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Picnics are fun. What can make a picnic even more fun? Balloons! Except when it was the middle of a world war and those balloons were sent to your picnic by the Japanese and they were carrying bombs and the bombs exploded and blew you to bits.
--On This Day in History, Shit Went Down: May 5, 1945--
Late in 1944 Japan was fucked and they knew it. The balloon bombs, called Fu-Go, were more about revenge than anything else, although there was some desire that incendiary bombs would divert manpower away from American war efforts and toward fighting forest fires. But overall they were pretty fucking useless.
That being said, from an ingenuity standpoint, they represented the longest-range attack ever enacted until Operation Black Buck during the Falklands War in 1982. The Japanese launched 9,000 such balloon bombs, only a fraction of which ever made landfall. They didn’t have the intended effect of blowing up cities, starting out-of-control fires, or instilling fear. They just ruined the shit out of that one picnic on May 5, 1945.
Pastor Archie Mitchell, his pregnant wife Elsie, and five of their Sunday School children were having a picnic in South Oregon, in the forest near Gearhart Mountain. Archie was unloading the car while the others sought a suitable spot for the picnic. One of the children came across the balloon and, being a child, probably kicked it or some shit in a “The fuck is this thing?” way that kids are known for and then Blam! The five children and Elsie were all killed. A forest ranger, alerted by the noise, came upon the carnage to find the horrified minister beating at his wife’s burning clothing with his bares hands in an effort extinguish the flames.
The military investigated and found snow underneath the balloon, whereas the surrounding area had none. It was surmised that the balloon had been sitting there for several weeks and it was the disturbing of it that caused it to explode. Prior to this event, the military had kept a tight lid on the Japanese balloon bombs to prevent panic, enforcing a media ban on coverage. But after the deaths they decided that just maybe it might be a good idea to warn people not to touch the fucking things if they found one.
Numerous balloons were found across the countryside in ensuing decades. As late as 2019, a hunter found one near the town of McBride in Northern British Columbia. I often stop in McBride for gas when I’m traveling to visit my dad.
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