Posted on 02/05/2023 9:46:04 AM PST by aspasia
By November 1944, almost in a cruel and desperate afterthought to what seemed a lost cause, balloons launched from Japan and carrying explosive and incendiary bombs drifted east on the jet stream to the United States. Once again, the goal was to start forest fires and wreak devastation. On December 6 after a "mysterious explosion" in Wyoming, officials found balloon parts and bomb casing fragments from what had been a 33 pound high explosive bomb. During the next several months, Japan launched over 9,000 balloon bombs resulting in over 342 incidents registered throughout western United States and Canada. Oregon alone counted 45 balloon incidents. While they varied in size and design, many balloons measured about 100 feet in circumference and about 33 feet in diameter. The ingenious design helped them drift along the newly discovered fast moving jet stream at an average elevation of 30,000 feet.
(Excerpt) Read more at sos.oregon.gov ...
Never heard of this...
Map showing the balloon recoveries or sighting in North America (courtesy National Geographic)
Oh ya.
I have read that they actually thought and tested to send fleas infected with the plague.
Release them when they got over here.
The problem they had was it is so cold up there it wouldnt work.
German U-boats routinely patrolled just outside the 12 mile international limit during WW2 off the East Coast. The German navy could see the city lights of Atlantic City, Boston, Miami, New York etc., out of their periscopes.
People living in the West know about it. Kids at a Sunday School picnic in Oregon found a bomb and it exploded. There’s a memorial where they died.
Holy crap! I had no idea they sent that many.
The Japanese did not know that their balloons were actually landing in the U.S. due to strict censorship of American news media and they abandoned the project. United States intelligence studied the sand in the sandbags and determined that they came from Japan.
But I didn’t know they launched that many balloons or that they were that big.
I’m listening to the “Gray Wolf” book about WW II. I did not realize how ineffective the German V1 and V2 rockets were. They killed on average 2-3 people each at enormous expense.
Well, during WWII, the U.S. ran some tests on
this bizarre weapon, but never actually deployed it:
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https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bat_bomb
-
Bat bombs were an experimental World War II weapon developed by
the United States. The bomb consisted of a bomb-shaped casing with
over a thousand compartments, each containing a hibernating Mexican free-tailed bat with a small, timed incendiary bomb attached.
Dropped from a bomber at dawn, the casings would deploy a parachute
in mid-flight and open to release the bats, which would then disperse
and roost in eaves and attics in a 20–40-mile radius.
The incendiaries, which were set on timers, would then ignite
and start fires in inaccessible places in the largely wood
and paper constructions of the Japanese cities
that were the weapon’s intended target.
Today’s warmongers are always shouting “Democracy!”
Now we don’t need the Japs to bomb Oregon, we’ve got Antifa for that.
Thanks for posting that map.
Battle of Los Angeles - Wikipediahttps://en.wikipedia.org › wiki › Battle_of_Los_Angeles
The incident occurred less than three months after the U.S. entered World War II in response to the Imperial Japanese Navy’s surprise attack on Pearl Harbor ...
Bombardment of Ellwood - Wikipediahttps://en.wikipedia.org › wiki › Bombardment_of_Ell...
The Bombardment of Ellwood during World War II was a naval attack by a Japanese submarine against United States coastal targets near Santa Barbara, ...
Balloons That Bombed : 49 Years Ago, Japanese Explosives ...https://www.latimes.com › archives › la-xpm-1994-01-16...
Jan 16, 1994 — The balloons, about 70 feet high and 30 feet in diameter, were launched from Japan in November, 1944. The idea, according to Tom Crouch, ...
World War II’s Bizarre ‘Battle of Los Angeles’ - HISTORYhttps://www.history.com › news › world-war-iis-bizarre...
May 6, 2020 — ... a torrent of anti-aircraft fire in the skies over Los Angeles. ... Japanese aircraft flying in formation, bombs falling and enemy.
The Battle of Los Angeles - Cal@170 by the California State ...https://cal170.library.ca.gov › february-24-1942-the-ba...
On the evening of February 24, 1942, an anti-aircraft barrage of more than 1,440 rounds is launched at what is initially thought to be a Japanese aerial ...
The Mysterious Battle of Los Angeles, 1942http://www.laalmanac.com › history
Searchlights and anti-aircraft fire over Los Angeles, February 25, 1942. ... a Japanese submarine conducted what became the only bombing of the continental ...
I hadn’t know a sub shelled OR, although I’d known one did Santa Barbara. And I’d forgotten, if I’d ever known, that a sub launched plane bombed OR. Japan certainly knew it was possible and made plans, plus had all the equipment ready, for more significant sub launched air strikes. They had 3 of the biggest subs ever, pre 60s boomers, with 3 planes each. One plan was to bomb Panama Canal locks. Another plan, for a softer target, was to drop biowarfare bombs with bubonic plague somewhere on the west coast. They’d proven those bombs worked on the Chinese. They could have dropped that before our nukes dropped.
A lot of people are unaware that in February of 1942 ta Japanese submarine shelled an oil refinery on the California coast and in September of that year, a float plane launched from a Jap sub dropped some incendiary bombs in Oregon hoping to start a forest fire.
German UBoats sink one of our merchant ships in the Gulf of Mexico:
https://stories.usatodaynetwork.com/uboatsinthegulf/
Uh, no, they came right on up and sank ships in the harbors. There are credible rumors in Savannah that an entire U-Boat crew ate dinner in a restaurant on Tybee Island. I know a man who was a youngster living on Tybee Island during the war. He and his buds spent a lot of time at night spotting for the Coast Guard. They reported six. One was signalling someone on shore using Morse code flashed from the periscope.
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