This is a brilliant idea to attack America heartland with high explosive, but many of them are off course and land in Canada instead. No damage is cause by these weapons.
I believe I read somewhere that one of these devices managed to kill one or two people in America, a Farmer and family member or something like that.
Out of about 9k Fugo’s released only around 500 made it, 1 woman and 5 children killed when they moved a downed balloon causing it to explode.
I have to disagree that this was a good idea. More like a great idea to waste resources. The idea was that the bombs would start many fires around the US and Canada. Dont think this would have made that much of a difference even if more had landed. The US and Canada have plenty of forest fires every year and they are dealt with every year.
Two interesting side notes to the balloon attacks. One of them knocked out the power to the U.S. Nuclear Research facility in Oregon. Fortunately,
the generators for the building, which had never been tested, kicked on automatically, preventing a nuclear meltdown.
The Japanese debated using plague germ warfare using the balloons.
I guess they decided not to do it, because all those B29’s would have retaliated in kind.
This is a really interesting idea htey have here, amazing the ingenuity that desperation at a time of war will throw up, one feels that htere might be parallels with the pigeon guided bombs and bats that the USAF looked into reported elswhere on this site.
Ah the Japanese Balloon bombs, an ideal secret way to bomb U.S.A, alot of launched over U.S.A but unfourtnatly for the japanese it was highly inaccurate and caused minor damage.
Yeah a family was killed in Washington (I think or Oregon) but the balloons were like the Anti-Tank Hand Grenades that the germans made. :lol:
The whole family?, like how many people, do you know how mate ?
I read that, a mother and kids pulled a balloon down that was stuck and it went off.
I have read,that was a way to Japan launch quimical weapons on USA in the end of the war.Japan had made many experiences with this kind of weapons,and i think that this could be a way to use them
And where did you read this O-Wise-One? Can I have a reference, or even point me in the direction?
No way ballons never hit american coast ,they will been shot down over the sea,and where you find that.
I think you’ll find that some balloons with conventional bombs did indeed reach the west coast of the US:
http://www.wpafb.af.mil/museum/history/wwii/jbb.htm
One of the best kept secrets of the war involved the Japanese balloon bomb offensive, prompted by the Doolittle raid on Tokyo on April 18, 1942 as a means of direct reprisal against the U.S. mainland. Some 9,000 balloons made of paper or rubberized silk and carrying anti-personnel and incendiary bombs were launched from Japan during a five-month period, to be carried by high altitude winds more than 6,000 miles eastward across the Pacific to North America. Perhaps a thousand of these reached this continent, but there were only about 285 reported incidents. Most were reported in the northwest U.S., but some balloons traveled as far east as Michigan
Ok dont say they dont reach ,but ballons with hemical and biological materials dont be very useful ,maybe one hit coast or town but i think anyone alse cant ,american army destroyd them in air over the ocean or somealse .
Ok dont say they dont reach ,but ballons with hemical and biological materials dont be very useful ,maybe one hit coast or town but i think anyone alse cant ,american army destroyd them in air over the ocean or somealse .[/quote]
Read the highlighted part…
Dullard
Ok dont say they dont reach ,but ballons with hemical and biological materials dont be very useful ,maybe one hit coast or town but i think anyone alse cant ,american army destroyd them in air over the ocean or somealse .[/quote]
THERE WERE NO GODDAMN CHEMICAL OR BIOLOGICAL BALLOONS!
Only 1 appears to have been shot down, by a P38.
Read up on this subject before posting more dullardy:
OK OK ,but thats based on perhaps,maybe real thousands reached continent but we dont know that ,so we can tallk about that . 
There weren’t any, so what’s to discuss? Or are you trying to start a “what if the balloon bombs had had biological or chemical warheads?” thread?
I give up.
Thanks to the overwhelming horde of dullards and trolls that now populate this once fine site I will no longer try to reason with anyone.
I will stop reading any of the “factual” parts of the site and restrict myself to Off Topic and Site Feedback. I fear that even the Film/Book/Game pages would inflame my overwhelming desire to reboot my PC with an axe every time I read yet another ill-informed twat either ignoring the facts as laid out in front of them or defending an untenable point/attitude.
I am particularly sick of bone questions (especially “What if?”), lists copied and pasted from elsewhere and sodding polls!
I will leave all of you morons to rewrite history while trying desperately to boost your post counts up so that you can become “Lord High Generalissimo of the Site” with more medals than God. I wish you all the best of luck!
What happened to lurking on a site for a few months and reading all of the posts before making a few tentative posts of your own?