A gun camera’s still frames of a Fu-Go balloon shoot-down by Kiska-based P-38 Lightning fighters. Image: NARA
Posted on 06/01/2023 8:56:24 AM PDT by COBOL2Java
It was Monday, May 7, 1945, and the headline of the Klamath Falls, Oregon Herald and News read: “Blast Kills 6, five children, Pastor’s wife in explosion”. The indiscriminate violence of World War II had come to America, and it was delivered by an unlikely source.
A gun camera’s still frames of a Fu-Go balloon shoot-down by Kiska-based P-38 Lightning fighters. Image: NARA
On Gearhart Mountain in Oregon, a 15-kilogram anti-personnel bomb had exploded in the midst of a group of children on a fishing trip with their local pastor and his wife: Edward Engen (13), Jay Gifford (13), Sherman Shoemaker (11), Joan Patzke (13), and Dick Patzke (14) were killed, along with Mrs. Elyse Mitchell (26). The Reverend Archie Mitchell was in his car talking to a group of Forest Service employees working on the rough mountain road — trying to find if the route was passable and if the fishing prospects were good. His wife and the children excitedly called from the tree line about a hundred yards away: “Look what we found!”
Seconds later the bomb attached to the balloon apparatus exploded among them. The children were killed instantly. Mrs. Mitchell, her clothes set on fire, lived for just a few minutes. The workmen ran to the scene and were horrified by the carnage, and no one knew what caused the explosion.
A Fu-Go balloon’s altitude control device and basket are clearly visible in this photo of this recovered balloon bomb. Image: NARA
The tragedy on Gearhart Mountain was the terrible and deadly exception to Japan’s strange “balloon bomb offensive” against the United States. By the grace of God, no other Americans were injured by the more than 9,000 balloon weapons launched against America.
(Excerpt) Read more at thearmorylife.com ...
And those idiots in the Biden Administration were trying to convince us that Chinese spy balloon that wondered over America for days wasn’t guided and sent no info back to China.
Makes you wonder if some of the interred Japanese folks might have been used to start fires, had they been running loose. These days, we’ve got antifa scum running around,, that would be happy to do it.
Yeah, and we had a plan to hit Japan with “bat bombs”...
And the article mentions that the Japanese had also used these balloons for dropping chemical and biological agents in China. It was proposed to do the same for the USA, but the leaders feared a harsh reprisal from us.
I wonder if Xi would have the same concerns nowadays, what with Brandon, whose main concern is the flavor of his pudding cup?
In all seriousness, when was the last time you heard the media admit fault for the internment of Japanese Americans by stirring west coast Americans up over the "Battle of Los Angeles" that never happened?
Not sure I’d make that connection. Facilities for defense were set up well before the “battle”. Roosevelt signed the EO authorizing the internment a few days prior to the false alarm. The Oregon coast has many remnants of WW2 contingency infrastructure.
But before the Battle of Los Angeles ne Japanese were removed from "military zones".
After the war Japanese bombs showed up in the form of portable radios.
The one funny scene in the movie “1941” was when they were trying to get the big radio on the sub....”We’ve got to figure out how to make these things smaller!”
That was a classic. Wasn’t that Captain Sony?
Makes you wonder if some of the interred Japanese folks might have been used to start fires, had they been running loose.
My family was too busy to start fires.
My grandparents and father were growing food for the war effort in Colorado.
My mother was making camo netting in Arkansas.
And my uncles were learning to use the Garand rifle and hand grenades at Camp Shelby.
I believe the Bidens are so afraid of China disclosing how much $$$ they have given to his family he would surrender the US to them to keep that info secret.
Japanese balloon bomb in Omaha, Nebraska.
https://www.atlasobscura.com/places/site-of-a-japanese-balloon-bomb-explosion
First I ever heard about Japanese balloon bombs. What happened to this family was horrible.
There are probably scores of undiscovered bombs from these balloons lurking in the forests on the west coast.
That’s a frightening thought.
Correction to my post... apologies. I read the article too quickly. I now see the victims were not a single family but a church group of children and adults.
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