Video: 'The Balloon Bombs That Floated Across The Pacific'
(Saturday, May 5, 1945, approximately 10:30 a.m. PWT; part of the American Theater of World War II) — A pregnant woman and five children were killed today when a Japanese balloon bomb exploded in the remote woods of southern Oregon, marking what officials believe to be the only fatal attack on the U.S. mainland during World War II.
Video: 'Japanese Balloon Bombs | The Strange Truth' (May 5, 1945, at 1:36)
The explosion occurred late this morning near Gearhart Mountain, roughly 10 miles northeast of Bly, as Rev. Archie Mitchell and his wife, Elsie, 26, led a small group of Sunday school children on a picnic outing in Fremont National Forest.
While the reverend remained by the vehicle, his wife and the children approached what appeared to be a strange balloon with a metal framework on the ground.
Video: 'When Japan Bombed Oregon in WWII'
Moments later, the device exploded.
Killed were Mrs. Mitchell and five local schoolchildren: Dick Patzke, 14; his sister Joan Patzke, 13; Edward Engen, 13; Jay Gifford, 13; and Sherman Shoemaker, 11. Army investigators believe the children may have inadvertently triggered the device, which had likely landed weeks earlier and lain undisturbed until today.
Military authorities later identified the object as one of hundreds of Japanese Fu-Go balloon bombs, launched across the Pacific by Japan in an attempt to ignite wildfires and spread panic on the American home front. The device carried an anti-personnel bomb and was part of a little-known campaign that began in late 1944.
Video: 'BLY -- JAPANESE BALLOON BOMB INCIDENT OF WORLD WAR II'
A War Department press blackout on the balloon bomb campaign has been in place for months to avoid aiding the enemy, but officials are expected to lift restrictions in the coming weeks in light of today’s fatal outcome.
Army ordnance teams have since combed the area, and residents have been urged to report any strange balloon-like debris without approaching it.
In the years following the incident, the site became known as the Mitchell Monument, named for the pastor’s late wife. A ponderosa pine near the blast site still bears scars from the explosion’s shrapnel.
Though largely forgotten in the sweep of the wider war, today’s tragedy stands as a solemn reminder that even the American mainland has not been immune to the reach of global conflict.
