"One of the most unusual military actions of World War II came in the form of Japanese balloon bombs, or “Fugos,” directed at the mainland United States. Starting in 1944, the Japanese military constructed and launched over 9,000 high-altitude balloons, each loaded with nearly 50 pounds of anti-personnel and incendiary explosives. Amazingly, these unmanned balloons originated from over 5,000 miles away in the Japanese home islands. After being launched, the specially designed hydrogen balloons would ascend to an altitude of 30,000 feet and ride the jet stream across the Pacific Ocean to the mainland United States. Their bombs were triggered to drop after the three-day journey was complete—hopefully over a city or wooded region that would catch fire.
Nearly 350 of the bombs actually made it across the Pacific, and several were intercepted or shot down by the U.S. military. From 1944 to 1945, balloon bombs were spotted in more than 15 states—some as far east as Michigan and Iowa. The only fatalities came from a single incident in Oregon, where a pregnant woman and five children were killed in an explosion after coming across one of the downed balloons. Their deaths are considered the only combat casualties to occur on U.S. soil during World War II."
Wow that's really fascinating. I wonder what sorts of properties allow geologists to characterize sand to that level
Also wonder how effective it is. Especially nowadays in such an interconnected world where products, and especially sand, could be coming from the opposite side of the globe
It being varied doesn't surprise me. What surprises me is that it doesn't vary that much within a sample. That you can parse out specific patterns or characteristics enough to figure out exactly where this sample of sand is from
That's what's so surprising to me nowadays I'd just assume they'd have googled and found a paper by some Japanese scientists, but back then someone from the US must have taken those probes across Japan.
That's an interesting aspect to this story to me. Maybe it was truly based on intel and the geological survey was a farce to justify the facilities targeting. That wouldn't surprise me, there's a ton of lore around WWII and military activity in general.
Or maybe the US government chooses to fund all areas of research, like mineral surveys, in the hopes they can call on a field of knowledge repository to use in a war machine.
I'd like to believe there is a soil library that staff were doing microscope slide searches late into the night.
Now compare that to the 800+ indigenous Aleutians that were interned during WW2, many of which died in the American concentration -- err, I mean internment -- camps. The Aleutian people were also legal citizens of the US.
Edit: some more info. 881 Aleuts were gathered up, endured slave labor, and 118 died from lack of food, warmth or medical care. All extremely preventable as is evidenced by the camp just 30 miles away of around 700 Nazi POWs. All 700 returned home alive and in good health. Historian Stan Cohen even wrote, "All in all, the German imprisonment in Alaska was quite pleasant."
Thanks for that link, I knew some Americans were relocated in Alaska but I didn't realize there were internment/concentration camps. I also didn't know about the Nazi POWs kept there during the war.
The last two paragraphs are a pathetic conclusion from the governement.
Asking why Japan invaded the Aleutians is a fun question for flat earthers. On most map projections it's way out of the way but on a globe if you draw a geodesic from Tokyo to Seattle (or Sapporo to San Diego and Los Angeles) it's basically halfway.
Much like this story, many Japanese planners did not appreciate the vast size of the American west. A hundred random firebombs were basically irrelevant compared to the many thousands of yearly lighting strikes that also regularly cause fires. Who knows how many Japanese balloons are out there hanging from some tree undiscovered.
Hawaii was still an "incorporated territory" of the US though, surely it would have qualified as "US soil"? I gather at least some deaths did occur in Honolulu itself too.
"One of the most unusual military actions of World War II came in the form of Japanese balloon bombs, or “Fugos,” directed at the mainland United States. Starting in 1944, the Japanese military constructed and launched over 9,000 high-altitude balloons, each loaded with nearly 50 pounds of anti-personnel and incendiary explosives. Amazingly, these unmanned balloons originated from over 5,000 miles away in the Japanese home islands. After being launched, the specially designed hydrogen balloons would ascend to an altitude of 30,000 feet and ride the jet stream across the Pacific Ocean to the mainland United States. Their bombs were triggered to drop after the three-day journey was complete—hopefully over a city or wooded region that would catch fire.
Nearly 350 of the bombs actually made it across the Pacific, and several were intercepted or shot down by the U.S. military. From 1944 to 1945, balloon bombs were spotted in more than 15 states—some as far east as Michigan and Iowa. The only fatalities came from a single incident in Oregon, where a pregnant woman and five children were killed in an explosion after coming across one of the downed balloons. Their deaths are considered the only combat casualties to occur on U.S. soil during World War II."
https://www.history.com/news/5-attacks-on-u-s-soil-during-wo...