These videos, from the Naval Archives in Washington, DC, are made available through the kind cooperation of Bolling Smith of the Coast Defense Study Group, to whom we say thank you very much.
It is commonly thought the United States has never been attacked on our own soil in wartime. After viewing these videos it appears that is not quite correct. This video, shown in two parts, describes the technology used by the Japanese to attach bombs to balloons and float them across the Pacific Ocean to our west coast. Between 1942 and 1945 the Japanese launched 9,000 balloon bombs, and they fell all the way from Alaska to the Mexican border.
Most of the balloons carried four incendiary bombs, one anti-personnel bomb, and a flash bomb to destroy the balloon. The only reported casualties were six deaths in Lakeview, Oregon, when picnicking children picked up a balloon and it detonated.
See related page: Japanese Bomb Oregon — September 9, 1942
For more information see the 1945 “Report from Home” issue.
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