Daily Curiosities: Japanese Fire Baloons
POSTED by: on 10/01/2009
In November of 1944 as the second world war was nearing its end, a hydrogen balloon floated over the Alaskan coast and dropped a small bomb. It didn’t do any damage whatsoever, but it marked the beginning of an extremely unusual type of attack; Fire Balloons.
The Japanese Fire Balloons were hydrogen filled balloons much like a weather balloon, with various types of explosive payloads. These balloons were launched from Japanese beaches into the gulf stream and floated across the Pacific Ocean into US airspace. Once above US soil, the balloon’s payload was dropped and detonated and shortly after, an explosive charge detonated the hydrogen in the envelope was detonated as well. The balloons also had mechanisms that detected the change in altitude of the balloon and adjusted ballast and hydrogen so as to keep them within the confines of the gulf stream.
Over the course of about six months, more than 9000 of these balloons were launched into the sky and an estimated 1000 actually reached US soil. These balloons were extremely inefficient and caused only a minor amount of damage. In addition, the US press agreed not to release information about the balloons, thus preventing the Japanese from knowing that they had any effectiveness at all.
There is only one recorded incident of a fire balloon actually killing anyone. The balloon had drifted over Oregon and gotten caught in a tree. It was found by a group of people on a church picnic and exploded while they were attempting to pull it from the tree, killing the pastor’s wife and five of the attending children. After the deaths, the media blackout was lifted so as to warn the public about the dangers of these balloons.
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