[MOC] Fu-Go Japanese Balloon Bomb

[greg3]

A simple MOC inspired by a TV documentary about these unusual weapons!!

First launched in 1944, the Fu-Go was a balloon developed by the Japanese to deliver bombs to North America (over 5,000 miles away!!).

(Unfortunately the balloon is way too small (and should be spherical!!) but it's all I had!)

image by g.nat, on Flickr

 

The History

The idea was to use a hydrogen filled balloon to lift a payload up to around 30,000 feet where the fast moving jet stream would carry it across the pacific in about 3 days. One problem faced by the designers was to keep the balloon in the jet stream as the gas would expand/contract due to temperature. Their solution was to fit the balloon with an altimeter - if the balloon rose too high, it would trigger a vent to open and release some of the hydrogen. If it dropped too low, it triggered an explosive charge that released one or more of the sandbags carried for ballast. In this way, the balloon would stay at a pre-set height until it was over North America when a timer would release its bomb load. With no way of accurately knowing where the bombs would land, it was usually fitted with several incendiary bombs in the hope that they'd start wildfires that would destroy farmland, forests and buildings and ultimately spread panic throughout the population. 

To begin with, the attacks caught the American and Canadian Governments by surprise and they refused to believe that the bombs had come all the way from Japan, instead fearing that enemy units were operating in America itself. When they did finally understand what these weapons were, they assigned 2,700 troops to deal with them, including 200 paratroopers of the 555th Parachute Infantry Battalion (the only all black parachute battalion) who acted as "Smoke Jumpers" to put out fires as soon as possible. The fear was that news of the attacks would cause the public to panic. Even worse, if the Japanese knew that the balloons were reaching America and Canada, they might begin fitting them with biological or chemical warheads so a complete news blackout was ordered with the press banned from reporting anything about the balloon bombs.

Even without the news blackout, the attacks were no where near as effective as the Japanese had hoped, mainly because they coincided with a period of cool,wet weather, and after 6 months the project was abandoned. (Although by chance, one of the last balloons did knock out power to the site of the Manhattan Project causing the back up safety systems to activate!!) 

A month or so later the balloon bombs claimed their first and only victims. On 5th May 1945, a family out for a Sunday school picnic disturbed a crashed balloon still with its bomb load causing it to explode, killing the pregnant mother and 5 children. These were the only recorded deaths resulting from enemy action on the mainland USA during WW2 and the site is now a memorial. After this tragedy, the news blackout was lifted and the public warned of the dangers.

Over 9,000 balloon bombs were launched of which around 1,000 reached North America - the remains of several balloons have been recovered over the years, some still containing unexploded bombs. The most recent one to be found was in British Columbia in 2014 and it was detonated by the Canadian Navy's Bomb Squad! 

 

Details of the MOC

The payload - a circular frame from which hung sandbags and the bomb(s) - either one 15kg antipersonnel bomb, or as I've chosen, a 12kg incendiary bomb and 4 x 5kg incendiaries (the wands). Above the frame was a platform containing the balloon's "brain" (altimeter, electrical circuits, timer etc).

image by g.nat, on Flickr

image by g.nat, on Flickr

This is just the sort of weird history I enjoy fining out about and I'm pretty pleased with how it came out... thanks for looking!!

Comments are always welcome!!

 

Edited August 6, 2018 by greg3