Today we remember and honor those who died or were injured in the attack on Pearl Harbor 75 years ago. Until the 9/11 attacks when 2,996 people were killed and more than 6,000 wounded, Pearl Harbor was the worst attack on United States property when 2,403 Americans died and 1,178 were wounded.
Since 9/11 most of us are wary of terrorist attacks here at home. With 24/7 news and social media coverage today, we learn about terrorist threats and attacks instantly.
What I did not know, though, was that during World War II Japan carried on a very aggressive, and fortunately ineffective, terrorist campaign. Today as we reflect on Pearl Harbor, I thought I would share the story of Fu-Go, the post-Pearl Harbor Japanese balloon attacks against America intended to terrorize Americans.
Fu-Go. After Pearl Harbor and America’s revenge attack on the Japanese cities of Tokyo, Yokohama, Osaka, Kobe, and Nagoya by Colonel Jimmy Doolittle and his 15 fellow pilots in April 1942, Japan became obsessed with attacking the continental United States.
Since the Japanese did not have the military capability to reach our west coast, a Fu-Go (“fire balloon”) program was hatched whereby the Japanese would send explosive hot air balloons across the Pacific Ocean. The purpose of the program was to start forest fires and create fear among Americans.
This program, which is described in detail in the book Fu-Go by Ross Coen, developed, built, and launched hundreds of large helium balloons equipped with four incendiary bombs and one thirty pound high-explosive bomb.
It took several years to refine the program and make it so balloons could be launched into the jet stream in Japan, stay airborne and float easterly to America 4,500 miles away, and then lose altitude, crash, and explode.
Of course the balloons could not be controlled once airborne and so where they ultimately crashed was quite random. While the exact number of balloons launched and hit North America is unknown, the author and other sources document 285 sites or interceptions by U.S. aircraft. The furthest east location where a balloon was found was in Pocahontas, Iowa, about 1,600 miles from Seattle, Washington and 6,000 miles from Japan.
Although almost all balloon landings were uneventful, the most horrific story involved the death of six people – a Sunday school teacher, Elsie Mitchell, and children in Bly, Oregon in May 1945. I believe this was the only known incident of harm coming to humans as a result of the fire balloons.
What is interesting to me is that because of the censorship program in place by the U.S. Government then, this story never got out. From the time these balloons started to arrive in America in 1944 to the end of the War, the government aggressively censored the release of any stories related to the balloons. They did not want Americans to panic.
And with the benefit of hindsight, I think this censorship was a good thing. Had the public been aware of the fact that hundreds of incendiary balloons were finding their way to America, I wonder what the reaction would have been.
I wonder today what we really need to know. I suppose this is one of the benefits and curses of being a free society – we can personally decide what we want censored for ourselves.
Not an easy task with the plethora of “info balloons” flying over our heads.
