More than 50 million people died in World War II, but only six of them were in the continental United States . . . and they were on a picnic.
For the picnickers, death arrived as a distant speck in the sky far above the blue waters of the Pacific; and only as it neared land did the speck become recognizable as a balloon, a remarkably huge, unmanned balloon of approximately 33-feet in diameter. Had anyone been in a position to track the balloon’s path, they would have seen it leave the Pacific and silently nudge its way through thick shoals of clouds over Oregon’s coast, where it descended gently and finally disappeared into the verdant forests of the Pacific Northwest.
There was little about the balloon that was ominous, particularly in an era when weather balloons were often sent into the sky. In fact, it is possible that the balloon had a joyful beginning, having been put together by Japanese teenage girls who were taken out of school to laminate and bond the large sheets of mulberry paper that would form its spherical shape.
It was not, however, the Japanese school girls who attached two incendiary fire bombs and an anti-personnel bomb to the base of each of the 9,300 balloons. The school girls were told nothing about the bombs. They were told only that they were working on a secret project for the good of Japan.
Two years earlier, in the April 1942 Doolittle Raid, 16 American bombers had struck Tokyo, shocking and demoralizing a population that had come to believe that Japan was invincible. In retaliation, the Japanese Imperial Army devised a plan to attack America using “balloon bombs.” The balloons would be launched into the jet stream, approximately six miles above sea level. Fiercely-blowing winds in the jet stream can attain speeds of 200 mph, and a balloon launched in Japan could reach the U.S. in 30-100 hours.
Using a sophisticated ballast system that enabled the balloons to ascend and descend, Japan’s military intended to direct the balloons to the lush, heavily-wooded forests that blanketed the Pacific Northwest. If everything went as planned, the incendiary devices carried by the balloons would cause devastating wild fires hundreds of times greater and deadlier than the ones seen in recent years, including the 2023 fire in Lahaina, Maui. The losses would have been unspeakable, and the manpower and resources necessary to extinguish the fires would have detracted from America’s war effort.
It was a chilling but brilliant plan, and Americans knew nothing about it. Fortunately, the nation had a staunch ally to help save the day: nature. Despite all the indignities the world has heaped on the environment from the first day mankind appeared on earth, nature stepped forward to help. The first balloon was launched on November 3, 1944, the birthday of former Emperor Meiji, and when it descended into an American forest after its long journey over the Pacific, it was greeted not only by seasonal rain and snow, but by the wettest year in a decade in the Pacific Northwest. Even a welder’s torch would not have started a fire in those forests.
Over the next few months, thousands of balloons lifted off from Japan, but due to the wetness of the forests, they caused little more than a handful of brush fires and no significant damage. Many balloons went down prematurely in the Pacific Ocean; others were shot down by U.S. and Canadian pilots; and one errant balloon even made a landing off Kailua, Hawai’i. But some balloons were landing, and had it not been for the soggy forests, the results could have been devastating. America was quick to realize that if the balloons were still arriving when the dry season began, the incendiary bombs might spell disaster for the entire West Coast.
To prevent this potential catastrophe, America’s military leadership devised a plan that was surprisingly simple yet extremely effective. They reasoned that if the Japanese Imperial Army heard nothing about all the balloons that had successfully landed - probably about 300 - it might convince them that their plan was not working, and they would end the dreadful mission. Therefore, in January 1945, the U.S. Office of Censorship sent a memo to newspapers and radio broadcasters urging that no publicity be given to the balloon incidents. The scheme worked. Hearing nothing about balloon landings or forest fires in America, the Japanese Imperial Army was so discouraged with its lack of success that it launched the last balloon in April 1945 and then ceased the operation.
{Something for readers to think about: How well would that censorship request have worked today when everyone with a cell phone thinks he or she is a journalist? Never mind . . . don’t answer that.}
Although the censorship program was a huge triumph, it did have one tragic outcome: Since Americans knew nothing about the balloons, they did not realize their danger. This became chillingly evident on May 5, 1945, when Reverend Archie Mitchell, his pregnant wife, Elsie, and five of the reverend’s Sunday School students set out for a picnic on Gearhart Mountain in Bly, Oregon. When they reached a good picnic spot, the reverend let his wife and the children out of the car while he went to park.
When Elsie and the children were about 100 yards from the car, she turned and yelled to her husband, “Look what I found, dear.” It was one of the balloons, lying deflated on the ground but with its deadly cargo still intact. Neither Elsie nor the children had any inkling that it was unsafe. After all, how could a balloon be dangerous?
Moments later, there was a terrible explosion. Reverend Mitchell and a nearby construction crew ran to the grisly scene only to find that the blast had thrown Elsie and the children to the ground. Elsie’s dress was burning, and her husband dropped to his knees and, using his hands, he extinguished the fire. His efforts were in vain; his wife and all the children perished. They were the only Americans to die from enemy attack in the United States during World War II. (Hawaii and Alaska were not yet states.)
That is one of the horrors of war when school girls help construct bombs that will kill other school girls halfway across the globe.
Following the deadly incident, the U.S. military rescinded the order to give no publicity to the balloon bombs, and front-page articles soon filled newspapers across the nation. Fortunately, at this point in the war - four months prior to the surrender - Japan was no longer in a position to revitalize its balloon bomb program.
The thousands of Japanese school girls who had a part in making these balloons were never told of their purpose. For decades, they did not realize that their efforts had killed a pregnant school teacher and five students on a picnic. Four decades passed before a Japanese-American named Yuzuru “John” Takeshita was traveling in Japan when he encountered a group of women who had helped to construct the balloons. When he told them what had occurred, they were stunned and deeply saddened.
As a gesture of reconciliation, as well as an effort to promote peace, the ladies asked Takeshita to deliver 1,000 paper cranes to the families of the victims. The ladies folded the cranes themselves, probably with the same care and precision that they had glued together the mulberry sheets 40 years earlier. Six cherry trees were also sent from Japan to Bly and were planted in a 1995 ceremony. Weyerhaeuser Timber Company owned the land, and it created a memorial on the exact spot where the six died. It can still be visited today, where it rests peacefully in a quiet grove of pines in the Mitchell Recreation Area. In 2001, the site was listed on the National Register of Historic Places.
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Note: Those of you who hike on West Coast trails should be aware of these bombs, which are still being discovered. One was found in Lumby, British Columbia, in 2014, and was destroyed by a bomb disposal squad. Another was found only four years ago (2019) in McBride, British Columbia.
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