The Balloon lies

[EndtheMadnessNow]

Revisiting the Balloon Historical Narrative

Did you know the balloons sent by Japan's Unit 731 over the U.S. towards the end of WWII carried no bio agents. But this July 6, 1945 memo for FBI director Hoover's assistant, D.M. Ladd, states Japanese balloons found in N. & S. Dakota, & Nebraska, carried anthrax bacteria "in the hydrogen." If true, this changes history on this subject.




Apparently, we were never supposed to see this FBI memo, as the footer clearly says:


See page 75 of this FOIA release: FBI on Bacteriological Warfare

Note that this FOIA was released on Dec 15, 2005. And even more interesting is the redactions 60 years after the docs were produced; what was redacted? And why? What are they hiding? Also, similar to the Nazi paperclip operation, we also had a paperclip for Japanese scientists, specifically in germ warfare that came out of Unit 731.


From a May 5, 2023 Time Magazine article on the Japanese WWII balloons:

From the perspective of the War Department and Army intelligence, the thing that they feared most was biological warfare. They inspected all balloons for any presence of biological agents, something that might spread disease among humans or livestock. Ultimately there never was any biological component to the balloons.

Secondary to that was that these incendiary devices would ignite wildfires in the Western states and the Americans would have to divert resources that might have been used in the Pacific theater. Also, there was the possibility that these balloons would create panic, leading to a weakening of the morale of the American people.

Was the American public informed about the arrival of these offensive weapons in the U.S.?

Word of the very first balloons that arrive, the ones in Wyoming and Montana, did make its way into the press. Small local newspapers covered the arrival of these balloons, but there were very few details. In the first week of January, stories appeared in TIME and Newsweek.

[A January 1, 1945 TIME story disclosed some details about the balloons: “A 70-foot fuse connected to a small incendiary bomb” and “the FBI discovered that the Japanese had obligingly printed a good deal of information on the bag. It had been completed only a few weeks before, on Oct. 31, at a Japanese factory. Japanese characters also revealed the number of hours spent in its manufacture, data regarding work shifts.”]

The U.S. Air Force is a bit more diplomatic about what the balloons carried, writing this:

Actual damage caused by the balloon bombs was minor. However, the incendiaries that these balloons carried did pose a serious threat to the northwestern U.S. forests during dry months. These balloons also offered a vehicle for germ warfare if the Japanese had decided to employ this weapon.

The balloon attacks began after air defense facilities in the United States had been deactivated. To counter this threat, U.S. Army Air Forces and Navy fighters flew intercept missions to shoot down balloons when sighted. Army personnel and USAAF aircraft were also stationed at critical points to combat any forest fires that might occur. In addition, supplies of decontamination chemicals and sprays to counter any possible use of germ warfare were quietly distributed in the western United States. Before detailed USAAF defensive plans had been put into effect, the attacks ceased.

From Atomic Heritage Foundation:

On September 19, two Americans spoke with Lieutenant Colonel Terato Kunitake and a Major Inouye. They stated that all records of the Fu-Go program had been destroyed in compliance with a directive on August 15. This interview, and no official Japanese documents, was to be the only source of information regarding the objectives of the Fu-Go program for the US authorities, explains Coen.

The investigators learned that the Japanese had planned to make 20,000 balloons, but had fallen short of that mark. They also learned that the campaign was “designed to offset the shame of the Doolittle raid,” Coen notes. According to this interview, the Japanese Army had known that it would not be an effective weapon, but pursued it for the morale boost. When there were no reports of actual damage in the US, the Japanese media had made up fake stories about the weakening of American resolve. They also confirmed that there was no plan for biological or chemical warfare with the balloons.

While the balloons failed to be an effective weapon, they were a product of wartime scientific innovation. When the first balloons arrived in America, they technically became the world’s first intercontinental ballistic missile.

Japanese Balloon Bombs “Fu-Go”

Fu-Go Fire Balloons: "Japanese Paper Balloon" 1945 US Navy Training Film:




I thought the FBI memo about finding anthrax "in the hydrogen gas" of the balloon sounded weird... until I read this narrative published by the South Dakota State Historical Society. It described how the range supervisor for the Cheyenne River Agency "collected some of the escaping gas" from a downed balloon "in two borrowed fruit jars," then gave them to the FBI and some "Army security men"!


War Balloons over the Prairie


The only detailed survey of America's Cold War spy balloon program, "The Moby Dick Project: Reconnaissance Balloons over Russia" by the late Smithsonian aerospace historian Curtis Peebles. No better way to contextualize today's flights.


The Moby Dick Project: Reconnaissance Balloons over Russia