Sunday, October 19, 2014

A (literal) blast from the past

Reader Sherman W. drew my attention to this article.










There's more at the link.

Balloon bomb gondola on display, showing sandbag ballast

Japan launched over 9,000 balloon bombs against North America during World War II.  Some 300 made it across the Pacific to land all along the coast from Canada to Mexico.  Only one caused fatalities, on May 5th, 1945.  Their payload was mainly incendiary rather than high explosive bombs, designed to cause fires in America's forests.

Here's a World War II US training film describing the bombs, with actual footage of them.

It's amazing that one was found almost intact some 70-odd years after being launched.  A tip o' the hat to Sherman W. for providing the link.



Old NFO said...

They'll be finding them for years to come... Some estimates say up to 1000 made it to the US and Canada...

Jefferson Selvy said...

Shows how often that stretch of forest gets visited.