4
4
0
1945 – In Lakeview, Oregon, Mrs. Elsie Mitchell and five neighborhood children are killed while attempting to drag a Japanese balloon out the woods.
Unbeknownst to Mitchell and the children, the balloon was armed, and it exploded soon after they began tampering with it. They were the first and only known American civilians to be killed in the continental United States during World War II.
The U.S. government eventually gave $5,000 in compensation to Mitchell’s husband, and $3,000 each to the families of Edward Engen, Sherman Shoemaker, Jay Gifford, and Richard and Ethel Patzke, the five slain children.
The explosive balloon found at Lakeview was a product of one of only a handful of Japanese attacks against the continental United States, which were conducted early in the war by Japanese submarines and later by high-altitude balloons carrying explosives or incendiaries. In comparison, three years earlier, on April 18, 1942, the first squadron of U.S. bombers dropped bombs on the Japanese cities of Tokyo, Kobe, and Nagoyo, surprising the Japanese military command, who believed their home islands to be out of reach of Allied air attacks.
When the war ended on August 14, 1945, some 160,000 tons of conventional explosives and two atomic bombs had been dropped on Japan by the United States. Approximately 500,000 Japanese civilians were killed as a result of these bombing attacks.
https://thisdayinusmilhist.wordpress.com/2014/05/05/may-5/
Invite others to respond by typing @name
Unbeknownst to Mitchell and the children, the balloon was armed, and it exploded soon after they began tampering with it. They were the first and only known American civilians to be killed in the continental United States during World War II.
The U.S. government eventually gave $5,000 in compensation to Mitchell’s husband, and $3,000 each to the families of Edward Engen, Sherman Shoemaker, Jay Gifford, and Richard and Ethel Patzke, the five slain children.
The explosive balloon found at Lakeview was a product of one of only a handful of Japanese attacks against the continental United States, which were conducted early in the war by Japanese submarines and later by high-altitude balloons carrying explosives or incendiaries. In comparison, three years earlier, on April 18, 1942, the first squadron of U.S. bombers dropped bombs on the Japanese cities of Tokyo, Kobe, and Nagoyo, surprising the Japanese military command, who believed their home islands to be out of reach of Allied air attacks.
When the war ended on August 14, 1945, some 160,000 tons of conventional explosives and two atomic bombs had been dropped on Japan by the United States. Approximately 500,000 Japanese civilians were killed as a result of these bombing attacks.
https://thisdayinusmilhist.wordpress.com/2014/05/05/may-5/
Invite others to respond by typing @name
Posted in these groups: 
Military History
WWII World War Two
Military History WWII World War Two
Posted 9 y ago
Responses: 5
2
2
0
Great bit of History. Brilliant Concept, thoroughly Impractical Weapon though. Nature was very uncooperative for these things.
(2)
(0)
2
2
0
funny that's right in the area I live in. I had already heard of this but still interesting. Kind of like the Japanese internment camp
(2)
(0)
2
2
0
Incredibly sad, 1SG (Join to see), especially when most of the U.S. is celebrating Cinco de Mayo for the wrong reasons, and for a country that really doesn't place much emphasis on the day themselves.
(2)
(0)
Read This Next
Continue with Facebook 
Continue with Google