six hundred unaccounted for balloons may continue to pose a risk to anyone unfortunate enough to find them. Each balloon was loaded with approximately 45 pounds of explosives. Because they would now be very unstable, they continue to be dangerous, and may still explode, and would either kill the people who find them, or may start fires in dry areas. Furthermore, no one knows how many of the balloons continue to pose a risk. However, it is likely the balloons, if they really do exist, are probably in very difficult terrain to transverse, making it less likely very many people would be injured by any potential blast. Last, while it is  likely few major problems would happen from any of the unaccounted for balloons, it is also just as likely educated terrorists have heard the story and  may attempt to duplicate the Japanese military efforts some time in the near future. 

Since the 1960s, many terrorist events have taken place. Although it is impossible to say with any certainty, it seems likely that many terrorist attacks had their planning roots in historical events. Many terror leaders are educated individuals. During their education, many became professionals in their fields of studies. Furthermore, even the most scientific fields require history lessons. Since many terrorist are well read, it is also likely that the terror planners probably develop their plans based on historical records. For example, while no one knows for certain where the idea for the September 11, 2001 came from, it seems likely that someone planning that event probably knew about the bomber that flew into the side of the Empire State Building near the end of WWII. To give you a better understanding of why that event is important to understand, here is a short overview of what happened:

On July 28, 1945, the United States Army-Air Corps B-25 Bomber, “Old John Feather Merchant,” flying from New Bedford, Mass., to LaGuardia Airport in New York, through heavy fog, was diverted to Newark Airport because of that heavy fog. Instead, the aircraft accidentally crashed into the 79th floor of the Empire State Building when the pilots tried to avoid hitting the Chrysler Building. The aircraft fuel then exploded and caused a fire that burned everything to the 75th floor. The plane itself was destroyed, with the force of the impact so great that one engine smashed all the way through the building and ended up in the penthouse of the building across the street. Investigators found small parts of the aircraft in and on top of other nearby buildings. To give you a better understanding of the forces involved, one only needs to look at the famous records of the Guinness Book of World Records, which claimed one woman has the world record for surviving an elevator fall of seventy-five stories when the second engine of the B-25 snapped the elevator cable for the car she had been riding in. According to the notes, once the cable snapped, the elevator car went into a free fall until the automatic breaks kicked in. Then the engine fell down the shaft and landed on top of the elevator car. Even so, the woman survived and was eventually pulled from the wreckage by rescuers. Although she was lucky, some did not  survive. In the end, fourteen people died: three in the aircraft, and eleven more who worked for the War Relief Services department of the National Catholic Welfare Conference. The accident also caused about a million dollars in damage to the Empire State Building. 

Although this aircraft accident was a historical event, Tom Clancy wrote about a fictional attack on the White House several years before 9-11 too. Could Clancy’s writings also have been the catalyst for the September 11 attacks? No one knows for sure, but it seems likely that either the historical event or fictional event may have led to the 9-11 attacks. If so, this example of the WWII Japanese balloon attacks on U.S. and Canada soils may provide a useful historical guide for anyone attempting to predict future attacks by anyone who knows the historical record.

Part Two of “Terror From The Sky: Balloons” will give a short history of the Japanese Balloon Attacks and the North America military response to the balloons. 

Part Three will discuss the successes and failures of the Japanese attacks from both the Japanese and the US and Canada points of view. 

Part Four will address the worst case scenarios which includes germ warfare, and explains why the US and Canada WWII military intelligence organizations were so nervous about the Japanese balloon attacks and why they pressed so hard to keep the American Free Press from reporting the story.

Part Five will examine what might happen if new attacks takes place on American soil today and examines the questions raised by the previous posts.