Very near here on a warm spring day in 1945, six people—
a woman and five children—were killed by a Japanese
"balloon bomb" or Fugo. The group had just arrived for a
picnic when they discovered the deflated balloon. While
they were gathered around the strange device, it exploded.
Within a few weeks, word spread through the community
that this bomb was no fluke; there had been others, and
there could be more.
Despite the intensity of the attack and the
success of the devices themselves, (nearly
10,000 were launched, and at least 300
made it across the Pacific), the mission was
ultimately a failure. Few bombs did any real
damage; most detonated over remote areas
in the wettest time of the year.
Launched from 6,000 miles away in Japan,
and deployed in retaliation for US bombing
raids on Japanese soil, Fugo were the
the world's first intercontinental weapons. The
Japanese ilitary hoped the squadrons
of these silent killers, wafting in from the
ocean, would create terror and panic.
The US government's code name for the Fugo balloon bombs was
"paper"—a reference to the scattered bits that were all that remained
after a device had detonated. Fugo balloons were made of glue-
laminated mulberry paper and filled with hydrogen. They were 33
feet in diameter and could carry up to 1,000 pounds of machinery,
bombs, and ballast when launched.
When balloon bombs began arriving on American shores, the
US government ordered news media to keep silent about the
attack. The media complied. Although local warnings about
the bombs were eventually issued, news of the weapons' arrival
never reached Japan, where the program was abandoned due to
the apparent lack of success.