Customer Reviews

Japan's World War II Balloon Bomb Attacks on North America

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The new International Balloon Museum in Albuquerque features the remnants of a Fu-Go balloon bomb, along with one of the hand-made paper envelopes built to carry the device across the Pacific Ocean. Mikesh's detailed report is an excellent supplement to the museum exhibit. It's a fascinating look into one of the most intriguing chapters in military history. Few know that the only victims of World War II on U.S. soil were killed by this ingenious device. Its potential use in germ warfare and its contribution to UFO hysteria are interesting side notes. Well worth a read.

When the original book was published in 1973 I saw the author interviewed on a Portland, OR tv talk show. Having grown uo on the east coast I'd never heard of the ballon bombs before. My own interest was piqued and I also knew that my dad who was a WW2 vet would love to receive the book for his birthday. I sent for a copy and must admit I read it before giving it to him! It was truly a book I couldn't put down!

I sent it to my dad and he raved about it. In fact, I recall him mentioning it several times over the following years before his death how much he enjoyed it and appreciated my sending it to him .

It's a fascinating bit of history many of us knew nothing about. It would be a great gift for anyone who enjoys history and a perfect gift for WW2 buffs!

I give it 5 stars without reservation! I'm delighted to know it's been reproduced...I'll buy my own copy now.

Excellent technical explanations of the balloon weapons and how they were used against the North American continent. From production in Japan to the US defensive response to the threat, everything you'd ever want to know about these early intercontinental ballistic weapons is in this book. Heavily illustrated with maps, diagrams, and photography including aerial photography of the balloons in flight. Excellent.

After reading an article in the local paper about the history of the Bly Oregon incident where a family was killed by one of these bombs, I did a search on the internet for more information. I was referred to this book by several newsgroups. After opening this book, I read it cover to cover in one sitting. If you are not enthralled by the Japanese effort into these balloon bombs, you soon will be. This book is an excellent record of this little known part of our nations history.

You can experience history first hand, and then write a memoir. True, there are biases involved, and all too often the author misses the forest for the trees.

Or, you can do what Robert Mikesh did, and painstakingly spade through the debris (material and human) of post-World War II Japan and compile a detailed history of what someone else did, all at the behest of the US Government. And, that is just what Bob did with his history of the Japanese balloon bomb campaign.

In point of fact one of the earliest means of strategic bombardment by "cruise missiles" (the others being Napoleonic era fireships and the German V-1 "buzz bomb" and V-2 ballistic missile) the Japanese balloon bombs were a cut rate attempt to make the US "pay" for their early war attack on the Japanese homeland. Originally a joint project by the Imperial Army and Navy, the Navy dropped out after a few early attempts at balloon bombing from submarines. The resultant all Imperial Army program manufactured hydrogen filled, mulberry paper balloons, launched from the Japanese home islands, that carried an aluminum wheel laden with sand ballast and a limited number of thermite and fragmentation bombs designed to set North American forests ablaze.

Launched during the winter of 1944-45, about nine thousand such bombs started on the trip from Japan to North America, riding the almost unknown "jet stream" across the vast Pacific Ocean. A very clever (and very cheap) altitude regulation device kept the hydrogen filled bombs at the right height in the stream, dropping sand ballast when needed. At the end point of the run, a self destruction mechanism dropped the bombs and set the hydrogen filled balloon ablaze.

..or so the theory went. In the final analysis, about 10% of the bombs made some sort of arrival in North America. A very few were intercepted at sea, the majority landing in a dispersed field from far northern Canada and Alaska, all the way to Michigan and western Missouri, and as far south as northern Mexico. Only a small group of schoolchildren and their teacher were killed by one of these, the majority made no impact at all.

(Well, not quite. One bomb hit a power line for the Hanford WA nuclear facility, shutting it down briefly. A day or two's delay may have helped someone in Hiroshima - who knows?)

In the end, it all looks pretty foolish. But, the reality was that this was the only way the Japanese were going to be able to strike the American mainland, and they did it with remarkably little disruption to the rest of their chaotic war economy. (The main impact the program had was on transportation, as the hydrogen generation facilities were distant from the actual launch sites. The Japanese rail system, already over-stressed by war demands, had trouble keeping the hydrogen deliveries on schedule.)

Mikesh documents it all, right down to most basic details. Given the right materials and this book, you could construct your own balloon bombs and raise havoc with someone downwind - it's that detailed.

And, for those really interested in the topic, he includes a map showing every known balloon bomb impact. As only about 10% have ever been located, you could even hie yourself to the center zone of the impacts and start looking for your own...

Only available in paperback, but still well worth reading.