The Bizarre Case of the Japanese Balloon Bombs
And how they still threaten us today.
It was a Saturday morning. Pastor Archie Mitchell and his wife, Elsie, set out for a picnic. They drove from their home in Bly, Oregon, to nearby Gearhart mountain. Archie, a Sunday school teacher, had brought along five children from his class.
Once at the mountain, Archie dropped Elsie and the kids off and went to find a place to park the car. Elsie, who was pregnant with the couple’s first child, hiked into the woods with the children, looking for a suitable picnic location. Then, the picture-perfect day turned into a nightmare.
Archie later recalled: “As I got out of the car to bring them lunch, the others were not far away and called to me they had found something that looked like a balloon… I shouted a warning not to touch it. But just then there was a big explosion.”
Elsie and all five children died in the blast.
The weapon that killed them is something that few people today have ever heard of — a Japanese balloon bomb.
So how did this happen? Why was a bomb created in Japan found on the top of a remote peak in Oregon?
To understand why, we must examine the course of the Pacific War.
