War Comes to the West Coast
April 1, 2008 – 6:00 amFor some time, I have wished that I had some wartime stories from the West Coast. I still don’t have any first-person accounts, but a friend did suggest I might want to write about the Japanese balloon bombs, which actually landed on the West Coast of the United States. I had never heard of them, although I’m sure some of you have. Fortunately, the Internet has been a great help.
The balloons were made of paper or rubberized silk, and carried anti-personnel and incendiary bombs. Their intent was to cause forest fires in our country, which could have been quite serious. To me this seems preposterous that balloons launched in Japan could arrive here in our country, but some of them actually did.
During late 1944 and early 1945, Japan launched about 9,000 balloons, which were to be carried by high altitude winds eastward more than 6,000 miles to our coast. Reported incidents amounted to almost 300, with some of the balloons landing in many of our western states, Canada, and Alaska. Some were even spotted as far east as Michigan.
On February 1, 1945, a Japanese bomb was spotted in Hayfork, a small community in northern California. Residents watched the balloon slowly descend finally resting atop a dead fir tree, shortly before it exploded. On May 5, 1945, a balloon bomb killed six people in Oregon, who were enjoying themselves at a picnic.
Although the incidents were fairly numerous, little was known about them. The government requested the media and the people involved to keep silent about them. Again, this seems difficult to believe that this policy of silence actually worked. I don’t think it would today.
Since most of the accounts in my book, We Knew We Were at War: Women Remember World War II, have been reported by persons living in the eastern part of the country, comments and stories from other parts of the country would be very welcome. Please share them by using the Comment section of my blog, or email directly to me at margaretgeorge@verizon.net.
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