Friday, May 05, 2006
This Day in History
On this day in 1945 a real tregedy of war (though small)--the only WW II deaths of civilians on the mainland of the U.S. resulted from a Japanese bomb which had fallen on Gearhart Mountain, Oregon from an unmanned balloon. Japanese forces had released hundreds of these with the intent to set the Northwest woods on fire. Didn't really work. Found by a family on a picnic, the bomb was disturbed and exploded, killing five local children and Elsie Mitchell, the pregnant wife of a minister. Sand in the bags of ballast carried by the balloon was scientifically identified by microscopic study of the grains. The sand was known by its characteristics to have come from Japan. Earlier in the war, on February 23, 1942, the mainland was first shelled, though without casualties, by shells fired from a Japanese submarine about a half-mile offshore of Ellwood, California.
(h/t Today in Science History)
(h/t Today in Science History)
# posted by Roger Fraley @ 6:47 AM 
