How Japan Launched 9,000 Fu-Go Balloon Bombs at America | WWII's Strangest Weapon

Описание: On May 5, 1945, six civilians died in Oregon from a Japanese Fu-Go balloon bomb that had traveled 5,000 miles across the Pacific Ocean. They were the only civilians killed by enemy weapons on the United States mainland during World War II. This is the untold story of Japan's secret retaliation for the Doolittle Raid: a campaign that launched 9,000 hydrogen balloons armed with incendiary and anti-personnel bombs toward the United States.

Between November 1944 and April 1945, Japan used the jet stream to send balloon bombs across the ocean, hoping to start massive forest fires and create panic on the American home front. The weapons were ingeniously designed with automatic altitude controls and reached 26 U.S. states, Canada, and Mexico. One even struck the top-secret Hanford nuclear facility producing plutonium for the Nagasaki atomic bomb.

The U.S. government imposed a total news blackout on the Fu-Go campaign. With no confirmation that balloons were reaching America, Japan abandoned the program. But on May 5, 1945, Reverend Archie Mitchell's wife and five children discovered a balloon bomb during a Sunday school picnic near Bly, Oregon. The explosion killed all six instantly, making them the only civilians killed by enemy action on the U.S. mainland during World War II.

This documentary reveals the full story of the Fu-Go balloon bombs: from their engineering and construction by Japanese schoolgirls, to their 70-hour journey across the Pacific, to the tragic deaths in Oregon, to the censorship strategy that ended the campaign. Discover one of WWII's most unusual weapons and the only enemy attack that killed American civilians at home.

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