On "balloons" and "black death" . . .
I remember in the mid-90s the North Koreans sent a bunch of balloons across the Sea of Japan. The Japanese found the balloons when they landed had timers and empty vials.
I came across a story a while back while writing on airborne smallpox (many medical professionals still do not realize such a thing exists - - the Soviets engineered it)Most textbooks still say it can only spread by close contact.
The following story is "an oldie but a goodie" . . .
http://research.yale.edu/wwkelly/restricted/Japan_journalism/NYT_950317.htm
(snip)
The Plans
Taking the War To U.S. Homeland
In 1944, when Japan was nearing defeat, Tokyo's military planners seized on a remarkable way to hit back at the American heartland: they launched huge balloons that rode the prevailing winds to the continental United States. Although the American Government censored reports at the time, some 200 balloons landed in Western states, and bombs carried by the balloons killed a woman in Montana and six people in Oregon.
Half a century later, there is evidence that it could have been far worse; some Japanese generals proposed loading the balloons with weapons of biological warfare, to create epidemics of plague or anthrax in the United States. Other army units wanted to send cattle-plague virus to wipe out the American livestock industry or grain smut to wipe out the crops. . . .
. . .As the end of the war approached in 1945, Unit 731 embarked on its wildest scheme of all. Codenamed Cherry Blossoms at Night, the plan was to use kamikaze pilots to infest California with the plague.
Toshimi Mizobuchi, who was an instructor for new recruits in Unit 731, said the idea was to use 20 of the 500 new troops who arrived in Harbin in July 1945. A submarine was to take a few of them to the seas off Southern California, and then they were to fly in a plane carried on board the submarine and contaminate San Diego with plague-infected fleas. The target date was to be Sept. 22, 1945. . . .
"Japan's biological weapons program was born in the 1930's, in part because Japanese officials were impressed that germ warfare had been banned by the Geneva Convention of 1925. If it was so awful that it had to be banned under international law, the officers reasoned, it must make a great weapon."
That's quite telling, I honestly know little about Japan pre-ww2 but they sound a bit like our current enemy... Bookmarked for future reference.
"We announce the good news for the Muslims in the world that the strike of the black wind of death, the expected strike against America, is now at its final stage — 90 percent ready — and it is coming soon, by God's will,"
Brigade of Abu Hafs al-Masri
On 3/11/2004
On the day of the Madrid bombing
Oh dear.
They have threatened "dog disease" a number of times, now talking about rivers of blood in Italy....