Medford-related news items from 1945.


    Secrecy Monday surrounded the finding of a free balloon, thought to be of Japanese origin, in rough, wooded county ten miles southeast of Estacada, as a special army squad and FBI agents recovered the object by felling a tall tree in which it reportedly had lodged, then proceeded to fine-comb the area in which the find was made.
    A demolition squad of about ten men from Fort Lewis, in command of a lieutenant, arrived from Fort Lewis during the morning, traveling in a squad car and jeeps. The soldiers, assisted by federal operatives, worked during the day in examining the leaves and other debris along the course of the fallen tree and in climbing the second-growth fir to subject the foliage to close scrutiny.
    The scene of the balloon find was on a sidehill of steep country, east of the Dodge district and three miles from the Hillockburn ranger station. The spot could be reached only by hiking a quarter mile north after leaving the Hillockburn road, a Clackamas County route leading from the Dodge district to the Hillockburn lookout.
    After being freed from its perch in the tree, the balloon was brought to the road and was packed in the army squad car under armed guard, and newspapermen were not allowed to inspect or photograph it. A reporter for the Oregonian learned that the object bore no markings.
    Those placed in charge at the scene would not disclose the texture or size of the balloon, and State Patrolman Oral Hunt, who was the first to report the object Sunday to the FBI, would not talk about the matter.
    As the work of inspecting the immediate terrain progressed Monday, a few interested residents of the area made their way over the difficult trail to the spot and added their conjectures as they watched the army team and federal men at work.
    One logger said that he had helped move logging equipment along nearby Santa Cruz trail, a little-traveled forest road, during the past two weeks, but nothing of unusual nature was seen then. Other residents of the area talked excitedly of seeing army vehicles and cars plying busily along roads leading to the point, as investigation continued Monday.
    Unofficial reports were that the Estacada object was similar in some respects to a balloon found several weeks ago at Kalispell, Mont., and that it was 33½ feet in diameter, made of paper, and had a carrying capacity of 800 pounds net.
Oregonian, Portland, January 2, 1945, page 1


    J. Edgar Hoover, chief of the Federal Bureau of Investigation, at a special news conference in New York Monday said the balloon found in Oregon was of such size and construction that it might have been used to drop either Jap agents or explosives.
    In relating the capture of two German saboteurs in the New England area, Hoover said: "The landing of these two men and of the two Japanese balloons in the Northwest, and other matters I can't disclose for security reasons, indicate the German government has a very intensified program of training and infiltrating agents into the Western Hemisphere."
Oregonian, Portland, January 2, 1945, page 1


    SEATTLE, Jan. 2.--(UP)--Belief that Japan could launch long-range, small-scale paper balloon forays on the West Coast of North America from bases "anywhere between Formosa and the Kuriles" was expressed here Monday by a meteorological expert, Professor P. E. Church, a former army-navy oceanography instructor at the Chicago Institute.
    Professor Church said Japanese "suicide" balloons could make one-way trans-Pacific flights, taking advantage of winter gales at 50 to 100 miles per hour from Kurile bases and could "reasonably be expected to cover the 5000-mile distance in 50-100 hours."
    Expressing belief that even greater accuracy could be obtained through releasing such balloons from submarines close inshore, he discounted possibility the balloons found in the Northwest were of the defensive barrage variety, broken loose from their moorings during recent B-29 raids on the Japanese homeland. Similarly, he discounted the theory they were fire balloons, "as this is our wettest season along the coast, and the Japs know that, too. Fire balloons would just sputter and go out."
    "Descriptions of the lift-power of the balloons, which I believe was estimated at 800 pounds, almost excludes them as barrage-type balloons, as they would be too small to lift the weight of the necessary normal mooring cables," he said.
    Professor Church, for nine years professor of meteorology at the University of Washington, recently returned from Chicago after completing a wartime assignment of teaching army and navy aviation cadets.
Oregonian, Portland, January 2, 1945, page 1


    Army intelligence officers in Fort Lewis continued to delve into the mysteries of a balloon reported Sunday afternoon hanging on a 70-foot tree in a heavily timbered district near Hillockburn, 10 miles southeast of Estacada. Col. Charles F. Bisenius, assistant chief of staff of G-2, Northwest sector at Fort Lewis, with members of his staff took over the investigation Monday after FBI and Portland army officers had chopped down the tree, minutely inspected particles of the balloon and surrounding terrain.
    Balloon fragments were loaded by a demolition squad into a car and jeeps and transported to Fort Lewis. The report of the balloon to State Patrolman Oral Hunt, which started the investigation, was turned in by a civilian, it is said.
    Those making the investigation Monday were unable to determine how long the balloon had been hung up on the tree, from whence it came or how long it had been on the way. It has been established definitely that the balloon is of foreign make, probably Japanese, unofficial sources report.
    The possibility was advanced that this balloon might have been the one reportedly sighted by small boys in Tacoma several days ago.
    FBI agents reiterated that the balloon did not carry explosives. Joseph E. Thornton, special agent in charge of the Portland office, who was present during the investigation, pointed out that arrival of the balloon, as well as that found in Kalispell, Mont., might be termed only a coincidence. On the face of the investigation, their arrivals seemed to have no connection with the landing of two German spies on the New England coast, which was announced Sunday by J. Edgar Hoover.
Oregon Journal, Portland, January 2, 1945, page 1


    Portland newspapermen almost feel as if the war were starting all over again as they become enmeshed in the conflict of authority over release of information on the discovery of the Japanese balloon near Estacada.
    In the early days after the Pearl Harbor attack there was censorship that everybody could see a necessity for and there was no disposition to argue over what could be printed.
    Immediately American newspaper editors and war authorities agreed on the voluntary code of censorship, written by the editors but approved by the army and navy as covering all points necessary for safety of military personnel and materiel and affording no information that could help Japan or Germany
    Since the early days of 1942 this code has been the American newspaperman's Bible. However, due to the fact that the West Coast was the recognized danger point on the American continent, the Western Defense Command at San Francisco exercised even stricter control of some stories than was authorized under the code. These involved principally such matters as weather reports, forest fire reports, maritime and naval information, etc. All news of the removal of the Japanese was handled by the WDC.
    Naturally since dimout regulations have been relaxed, airplane spotter service dropped and the civilian defense organizations disbanded, it has been felt that the principal problems of newspaper censorship were in a routine status and might not again rear their heads.
    Then, plop into this settled paradise drop the Jap balloons at Kalispell, Mont., and Estacada. And the question of conflicting jurisdictions comes up again.
    The WDC, through army authorities at Fort Lewis, takes command and working with the FBI refuses to give out information. (For two weeks the Kalispell discovery was kept secret and then released only by "a slip," it is reported by the army.)
    But the OWI office at Washington and the bureau of censorship appear to feel that they are in charge of giving out information on the Estacada discovery--that is, what they can find from army authorities. The army insists that the WDC authorities should control the issuance of this news of so much potential value to the Japanese. So there you are.
    It seems like the good old days of 1941-42 over again!
Oregon Journal, Portland, January 2, 1945, page 5


    Portland, Ore., Jan. 2.--(U.P.)--Army officers and FBI agents today veiled in secrecy results of their intensive investigation of a large balloon--possibly of Japanese origin--found in wooded country about 38 miles southeast of Portland.
    Belief that the Japanese could launch long-range, small-scale paper-balloon forays against the west coast of North America from bases between Formosa and the Kuriles was expressed by Professor P. E. Church, former army-navy oceanography instructor, in Seattle.
    The balloon was discovered by unidentified residents of the area near Estacada, site of a large power plant. Several miles away lies an important part of Portland's water system--the Bull Run headworks.
    Army and FBI officials declined comment as to whether the balloon was Japanese, for what purpose such balloons might be employed by the Japanese, where or how they would have been released. An army demolition squad removed the balloon from a tree in which it landed. The balloon was reported to have no marking.
    Church said Japanese "suicide" balloons could make one-way trans-Pacific flights at a speed of from 50 to 100 miles per hour from Kurile bases and "reasonably be expected to cover the 5,000-mile distance in 50 to 100 hours" with the aid of seasonal winter gales.
    This was the third mysterious balloon recently discovered in the Northwest. A balloon identified as Japanese was found near Kalispell, Mont., about three weeks ago. A second mysterious balloon of unidentified origin was found near Tacoma, Wash. last week.
Medford Mail Tribune, January 2, 1945, page 1


    Washington, May 22.--(U.P.)--Japan for several months has been attacking the western United States with long-range balloon-borne bombs which thus far have caused "no property damage," the war and navy departments revealed jointly today.
    They called the Japanese attempt "fantastic" and said the attacks "constitute no military threat." [In the 1940s "fantastic" could still mean "based on fantasy."]
    "During the past several months, Japanese free balloons are known to have landed or dropped explosives in isolated localities," the announcement said.
    These balloons cannot be controlled by their launchers, the war department said, and "the chances that any given place would be hit by these attacks is only one in many millions."
    This Japanese attempt to undertake against the United States attacks which the Germans launched with infinitely greater success against Great Britain was handicapped so greatly by distance that it has been able to cause no damage to property.
    Apparently they were loosed to drift with wind currents toward this continent in the hope that they would be carried over the United States.
    "These balloons are gray, white or greenish-blue paper, about 33 feet in diameter," the war department said. "They carry a few small bombs suspended beneath the balloon. It is believed that the main purpose of the bombs is to set brush and forest fires. They are dangerous and should not be touched by anyone not familiar with bombs."
    The war department said that thus far the bombs had not succeeded in their apparent purpose of starting forest fires.
    The balloons, it was said, have landed or dropped their explosives from time to time in isolated areas, mostly in the mountains, forests or deserts.
    There is no indication that any of them ever carried enemy personnel.
    "The war and navy departments make this statement so that the public may be aware of the possible danger and to reassure the nation that these attacks are so scattered and aimless that they constitute no military threat. They should not be viewed with alarm.
    Due to the large areas of the United States and the variable nature of the winds, the possibility of a hit in any specific area is remote. The chances that any given place would be hit by these attacks is only one in many millions.
    "Newspaper and magazine readers and radio listeners should understand that reports of the Japanese balloons are being omitted from the news columns and radio summaries by editors and broadcasters to keep from the enemy further information of balloon attacks on the western hemisphere.
    "The war and navy departments take the liberty of recommending that civilians themselves take the same patriotic course and refrain from spreading news of any specific balloon incident of which they may hear."
Medford Mail Tribune, May 22, 1945, page 1


    Washington, May 31.--(U.P.)--The only casualties inflicted by Japanese balloon bombs which have fallen sporadically in the western area were suffered by a family which found an unexploded bomb, Undersecretary of War Robert P. Patterson said today.
    They detonated the bomb, with the result a woman and five children were killed. Her husband and one child survived.
    The secretary did not give details of the incident.
    It was known, however, that the incident occurred at Lakeview, Ore., several weeks ago.
    "There have been no other fatalities or injuries to personnel--people--from enemy balloon attacks. As previously stated, the attacks have been very scattered and the point of attack cannot be controlled by the Japanese.
    "While it is not impossible that other incidents involving injury or deaths may occur, it is our natural aim to keep from the enemy any information that will make his futile attack any more effective. Any information at all which would indicate the time or place of the arrival of a balloon, or their numbers or their particular effects or anything on their technical aspects would aid the enemy to correct and improve their flight mechanism and encourage their continuance.
    Lakeview, Ore., May 31.--(U.P.)--The sheriff's office at Lakeview today identified the six persons announced by Undersecretary of War Robert P. Patterson to have been killed by a Japanese balloon bomb as Mrs. Archie Mitchell, Sherman Shoemaker, Jay Gifford, Eddie Engen, Joan and Dick Patzke.
    The woman was wife of a Bly minister. Together they had taken a group of children on a picnic 15 miles east of Bly, last May 5. At the time they had handled the balloon and its apparatus thereby causing its detonation. The pastor had been far enough away to escape injury.
Medford Mail Tribune, May 31, 1945, page 1


    Guam, June 4.--(U.P.)--Radio Tokyo said today that Japan intends to attack the United States with piloted, bomb-carrying balloons and has converted her entire naval air force into a suicide corps.
    Tokyo said Lt. Col. Shozo Nakajima, chief spokesman of Japanese armed forces in the southern regions, predicted that piloted stratosphere balloons would attack the American mainland in the "near future."
    The present attacks on the United States with pilotless balloons were only on an experimental scale, he said. The first of these was released from Japan March 10 and "hundreds" have been released daily since then, he said.
    "When actual results of the experiment have been obtained." Tokyo said, "Large-scale attacks with death-defying Japanese airmen manning the balloons will be launched."
    Nakajima complained that the United States had not divulged the extent of damage caused by the pilotless balloons, but surmised they were "creating havoc."
    He said they had a celling of more than 45,000 feet and took just over 100 hours to reach the United States.
    Tokyo said the Japanese naval air force had been converted into a suicide corps to shield the home islands from the rampaging American fleet.
    Every navy plane will be ordered to crash itself against an Allied warship, a correspondent of the Tokyo newspaper Mainichi revealed in a radio interview with pilots of the special (suicide) attack corps.
    "If this tactic is successful," he said, "Victory is assured for Japan. If otherwise, the navy will have many heroes for our shrines."
    The broadcast bore out last week broadcast reporting that the recent shakeup in the Japanese naval high command foreshadowed the training of all branches of the navy in suicide attacks.
    Admiral William F. (Bull) Halsey, commander of the American Third Fleet, welcomed the enemy announcement and challenged the Japanese to send the remnants of their fleet in a do-or-die "banzai" attack against him.
    I wish the b-----s would," he told newsmen aboard his flagship off Okinawa. "They might get their thumbs halfway to their nose--but that's all."
    Halsey dismissed the Japanese kamikaze suicide planes as a "damned nuisance rather than a menace" despite the damage they have inflicted on American naval units off Okinawa.
    Fast carriers from his Third Fleet launched bombers and fighter-bombers against Japan's suicide plane bases on Kyushu, southernmost of the enemy's home islands, Saturday and Sunday.
    The attack Saturday thwarted enemy plans for a new series of suicide attacks on American forces in the Okinawa area, a dispatch from the carrier task force reported.
    At least 33 enemy planes were destroyed or damaged Saturday despite adverse weather which forced the carrier aircraft to attack from only 100 to 200 feet altitude.
Medford Mail Tribune, June 4, 1945, page 1


    Minneapolis, Minn., June 5.--(U.P.)--Dr. Jean Felix Piccard, stratosphere balloonist, predicted today that threatened Japanese balloon-bombing of the U.S. would be ineffective.
    Piccard, professor of aeronautical engineering at the University of Minnesota, said that if the Japanese could land enough balloons on American soil to start 100 forest fires a day the country might face a great hazard.
    But, the balloonist explained, it was unlikely that balloons could be directed at military objectives or cities with any accuracy because no matter where it is launched a balloon moves only with the wind.
    Prevailing air currents, he said, are mostly from the west.
    (Tokyo radio yesterday quoted a spokesman of the Japanese armed forces as predicting that piloted stratosphere balloons American would attack the
mainland in "the near future." He said present attacks on the United States with pilotless balloons were only on an experimental scale.)
    Japanese balloons which have reached the western part of the United States probably were sent up from submarines, Piccard said. He ruled out the possibility of launching such devices from aircraft carriers or other craft because "the remainder of the Japanese fleet dare not come that close to American waters."
    Piccard said he did not think a balloon could travel from the Japanese mainland to the North American continent. [Most western scientists at the time were still unaware of the jet stream.]
Medford Mail Tribune, June 5, 1945, page 1


    Spokane, Wash., June 6.--(U.P.)--The Spokane Chronicle disclosed last night that U.S. planes have shot down some of the bomb-carrying balloons launched against this country by Japan.
    The newspaper said that in one instance a plane was readied for a takeoff after a balloon was sighted, but the bag was at too high an altitude--40,000 feet.
    Revealing it had obtained data from police officials and witnesses, the Chronicle reported that one western farmer "captured" a balloon which landed in a field, tied it to a fence and notified the Federal Bureau of Investigation.
    Two children played with two bombs their fathers found in the woods. They innocently removed the arming and detonating devices, but the bombs did not explode.
    (The War Department recently announced that six persons were killed May 5 near Lakeview, Ore., by the explosion of a balloon-dropped bomb.)
    The newspaper said two bombs were reported to have exploded near a city but that officials could not find a trace of fragments or the balloon itself.
Medford Mail Tribune, June 6, 1945, page 1


    Lansing, June 7.--(U.P)--A Japanese balloon of the type used to carry bombs landed in the state of Michigan several months ago and was located before any injury resulted, Capt. Donald S. Leonard, director of the Michigan office of civilian defense, announced today.
    Leonard said the announcement had been cleared by the Detroit office of the sixth service command, acting on instructions from Washington.
    Leonard said there could be no announcement of where the balloon landed.
Medford Mail Tribune, June 7, 1945, page 1


    Two reports of a Japanese bomb balloon being sighted in the Butte Falls area last week turned out to be the planet Venus, visible now in the heavens by day, it has been reported. The findings were reported on two different days to an observer who noted the object was in the same place in the sky each time. He took his surveyors transit for closer check and discovered the object was Venus.
    The same mistake has occurred the past week in Klamath Falls, Cathlamet, and other northwest points.
Medford Mail Tribune, June 19, 1945, page 4


    Citizens who have been mistaking the planet Venus, at high noon, for a Jap bomb balloon, looking heavenward today mistook the high fog for smoke from bombed and burning Tokyo and way points.
Arthur Perry, "Ye Smudge Pot," Medford Mail Tribune, June 22, 1945, page 6


    A sports authority reports football is not as dangerous as hunting, riding in an auto, or plain walking. The public frets have calmed down to where it is doubted the pigskin, in the opening kickoff, will get shot for a Jap balloon.
Arthur Perry, "Ye Smudge Pot," Medford Mail Tribune, July 31, 1945, page 4


    With the lifting of censorship "now it can be told" that Medford had a taste of war though far from the scene of actual fighting. Medford's bit of personal war came in the nature of a bomb-carrying balloon which blew itself to bits at 5:30, just at dusk, last Jan. 12. The balloon had descended to within a few feet of the ground on the Oliver Tice farm at the end of South Peach Street when the blast came.
    The bag, shattered by the explosion, dropped a two-foot-long bomb which partially embedded itself in the soft earth and did not explode. The flash of the explosion was seen by Floyd Albert, who lives in the vicinity. He called Sgt. Lyman Thomas of the Oregon State Guard, who also lives nearby, and they, with Mr. Tice, who had seen the flash, called officials. State police, Oregon State Guard, FBI and army officers immediately took charge and all in the vicinity who knew of the occurrence were sworn to secrecy. Newspaper men observed the voluntary censorship which prevailed throughout the war.
    It was explained by the officers that the Japanese were freeing the balloons without knowledge where they would light and the only way they could be kept in ignorance as to where the bomb carriers were going or what damage they were doing, if any, was to keep close censorship on the matter in this country.
    The Tice farm device was picked up by an army bomb removal squad sent here especially for the purpose and was hurried by automobile to San Francisco, where experts took it apart and studied the mechanism: It was believed to have been one of the first recovered intact.
    Portions of other balloons were found in this region but there was not enough left after their explosion to shed much light on the nature of their cargo. The general belief held by authorities here was that the balloons carried a load of incendiary material which would be scattered over a wide area by an explosion when the gas bags came down within a few thousand feet of the earth. It was also thought the incendiary material would not act until dry weather came. Whether or not any forest fires were actually set by such means is not known, but it is doubted.
    Use of the free-floating, bomb-carrying balloons by the Japanese as a bizarre attempt to gain aerial equality with the United States proved to be a dud, a United Press survey indicated today.
    With the lifting of censorship, it was revealed that some 225 of the paper-constructed balloons were reported to have reached the American continent. Six deaths and minor material damage were believed to be the only results of the Japanese attempt to answer the devastating B-29 raids on the Japanese homeland.
    Army intelligence officers still were silent concerning the mechanism of the bombs. The best description came from Michigan State Police Capt. Donald S. Leonard, who headed the state civilian defense program.
    Leonard said the balloons traveled from the Japanese mainland at a controlled height of 30,000 to 40,000 feet in five to six days.
    Leonard said the balloons were equipped to destroy themselves. They contained separate time devices to release incendiary bombs, ignite fuses attached to flash bombs on the balloons and set off explosives in the baskets.
    Officials have not been able to estimate the total number launched, but serial numbers on parts of the balloons reached as high as 15,980.
    The Japanese loosed several hundred bomb-carrying balloons in an effort to rain aerial death on San Francisco during the United Nations conference. One balloon was was seen floating in the San Francisco area for several hours. Finally it drifted east.
    The greatest distance east the balloons were known to have reached was Detroit, Mich. A bomb fell on the outskirts of the arsenal city. The balloon itself never was found. Another balloon was found near Grand Rapids, Mich. Others were reported flying over Michigan.
    Most of the bomb-balloons to reach the continent fell in the Pacific Coast area from British Columbia to Mexico. The greatest number landed in Washington, Oregon, California and Montana. One came down near the atomic bomb plant near Hanford, Wash., but did not explode.
    The only deaths recorded as a result of the balloons were in Oregon. A balloon was found by a group of seven church picnickers at Lakeview, Ore. One of the bombs exploded, killing six of the group.
    The first balloon known to have reached the United States came down Dec. 4, 1944, near San Pedro, Calif. It was of a meteorological type and carried
a radio transmitter believed used by the enemy to trace its course. The first balloon which carried bombs was found near Kalispell, Mont., in December, 1944. It had already dropped its explosives.
    Many of the balloons were known to have cleared the Rockies and landed in the Middle West. One of the first reported was from Laurens, Ia. Several other Iowa towns reported balloons.
    In Nebraska a balloon exploded in Omaha shortly after midnight April 18.
    At least four Japanese balloons fell in Utah. On last Feb. 23 Sheriff Warren W. Hyde of Tremonton had a free half-mile ride when he clung to the ropes
of a balloon. The balloon was dismantled and shipped to the West Coast for study.
    Seven were reported to have landed in Idaho.
    Many forest and grass fires were reported to have been touched off by incendiaries from the balloons.
    Twenty were found in the Yakima Valley of Washington.
Medford Mail Tribune, August 16, 1945, page 1


    Only 228 Jap balloon bombs landed in the United States, Mexico, and Canada, the army reports. When the excitement was wildest, any rumormonger without looking could see that many loafing over Roxy Ann.
Arthur Perry, "Ye Smudge Pot," Medford Mail Tribune, August 16, 1945, page 6


    With the lifting of censorship after the war's end declaration, news of the explosion of a bomb-carrying balloon in Medford was released Thursday. The balloon had descended to within a few feet of the ground just before dusk last Jan. 12 when it blew itself to bits on the Oliver Tice farm at the end of South Peach Street. A two-foot long bomb dropped, but did not explode, and army authorities removed it for examination after swearing witnesses to secrecy.
"On the Home Front," Medford Mail Tribune, August 17, 1945, page 5


    Grants Pass, Ore., Aug. 18.--(UP)--Several Japanese balloons landed in Josephine County, authorities revealed today after lifting of censorship. Balloon covering segments were found near Murphy and in the city limits of Grants Pass and an entire balloon without its bomb load was found near Wolf Creek
    False alarms were reported also. One was on the day the planet Venus was visible and another reportedly unexploded bomb was a giant mushroom.
Medford Mail Tribune, August 19, 1945, page 1


    Plans for evacuation of women and children from Stirling City, Cal., were dropped today as a 11,800-acre forest fire was halted a mile and a half from the town of 1200 persons.
    Although the fire was still burning in other directions, more favorable weather was expected to aid 1500 residents, soldiers and deer hunters to bring it under control.
    Meantime, 3500 soldiers originally assigned as a defense force against Japanese incendiary balloons were battling flames in Mendocino County. All overseas veterans, they were formed into engineer firefighting companies and were assisted by the 555th parachute battalion, the only Negro paratroop unit in the U.S. army.
Medford Mail Tribune, September 20, 1945, page 1