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Subject: An Odd Bit Of World War II Explodes In Canada
SYSOP    10/22/2014 6:54:37 AM
 
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keffler25       10/22/2014 8:35:31 AM
Proofread for technology, geography, and biology errors. 
 
Each carried an 18 kg (40 pound) bomb that would explode on landing, injuring anyone in the vicinity or starting a fire. It was believed that these bombs would cause forest fires in the heavily wooded northeast coast of the United States and across the border in British Colombia . At least 300 (and perhaps as many as a thousand) of the balloons actually did reach North America, but only three are known to have caused any damage. This amounted to six dead civilians and two brush fires. The Japanese apparently missed the fact that most of this area was thinly populated and also a rare “temperate rain forest.”
 
1. The fusen bakuden was a multi-bomb weapon carrier that consisted of the hydrogen balloon, a simple but rather ingenious float control mechanism with an automatic bomb release mechanism that worked a lot better than anyone should have expected, another fairly primitive (by modern standards) autopilot ballast control that released weights as needed when balloon buoyancy decayed from gas leakage, one 15 kg blast frag charge or a 12 kg incendiary charge; and up to four or five 5 kg incendiaries (little better than the standard flares you fire out of a flare gun).  The whole contraption was made mostly of paper and wood and was amazingly clockwork intricate and rather sophisticated by anyone's standards for the day.
 
2. As an exercise in applied terrorism (the Japanese who worked on it never expected it to be more than a nuisance weapon) it was ingenious, showed a sophisticated application of a far superior meteorological science to that of the Americans and at least an equal aeronautical science. This was not the product of a bunch of backward dummies as popular histories maintain.
 
3. As can be seen from the cited  article, the distributed area of the large number of confirmed impact sites within the desired target area, the weapon for the type was remarkably accurate and effective for delivery of 'mere' balloon bombs.
 
 
Most of the confirmed impact sites were in Washington, Oregon, and Northern California, a rather strategic and important regional population cluster and industrial base even back in WW II (Hanford Engineering Works and Bremerton ring a bell as well as SEATTLE the home of Boeing?)     
 
And the possibility of forest fires in that target region was not a myth, as the Japanese well knew.   
 
The people who became aware of this surprise weapon were quite cognizant  of the Japanese designed intent after the weapon revealed to the Americans the core rational behind the selected delivery means of the payload. 
 
It is kind of humiliating you know to discover that you are unable to predict, intercept, or defend against a delivery system so 'simple' and surprisingly effective in getting here. (3.3 % Japanese successful delivery means versus German Atlantic bomber program 0%  delivery success)    
 
It's very lucky that Sperry and Hamilton were not building the ballast controls and autopilot on the damned things. 
 
[cont.]
 
 
 
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keffler25       10/22/2014 8:41:03 AM
Cited from Hyperwar above: 

Postscript: The Japanese Balloons

Although the Japanese had failed to exploit their Pearl Harbor success by follow-up attacks on the American mainland, they did contrive before hostilities ended to send against the United States the first intercontinental missiles to be employed in warfare. The search for such a weapon seems to have been triggered by the hope of retaliation for the Doolittle raid on Tokyo in April 1942.210 After two years of experimentation, the Japanese had developed a bomb-carrying free balloon which depended upon prevailing winds across the Pacific to reach its target in North America. Beginning in November 1944, the Japanese launched no less than 9,000 of the new weapons. Large-scale manufacture of the balloons had begun in July 1944; by the following February monthly output had reached 5,578 units; altogether, about 16,000 balloons were made.211

There were two types: a few pilot balloons, equipped to send a radio signal, were made of rubberized silk on the mistaken notion that this bag was a superior container of hydrogen; a second type, designed to carry bombs or incendiaries, had an envelope made by cementing together five layers of very thin paper. The resulting sphere, 33 feet in diameter, could lift a load of about 300 pounds. Ingenious devices were used to sustain the flight of the balloon and to release the bombs. An automatic control device allowed hydrogen to escape as the balloon began to rise above 35,000 feet, and whenever it dipped below 30,000 feet another mechanism, using aneroids and a battery, activated fuzes to release sandbag ballast. When all the sandbags had been dropped, the bombs were released and a demolition

--116--

device destroyed the remaining gear--or so the theory ran. The balloons, which could attain speeds as high as 200 miles per hour, required from three to five days to complete the crossing.212

The revenge campaign began with the launching of the first balloon on 1 November 1944. On 4 November an American vessel off southern California salvaged the envelope of one balloon, and on 11 December the first discovery on the mainland was made at Kalispell, Montana. The balloons landed over a wide area, from the Aleutians to Mexico, and from California east to Michigan. Military authorities confirmed about 150 recoveries. At not it was thought that the salvaged fragments came from weather balloons blown off course, but by January 1945 enough bomb fragments had been identified to convince the Army that it was dealing with a serious weapon. As late as March 1945, however, the War Department was still uncertain as to which of the following might prove to be the primary purpose of the balloons: bacteriological or chemical warfare; incendiary and antipersonnel bombing; terrorization to produce diversion of American forces; transportation of espionage agents; or novel purposes not yet apparent.213

[cont.]
 
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keffler25       10/22/2014 8:43:39 AM

The very uncertainty about enemy intentions stimulated defense measures against the new weapon. As 1945 opened, the Western Defense Command and the Western Sea Frontier were made jointly responsible for defense against the balloons. A conference of interested agencies quickly found that the stripping of west coast air defenses had left only a skeleton structure: the sharp reduction in radars had left gaps in the warning screen, and even AA strength was very limited. 214 Before reactivating defenses, it was necessary to determine whether aircraft could destroy the balloons. Repeated attempts by Fourth Air Force units to track balloons produced only two successful interceptions: a P-38 pilot from Santa Rosa Army Air Field brought down one, and a P-63 pilot from Walla Walla trailed his target from Redmond, Oregon, to Reno, Nevada, before forcing it to earth. 215 Bad weather, inaccurate sightings, and the high altitude at which the balloons traveled, all contributed to the poor record of interceptions. To determine if radar tracking would help, the Fourth Air Force set up an elaborate project,. 216 but by the time the equipment for the test was emplaced late in April 1945, the balloons had stopped coming. Meantime, a rigid news blackout had deprived the Japanese of all knowledge of the results of the

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attack. This secrecy produced the only fatalities of the balloon campaign when, on 5 May 1945, six members of a picnic group were killed by a bomb they discovered in a wooded area near Bly, Oregon.217

It was fortunate that the balloons stopped coming before the tinder-dry days of summer could provide a test of the incendiary bombs' ability to start extensive forest fires. If the Japanese had been able to sustain their best launching rate of 100 balloons per day, and if they had armed the missiles with clusters of small incendiaries, there might well have been serious consequences in the western states. 218 As it was, the enemy got scant return for his effort.

As can be seen above, the people who had to defend against it, were very worried.  
 
 
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larryjcr       10/22/2014 4:20:58 PM
Properly, the Kaanish H8K Allied code nase Emily) was not a float plane, but a flying boat as it had a boat hull integral to the fuselage, rather than pontoon style floats in place of landing gear. It was also not the first, as it was intended as a replacement for the H6K, four engine flying boat (code name Mavis) that was already in service. The H8K was probably the most advanced flying boat produced by any power in WW2, and was certainly the fastest. It was well armed and generally treated with a high level of respect by its opponents. There were some pitched battles between H8Ks and US B-17s which encountered each other with both doing patrol missions. A dogfight between two four engine heavy a/c must have been something to see!
 
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Nate Dog    Bat Bombs   10/22/2014 7:10:30 PM
Another little known plan was to sow incendiaries into bats and have them fly to the US mainland, nest in houses roofs,  and set the buildings on fire.
On first trial release all the bats flew back to the factory in which they'd been reared (and had bombs sowed into their stomachs [poor bats:( ] ) and set the damned place on fire. Thus ending the great migrating exploding bat attacks on America.
As to these Balloon bombs, form memory they were very ineffectual as weapons, as propaganda they punched well and truly above their weight.
1. We the Japanese have struck our enemys!
2. In the US news of these balloons was suppressed and not released till after the war for fear of the panic that it would cause, in this they were highly effective. When waging total war, everything counts. So these counted for something.
 
 
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Jim my    Request on references   10/22/2014 7:40:52 PM
"Earlier in 1942, Japan put the first of its four engine float planes, the H8K, into service. The H8K was a very large aircraft (39 meter/124 foot wing span, 29 meters/92 feet long). Its defensive armament consisted of four 7.7mm and six 20mm machineguns. It had a range of 7,000 kilometers. It could carry over four tons of bombs and had a top speed of 462 kilometers an hour. The Japanese did a little math and concluded that half a dozen H8Ks could fly to the California coast, land on the water, be refueled by submarines, bomb Los Angeles and then fly back to Japanese held territory. This plan was approved before the Battle of Midway in June 1942, and scaled back after the battle (which Japan lost, big time). Only three H8Ks were sent out to bomb Hawaii. Bad weather forced the H8Ks to drop their bombs blindly. Undiscouraged, the Japanese planned to take thirty H8Ks, refuel them from submarines off Baja California and then fly cross country to bomb the Texas oil fields. Then, in cooperation with German U-boats (some of which would be tankers), the H8Ks would range up and down the east coast of the US, making air raids on major cities, mainly for terror and propaganda value. The Germans were eager to cooperate and prepared the tanker subs needed. The deteriorating Japanese military and economic situation caused this plan to be shelved."
 
What are the references or sources for this part of the story? Any information is  appreciated.
 
 
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keffler25       10/22/2014 7:41:22 PM
 
The poor fliedermausen would have been used against the Japanese. And then there was the pigeon-steered precision guided munition intended to be used against bunkers and ships in WW II. Whoever said Americans lacked imagination, must not have known about that one.    
 
 
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keffler25       10/22/2014 7:45:28 PM
 
I cannot vouch for the accuracy of the cite, but it is referenced in that book. 

"Earlier in 1942, Japan put the first of its four engine float planes, the H8K, into service. The H8K was a very large aircraft (39 meter/124 foot wing span, 29 meters/92 feet long). Its defensive armament consisted of four 7.7mm and six 20mm machineguns. It had a range of 7,000 kilometers. It could carry over four tons of bombs and had a top speed of 462 kilometers an hour. The Japanese did a little math and concluded that half a dozen H8Ks could fly to the California coast, land on the water, be refueled by submarines, bomb Los Angeles and then fly back to Japanese held territory. This plan was approved before the Battle of Midway in June 1942, and scaled back after the battle (which Japan lost, big time). Only three H8Ks were sent out to bomb Hawaii. Bad weather forced the H8Ks to drop their bombs blindly. Undiscouraged, the Japanese planned to take thirty H8Ks, refuel them from submarines off Baja California and then fly cross country to bomb the Texas oil fields. Then, in cooperation with German U-boats (some of which would be tankers), the H8Ks would range up and down the east coast of the US, making air raids on major cities, mainly for terror and propaganda value. The Germans were eager to cooperate and prepared the tanker subs needed. The deteriorating Japanese military and economic situation caused this plan to be shelved."

 

What are the references or sources for this part of the story? Any information is  appreciated.

 

 
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Nate Dog    Keffler   10/22/2014 9:01:52 PM
Crap, you're right! They were an american experiment, not Japanese. Poor poor bats.
 
I also recall that guided pigeon bomb, pigeon would peck at the plate that would bring it closest to its target, or some such craziness. Yep, imagination galore. 
 
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Barton       10/22/2014 10:26:24 PM
Bat bombs actually worked! Testing proved it worked (including escaped bats burning down a nearby farmer's barn). If not for improved firebombs being available for the US Army Air Corps in late 1943, the bats would have had a crack at burning down Japanese cities. FYI: Cat guided bombs where also experimented with, a really bad idea. B.F. Skinner actually got the pigeon guidance to work in lab conditions.
 
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