Many people are still unaware of the hot air balloon attacks Japan perpetrated that killed 5 members of a US family on the US mainland. Japan sent out hot air balloons filled with explosives. In order to do this, they released the balloons into the Gulf Stream, which was virtually unknown at the time. People were accustomed to seeing weather balloons so it was not suspected. A pastor and his family were in a park when the children found one of the explosive devices on the ground. The wife and four children were killed. http://www.findingdulcinea.com/news...-WWII--Balloon-Bomb--Kills-Six-in-Oregon.html
Hmm, I think I heard of this in a novel called The Cloud Atlas, or something similar. It was one of those books I read a few years ago when I was binge reading and I hardly remember it now. I am surprised this never got a mention in the history books though.
One of the reasons it is rarely mentioned is because it would make the Japanese appear to be more advanced than us. It would make the US look unprepared, unprotected and weak. You will find that anything that shows us in this type of light is usually obscured.
Yes, they conveniently ignore all kinds of information that they think doesn't put the US in a good light. I think ignoring puts us in a far worse light though, it's really embarrassing when you are interested in history, yet still don't know some very significant things because they are not published in the books you read.
Ah, more advanced? And in the meantime the cities of Japan are being burned out one by one by B-29's and their coasts are being ranged from one end to another by marauding USN carrier task forces . . . and the very best they can do is loft balloons, built in part by school children, into the stratosphere with incendiary devices attached in hopes of starting a forest fire; one, ONE, of which explodes and kills 5 civilians, however unfortunate, when they tampered with it. This method of strategic bombing makes the Japanese more advanced, just how? And you are now just discovering this event that has been of common knowledge almost since the day it happened . . . at least amongst those versed in the Pacific War. The knowledge of the Japanese Balloon Bomb "Program" was not a secret . . . the reporting of the finding of these devices by the public was encouraged at the time. Just because you've stumbled on the story now does not mean it has been hidden . . . that is a very large disconnect in logic and, frankly, far from the actual truth. Your recent "discovery" simply means you were not previously aware of the program, not that it had been kept a secret. No, I'm not being mean, nor unkind, nor particularly rude, it is just I find loose writing of unfounded accusations and innuendo to be a little bit more than odd when it is apparent little research has actually gone into the subject. Here, I'll do you all a favor. Everything you'd ever want to know about the Japanese balloon bomb program. It is in five parts, you have to download them one at a time . . . and they are not small. The link provided is for Part 1; to get to the next part, simply click on the word "next" in the upper right. Repeat as necessary. Here is the link to Part I: http://cgsc.contentdm.oclc.org/cdm/compoundobject/collection/p4013coll8/id/1428/rec/24 And, of course, the catalog description: Collection World War II Operational Documents Title Japanese balloons and attached devices. Abstract This report contains the technical results of tests conducted on the various parts of Japanese balloons that have been submitted to the Technical Air Intelligence Center for examination. Keyword Balloons; Japanese balloons; Tests; Specifications; Radar; Hot air balloons; Paper; Gas; Incendiary; Military intelligence; Technical reports; World War, 1939-1945; World War II; WWII Series TAIC report no. 41 Publisher Anacostia, D.C. : Technical Air Intelligence Center, Naval Air Station, Date, Original 1945-05 Date, Digital 2007 Resource Type Textual; Photographs Format PDF; Adobe Acrobat Reader required; 119 p.; 19.06 MB. Call number N9423.2 Language englisg Release statement Approved for public release; distribution is unlimited. Repository Combined Arms Research Library Library Combined Arms Research Library Digital Library Date created 2008-03-20 Enjoy!
Sorry to be so annoying, not everyone has had time in their lives to do a lot of independent research. I am simply expressing how I feel about not having heard anything about this in school.
No, no, not particular annoying, I’d let you know if I considered it annoying. I am not shy. So, you didn’t hear about this event in school? Why am I not surprised? I’ve a degree in history, from lo those 40 plus years ago, and I don’t believe I heard it in a class room, either. But, yea, verily, this event was just one extremely minor footnote, one amongst millions of minor footnote events, which occurred during the war. Does that mean that a failure to visit each of those footnote moments is actually some conspiracy by the amorphous and mysterious “they” to hide the event? Was it just so small an event that a broad over-view WWII history book might fail to mention it . . . a fairly likely proposition. I would hazard a wager that this event has appeared in more than quite a few treatments of World War II and the State of Oregon or even broader, the Pacific northwest, penned since 6 May 1945; not to mention the cottage industry of the “golly, gee whiz, look at the super-secret weapons” books. Time for independent research has nothing to do with a familiarity with the event or event the balloon program generally, not at all . . . I put in a full day’s work every day, thank you very much . . . there is precious little spare time . . . that’s why I often point to documents and not recite their content . . . if you have a continued real interest, as opposed to a drive-by interest, you can look it up yourself. But, jumping to a, frankly, unwarranted conclusion of some conspiracy to hide an event for whatever nefarious reason, especially as has been posited here, to hide some imagined superiority of Japanese technology, has everything to do with it. Not to mention that if one has time to dither on the internet, one has time to perform a little research before said dithering. Perhaps if you wish to ascribe the failure of your teachers to include this event in their course presentation(s) as some sort of effort to hide the event for whatever reason, you should address that issue and question to your teachers, after all, the information has been floating around, if you will, out there since 1945. Why did your teacher leave it out? Is this a conspiracy of some unknown Education Illuminati? Did your teacher(s) deliberately leave this event, and others, out of your ken so as to make you be the victim internet-stumble in your later life by appearing to be willing to grasp at smoke and mirrors to explain that condition? That would be cruel of them.
And just so I don't lose my reputation for being a pedantic curmudgeon, the Gulf Stream is a mighty current of warm water flowing generally up off the east coast of the North American continent as far as even with Cape Hatteras where it starts to take an east-northeastward turn, flowing all the way to the British Isles and the North Sea . . . and a known phenomenon for hundreds of years. You are, no doubt, referring to the "Jet Stream" which while a piece of the story of the Japanese Balloon story, the concept of the "prevailing westerlies" which are found in the latitudes concerned with the story are more important . . . more often than not, the winds blow from west to east from Japan, across the Pacific, and across the North American continent. Has a lot to do with the weather patterns over Siberia. A week's worth of watching TV weather reports in the US would amply demonstrate the phenomena as you watch weather systems march across the country from west to east. In the similar latitudes in the southern hemisphere the winds go the other-way, east to west. The Japanese in 1945 were no more knowledgeable of the jet stream than anyone else.
