Japanese Balloon Bomb....

[r.morrison]

Well, it was a bit of an interesting day for some forest workers near Lumby BC, who came across a partially buried Japanese WW11 Balloon Bomb. You can find it on the internet under GLOBAL OKANAGAN TELEVISION NEWS. And just maybe some kind soul out there in MLU land could post it on the forum, for the benefit of all. (something I still haven't figured out) Cheers.....Robert

[Brian Gough]

Robert, here is the link to that story:

http://globalnews.ca/news/1609880/wa...hee-mountains/

and another link:

http://globalnews.ca/news/1608978/wo...ed-near-lumby/

Brian

[rob love]

I saw a very nice example of one of these in the Whitehorse NWT museum back in the 90s. Quite impressive the distance that some of them got.

[David Dunlop]

Quite impressive distances indeed, Rob. Some made it as far as Northern Saskatchewan and Manitoba and there has been strong speculation a lot more of them actually landed in Canada and the USA than either Government was prepared to admit to during the war.

David

[Comox Air Force Museum]

We had one in our Museum here in Comox B.C.for many years. It was on loan from Ottawa until they recalled it Two years ago. This is a great link with all the info on them and unfortunately there were Six Fatalities from one in Oregon.
Cheers Rob

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fire_balloon

[motto]

The control unit for one of these balloons is on display at the National Museum of the USAF, Wright Patterson AFB, Dayton, Ohio.
The unit is in excellent condition and appears to mostly consist of a complex jumble of rubber tubes.

David

[Darrell Zinck]

Hi

It looks as if it was the main AP bomb carried.

Funny in that the first pics attached to the earliest news articles showed a much bigger device. Can't find that pic now.

regards
Darrell

[David Dunlop]

Interesting that all the support structure pieces of this balloon bomb were found right beside the main bomb. I thought that the weapons were all released from the balloon first, at which point a delay fuse was ignited that eventually set fired to the balloon itself. That would suggest the balloon would travel some distance from where the ordnance was dropped, before self destructing.

Perhaps this one got hung up in a tree before the bomb released and landed in soil too soft to detonate it. The envelope of the balloon eventually rotted away and all the remaining fiddly bits fell down around the HE bomb.

David

[Hanno Spoelstra]

Originally Posted by Brian Gough

and another link:
http://globalnews.ca/news/1608978/wo...ed-near-lumby/

Amazing find, thanks for sharing.

Text plus photos:

NEAR LUMBY, B.C. — A decades old unexploded bomb was discovered on a rural forest service road near Lumby Thursday. RCMP believe it’s a Japanese balloon bomb dropped during World War II.

“During the Second World War the Japanese conceived the idea of fashioning incendiary bombs and attaching these to balloons which were released with easterly wintertime jet stream winds above 30,000 feet to float 5,000 miles across the north Pacific,” says RCMP spokesperson Gord Molendyk.

A bomb squad has been called in to unearth the relic and the hope is to donate parts of the artifact to the Lumby Museum.