In the spring of 1945, Japan was on its last legs in the Pacific War. Desperate times called for desperate measures. One of those desperate measures was an attempt to firebomb the western forests of the United States with balloons. At the time, very little was known about the jet stream; B-29 crews were struggling on a bomb run into the wind at 35,000 feet - where no one had regularly flown before - and finding their ground speed sometimes wasn’t 100mph as they bucked the headwinds of the unknown jet stream.
TC, I am a long-time subscriber to your newsletter, and I thank you for your hard work; I get a great deal of enlightenment and enjoyment from reading you. That said, I need to offer some corrective information to today's post about the Japanese firebomb endeavors during WWII. Unfortunately, there were fatalities caused by the bombs, and the military along with the media at the time, suppressed the information. One of the saddest events took place near tiny Bly, Oregon, when a minister, his pregnant wife, and five other children from their close-knit community went to Gearhart Mountain for a picnic on May 5, 1945. While the minister parked the car, his wife and the children scampered into the forest, where they found a strange object, and before the minister could warn them, there was an explosion. His wife, his unborn child, and the five Sunday school children had died. Information not released until more than 40 years later, identified several hundred incidents involving the balloons. After the above-mentioned incident, the military "reconsidered" its policies regarding information about the balloons, and started to warn people of the possible dangers still lurking in the forests of the Pacific Northwest, but the residents of Bly were nevertheless regarded with skepticism for decades. A self-imposed grieving silence lasted until the late 1980's. There is a stunning irony to this story, which provides another view of the tragedy of war. In Japan, during the war, young schoolgirls were conscripted to make the balloons, but were unaware of their purpose and the results. In the late 1980's, a University of Michigan professor Yuzuru "John" Takeshita, who as a child during the war, was interned at Tule Lake Internment Camp, which was barely 60 miles from Bly, Oregon. As an adult, he was committed to making healing efforts, when he discovered that a childhood friend's wife had been part of the bomb-making in Japan. It is a long story, but his efforts resulted in a group of the schoolgirls (now adults who were devastated to learn of their part in the bombs), sent 1,000 paper cranes to the people of Bly to express their regret, and years later, met face-to-face with the people of Bly, including surviving family members of the tragedy. Healing can happen, even years later. There is a helpful article in the Smithsonian Magazine, written by Francine Uenuma, May 22, 2019, Within the article, there are several links to related stories and documentaries, where one can go down rabbit holes! As a postscript to this, I personally was interested in these stories, having grown up in Salem, Oregon, in the 1950's and 60's, where I was not given any information in my schooling about the Japanese internment issue. In hindsight, I guess it makes a kind of sense, given the censorship by the military and the media. Years later, in the 1990's, when I was teaching a unit about the internment, using "Farewell to Manzanar" and other first-person accounts, I was told by a librarian aide that she was disappointed I was using those materials. When I asked "Why?" she told me that since I was not even born then and didn't know what it was like, I would not understand how frightened people were of the "Japanese threat." No amount of discussion would persuade her to think otherwise, sadly.
Thank you, Laura, for sharing the story of Japan's balloons in Oregon. Aspects of this story touch many subjects. War is not simply explosions and battles, it is the people and places, deaths, memories and forgiveness. You helped us experience the human touches.
Fern, I must first say, how much I admire your commentary here and elsewhere on Substack! And I thank you for recognizing that there is an amazing depth to the human stories that we have only begun to unearth about these various historical events. I am currently a member, tour guide, and arts docent at the Portland Japanese Garden, where much of our conversation to the visiting public is about the long-standing, historical connections between Japan and the West. I feel that it is a small offering to the future relations between our cultures. If you are ever in Portland, please let me know; my partner and I would be happy to give you a tour of the garden, which is proclaimed "the best, most-authentic Japanese garden outside of Japan." And that goes for any other Substack readers who happen to see this invitation!
Laura, you have deeply touched me twice tonight. Many years ago, I worked as an assistant to Takao Akiyama with the US-Japan Television Exchange between NHK and the Public Broadcasting System (PBS). Takao and I worked on translating the production of Tale of Genji. He did the translating, and I helped with English. So much is flooding into my mind about the country. Akira Kurosawa's films remain with me, Yasujirō Ozu, Shōhei Imamura Kenji Mizoguchi... were also teachers. I had a love affair with Japan but haven't visited. Laura the gates holding my memories have opened. As to gardening, I started very young. It would be wonderful to see your face and to meet your partner. Thank you, I feel your welcome now. I will remember our warm exchange and to call you if I get to Portland.
this is so sad.... but thank God for the healing. But that librarian....oh brother... but I'm not surprised. I grew up in a Chicago suburb in the 50's and 60's, the suburb we lived in was about 80% (on the conservative side) Jewish. I remember the grandmother's of my friends having the tattoos on their arms, but because of how young I was, my parents resisted answering my questions or offering much of an explanation. When I went to high school in a Catholic all-girls high school in Chicago, we were shown movies of the death camps and bulldozers scooping hundreds of people into mass graves. I was frozen in horror! It wasn't until perhaps my junior or senior year that I even became aware of the Japanese camps! I felt personally betrayed...In my mind, I couldn't separate the Concentration camps from the Japanese Internment caps. Why had this been kept a secret!? Nobody spoke of it..I was shocked and sickened and the cognitive dissonance kept my rage boiling inside. Regardless of how much I was reassured that these were not the same, it was a deep cut in my trust of everyone...all the 'grown-ups': parents, teachers, friends' parents.... more layers of the onion were peeled back and I wondered who, if anyone was telling the truth!? It is still true for me today.... who is really telling the truth? I'm inclined to believe few.... and heartbroken daily at the thought of man's inhumanity to man. Sorry for the rambling.... but your letters always bring so much to the surface for me, TC... you and all those who show up here at 'Cheers at least once a day... so glad I have some place safe to go...
Thanks, Laura! I was going to post a comment about this but you did first. I had assumed that most people knew about the incident near Bly by now, but maybe I was wrong. I lived in Klamath Falls, OR, for a few years around the time that this documentary (On Paper Wings) was released : https://m.imdb.com/title/tt1344861/, and I was able to see a screening with the director. It is quite a story!
Lia, how wonderful that you got that experience! The filmmaker, Ilana Sol is doing really good work! I hope she gets long-overdue recognition for her archival research and films!
Laura, thanks so much for sharing. It gives even more meaning to the origami cranes my Japanese friend would lovingly make for me. Kimiko had lived through World War II
as a child and later worked at Ashiya Air Base where she met her future husband. He died in a WV mining disaster. She was only 33 and had three small children…
I laughed: "Take note of the fact that all the speculation (a nice word for spitballing) taking place is coming from people who only recently learned that balloons are actually round. "
My Dad was a meteorologist technician in the USAAC in WWII. His job in the last 2 years of the war was working a weather station in the China Burma theater. He parlayed that into a 35 year career with the Weather Bureau (later NOAA).
One of his main duties, twice per shift, was to release a weather balloon with a radiosonde that would transmit data of “the winds aloft”. Most of these were returned (as per the request) but a fair number went missing.
As I was writing this, I saw that the balloon has been shot down over water by the military.
Not only shot down but downed over relatively shallow water, easy diving depth. With, I think, a mostly sand bottom which should facilitate finding bits & pieces of the balloon. I'm inclined to accept TC's explanation of the vagaries of the jet stream and how it may have directed the balloon along its course. Will be very interested to learn if it was a meteorological balloon, and to hear the silence from the "sky is falling" contingent if that's the conclusion.
This is a keeper. More info on balloon technology and meteorology than any of the press have provided. Especially like your characterization of the media. I encourage others to memorize the pejoratives you construct TC.
be fair, Fern...if you forgot your birthday I can pretty much guarantee the birth certificate thing would be HOPELESS.
my trick for remembering my birthday was making it part of my e-mail address, which people now tell me if, like, a surefire way to get my bank account drained by random bad actors.
'U.S. fighter jets from Northern Command “successfully brought down the high altitude surveillance balloon launched by and belonging to the People’s Republican of China.” The balloon was brought down just off the coast of South Carolina, Mr. Austin said in a statement, while it was still in American airspace.'
The story behind the balloon? Balloon specs? The consequences? What will we learn, if anything?
I believe the traitor Lee Harvey Oswald who had been in a Marine Control Squadron gave the Russians information at what altitude the U-2s flew at so they were able to shoot it down.
Thank you , thank you. Such an informative and interesting group you have gathered here, TC!
Learned a lot tonight.
Did anyone see SNL's " interview" with the balloon last night? If I weren't so worried that the likes of MTG were going to launch us into WWIII it would have been hilarious.
The remains are at about 50' depth, easy diving for search & retrieval. I think the bottom for miles off of the Carolina coasts may be sand, or mostly sand, making a search even easier.
The military made a point of ensuring it was shot down while still in U.S. airspace, which extends 12 miles offshore per someone on MSNBC this afternoon. I just played around on google earth and confirmed that, at each point off of SC that I chose to measure from 50'-60' depth were well within the 12-mile limit.
Why do you assume nothing is underway? I've no doubt the relevant resources were standing by to go into action as soon as the balloon was shot down and the area cleared as safe to enter.
TC, I am a long-time subscriber to your newsletter, and I thank you for your hard work; I get a great deal of enlightenment and enjoyment from reading you. That said, I need to offer some corrective information to today's post about the Japanese firebomb endeavors during WWII. Unfortunately, there were fatalities caused by the bombs, and the military along with the media at the time, suppressed the information. One of the saddest events took place near tiny Bly, Oregon, when a minister, his pregnant wife, and five other children from their close-knit community went to Gearhart Mountain for a picnic on May 5, 1945. While the minister parked the car, his wife and the children scampered into the forest, where they found a strange object, and before the minister could warn them, there was an explosion. His wife, his unborn child, and the five Sunday school children had died. Information not released until more than 40 years later, identified several hundred incidents involving the balloons. After the above-mentioned incident, the military "reconsidered" its policies regarding information about the balloons, and started to warn people of the possible dangers still lurking in the forests of the Pacific Northwest, but the residents of Bly were nevertheless regarded with skepticism for decades. A self-imposed grieving silence lasted until the late 1980's. There is a stunning irony to this story, which provides another view of the tragedy of war. In Japan, during the war, young schoolgirls were conscripted to make the balloons, but were unaware of their purpose and the results. In the late 1980's, a University of Michigan professor Yuzuru "John" Takeshita, who as a child during the war, was interned at Tule Lake Internment Camp, which was barely 60 miles from Bly, Oregon. As an adult, he was committed to making healing efforts, when he discovered that a childhood friend's wife had been part of the bomb-making in Japan. It is a long story, but his efforts resulted in a group of the schoolgirls (now adults who were devastated to learn of their part in the bombs), sent 1,000 paper cranes to the people of Bly to express their regret, and years later, met face-to-face with the people of Bly, including surviving family members of the tragedy. Healing can happen, even years later. There is a helpful article in the Smithsonian Magazine, written by Francine Uenuma, May 22, 2019, Within the article, there are several links to related stories and documentaries, where one can go down rabbit holes! As a postscript to this, I personally was interested in these stories, having grown up in Salem, Oregon, in the 1950's and 60's, where I was not given any information in my schooling about the Japanese internment issue. In hindsight, I guess it makes a kind of sense, given the censorship by the military and the media. Years later, in the 1990's, when I was teaching a unit about the internment, using "Farewell to Manzanar" and other first-person accounts, I was told by a librarian aide that she was disappointed I was using those materials. When I asked "Why?" she told me that since I was not even born then and didn't know what it was like, I would not understand how frightened people were of the "Japanese threat." No amount of discussion would persuade her to think otherwise, sadly.
Very interesting! Thank you very much for "... and now for the rest of the story."
Thank you, Laura, for sharing the story of Japan's balloons in Oregon. Aspects of this story touch many subjects. War is not simply explosions and battles, it is the people and places, deaths, memories and forgiveness. You helped us experience the human touches.
Fern, I must first say, how much I admire your commentary here and elsewhere on Substack! And I thank you for recognizing that there is an amazing depth to the human stories that we have only begun to unearth about these various historical events. I am currently a member, tour guide, and arts docent at the Portland Japanese Garden, where much of our conversation to the visiting public is about the long-standing, historical connections between Japan and the West. I feel that it is a small offering to the future relations between our cultures. If you are ever in Portland, please let me know; my partner and I would be happy to give you a tour of the garden, which is proclaimed "the best, most-authentic Japanese garden outside of Japan." And that goes for any other Substack readers who happen to see this invitation!
Laura, you have deeply touched me twice tonight. Many years ago, I worked as an assistant to Takao Akiyama with the US-Japan Television Exchange between NHK and the Public Broadcasting System (PBS). Takao and I worked on translating the production of Tale of Genji. He did the translating, and I helped with English. So much is flooding into my mind about the country. Akira Kurosawa's films remain with me, Yasujirō Ozu, Shōhei Imamura Kenji Mizoguchi... were also teachers. I had a love affair with Japan but haven't visited. Laura the gates holding my memories have opened. As to gardening, I started very young. It would be wonderful to see your face and to meet your partner. Thank you, I feel your welcome now. I will remember our warm exchange and to call you if I get to Portland.
Good night, Laura.
Wow.
OH! The Portland Japanese Garden is beautiful, exquisite! And peaceful. Fern, you will love it. Thank you Laura for your important work.
this is so sad.... but thank God for the healing. But that librarian....oh brother... but I'm not surprised. I grew up in a Chicago suburb in the 50's and 60's, the suburb we lived in was about 80% (on the conservative side) Jewish. I remember the grandmother's of my friends having the tattoos on their arms, but because of how young I was, my parents resisted answering my questions or offering much of an explanation. When I went to high school in a Catholic all-girls high school in Chicago, we were shown movies of the death camps and bulldozers scooping hundreds of people into mass graves. I was frozen in horror! It wasn't until perhaps my junior or senior year that I even became aware of the Japanese camps! I felt personally betrayed...In my mind, I couldn't separate the Concentration camps from the Japanese Internment caps. Why had this been kept a secret!? Nobody spoke of it..I was shocked and sickened and the cognitive dissonance kept my rage boiling inside. Regardless of how much I was reassured that these were not the same, it was a deep cut in my trust of everyone...all the 'grown-ups': parents, teachers, friends' parents.... more layers of the onion were peeled back and I wondered who, if anyone was telling the truth!? It is still true for me today.... who is really telling the truth? I'm inclined to believe few.... and heartbroken daily at the thought of man's inhumanity to man. Sorry for the rambling.... but your letters always bring so much to the surface for me, TC... you and all those who show up here at 'Cheers at least once a day... so glad I have some place safe to go...
Thanks, Laura! I was going to post a comment about this but you did first. I had assumed that most people knew about the incident near Bly by now, but maybe I was wrong. I lived in Klamath Falls, OR, for a few years around the time that this documentary (On Paper Wings) was released : https://m.imdb.com/title/tt1344861/, and I was able to see a screening with the director. It is quite a story!
Lia, how wonderful that you got that experience! The filmmaker, Ilana Sol is doing really good work! I hope she gets long-overdue recognition for her archival research and films!
Laura, thanks so much for sharing. It gives even more meaning to the origami cranes my Japanese friend would lovingly make for me. Kimiko had lived through World War II
as a child and later worked at Ashiya Air Base where she met her future husband. He died in a WV mining disaster. She was only 33 and had three small children…
Incredible, had no idea
I laughed: "Take note of the fact that all the speculation (a nice word for spitballing) taking place is coming from people who only recently learned that balloons are actually round. "
My Dad was a meteorologist technician in the USAAC in WWII. His job in the last 2 years of the war was working a weather station in the China Burma theater. He parlayed that into a 35 year career with the Weather Bureau (later NOAA).
One of his main duties, twice per shift, was to release a weather balloon with a radiosonde that would transmit data of “the winds aloft”. Most of these were returned (as per the request) but a fair number went missing.
As I was writing this, I saw that the balloon has been shot down over water by the military.
Thank god for an "appropriate response."
Not only shot down but downed over relatively shallow water, easy diving depth. With, I think, a mostly sand bottom which should facilitate finding bits & pieces of the balloon. I'm inclined to accept TC's explanation of the vagaries of the jet stream and how it may have directed the balloon along its course. Will be very interested to learn if it was a meteorological balloon, and to hear the silence from the "sky is falling" contingent if that's the conclusion.
This is a keeper. More info on balloon technology and meteorology than any of the press have provided. Especially like your characterization of the media. I encourage others to memorize the pejoratives you construct TC.
WHAT! Memorize! When is your birthday, Fred? I have a balloon for you.
How fun. I write this down. Still working at long-term memory to kick in. ;-))
Your birthday, Fred? You'll find it on your birth certificate.
And sometimes on your driver's license. If you can find it.
THAT just got me scared, so I went to look for my license.
and there it was, right behind the medical marijuana card, which for some reason used the same picture, but in much better quality.
should we be a little paranoid that the weed guys are more together than the DMV guys?
The license, I mean.
be fair, Fern...if you forgot your birthday I can pretty much guarantee the birth certificate thing would be HOPELESS.
my trick for remembering my birthday was making it part of my e-mail address, which people now tell me if, like, a surefire way to get my bank account drained by random bad actors.
and you DO understand I was just kidding, right?
The balloon party is over.
'U.S. fighter jets from Northern Command “successfully brought down the high altitude surveillance balloon launched by and belonging to the People’s Republican of China.” The balloon was brought down just off the coast of South Carolina, Mr. Austin said in a statement, while it was still in American airspace.'
The story behind the balloon? Balloon specs? The consequences? What will we learn, if anything?
I guess its one of those things that "remain to be seen"! Much ado about nothing?
Why not let trump and Xi duke it out in balloons with blunderbusses over a latrine pit like I the movies? I would pay money to watch that…
What a great combination of information, history and humor! I loved the "Balloon Gap" reference.
The Blackbird was a bad ass plane. There was one in Richmond Va. at the now defunct air museum. Loved seeing it there.
This whole thing has been funnier than “The Russians Are Coming! The Russians Are Coming!”
exactly!
I believe the traitor Lee Harvey Oswald who had been in a Marine Control Squadron gave the Russians information at what altitude the U-2s flew at so they were able to shoot it down.
If he did, all it did was confirm what radar had told them. The development of the SA-2 began before his defection.
Wisdom. 👍🏻
Thank you , thank you. Such an informative and interesting group you have gathered here, TC!
Learned a lot tonight.
Did anyone see SNL's " interview" with the balloon last night? If I weren't so worried that the likes of MTG were going to launch us into WWIII it would have been hilarious.
Thank you Tom for a great read.
There's always more to the story.... just wait!
Another not funny laugh out loud missive. How do you do that, consistently and on target…
There are now reports that, once it was over water and the danger of harm to people from debris had past, the balloon, weather or not, was shot down.
Whether or not (!) it was a weather balloon or a spy balloon, we’ll never know since its remains are beneath the sea.
The remains are at about 50' depth, easy diving for search & retrieval. I think the bottom for miles off of the Carolina coasts may be sand, or mostly sand, making a search even easier.
The military made a point of ensuring it was shot down while still in U.S. airspace, which extends 12 miles offshore per someone on MSNBC this afternoon. I just played around on google earth and confirmed that, at each point off of SC that I chose to measure from 50'-60' depth were well within the 12-mile limit.
Interesting. I wonder why no exploration is underway.
Why do you assume nothing is underway? I've no doubt the relevant resources were standing by to go into action as soon as the balloon was shot down and the area cleared as safe to enter.
You're right, Judith. That was a wrong assumption. In fact, the debris lies only 47 feet down, and recovery efforts are underway.
https://thehill.com/policy/defense/3844123-us-works-to-recover-debris-intel-from-downed-chinese-spy-balloon/