I had no idea that the British and Japanese used Balloons in an offensive capacity. Interesting site. [2.0] Balloons In Peace & War 1900:1945 Kev
Check out Sam Cody, early pioneer of military aviation and one hell of a character! I wish I had bought his biography on my recent visit to Middle Wallop, hey ho, next time..... CS Museum of Army Flying BBC - Hampshire - History - The real Samuel Cody
If you saw this in film you'd laugh it off. (from above site) It did have a minor success. On 10 March 1945, one of the last of the fusen bakudan had descended in the vicinity of a production site of the secret Manhattan Project at Hanford, in Washington state. The balloon landed on a power line that fed electricity to the building containing the reactor producing plutonium for the Nagasaki bomb, and shut the reactor down. Backup generators came online to restore power.
If I remember correctly, Japanese school children helped to make the balloons from paper pieces. Its a long time since I read about these balloons but I recall that American Authorities quickly placed a news blackout on the balloons and because of lack of news the Japanese thought that they were a complete failure. Regards Tom
Does anyone have any more information regarding what was mentioned in this artcile? I rememeber a few years ago reading a fascinating article in a science journal about the Japenese and bacterialogical weapons being developed in Korea (iirc). It was obviously a while ago and my memories of it are a little hazy, but I seem to remember it mentioning "No go" areas in china/Korea where the risk of disease is still considered too high for people to venture, even today. I remember it mentioning a (british I seem to remember) bomber force destroying the japenese base which was devloping these weapons, meaning that the Japenese were forced to replace the clay pots (used to contain infected fleas) with incedaries on their attack on San Diego harbour. As already mentioned this was substantially hushed up to the point that most people dont even know the attacks took place. It always makes me slightly suspcious that "area 51" which (some say) is supposedly involved in biochem warefare, is associated with the roswell air balloon. The americans were probably conducting experiments using the same idea, in fact i'd certainly expect them to. I'm not a consipracy theorist by nature, but i'd certainly say that makes a lot more sense then some theories put around. Oh well... one to add to the list of internet consipacies I guess.
Some more info here and a documentary coming soon: http://www.ww2talk.com/forum/war-air/15299-fugos-balloon-bombs.html
Completly hit it by chance, never heard of it before I was looking for someting not WW2 related at all. Not sure the Japanese one was such a good idea, but British one was great. Reletivlty small concentrated land masses, short distances and Westerly winds.
Somewhere in this crazy site, there´s a thread about Fugos, interoceanic incendiary balloons created by the Nip to provoke forest fires in the western U.S.
Warlord, the link at the top gives info on the Japanese balloons. After following the link, reading a bit more on the Fusen Bakudan, and doing some more research on the subject, I stumbled upon this: Battle of Los Angeles - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia Could this case be the largest Fugo attack of the war?
