About this episode

This episode discusses the Japanese balloon bomb attacks on North America during World War II and the Canadian response to them.

Episode 435: In November 1944, the Imperial Japanese Army began launching paper balloons from the coast of Honshu — each one carrying incendiary and anti-personnel bombs, designed to ride the jet stream across the Pacific and set fire to the forests of North America. They called the program Fu-Go. Canada called them White Paper. Over the following five months, more than sixty balloons came down on Canadian soil, from the British Columbia coast to Manitoba, and a small team of Canadian Army bomb disposal officers spent eight months recovering live ordnance from some of the most remote terrain in the country under a blanket of total secrecy that reached all the way to the Prime Minister's office.  Sources: Fu-Go Balloon Bomb — WikipediaJapan's WWII Balloon Bomb Attacks on North America — Smithsonian MagazineBalloon Bombs: Japan's Answer to Doolittle — National Museum of the United States Air ForceOn Paper Wings — IMDBOn Paper Wings Retrospective — Oregon HumanitiesOn Paper Wings — Oregon ArtsWatchOn Paper Wings Screening — Japanese American National MuseumOn 75th Anniversary, Bly Remains Connected to Tragic WWII Event —…

Topics covered

• World War II
• Japanese balloon bombs
• Canadian military history
• secrecy in wartime
• incendiary weapons
• Fu-Go program

Keywords

• balloon bombs
• Fu-Go
• World War II
• Canada
• incendiary bombs
• military history
• jet stream

Mentioned in this episode

Organizations: Imperial Japanese Army, Smithsonian Magazine, National Museum of the United States Air Force, Oregon Humanities, Oregon ArtsWatch, Japanese American National Museum, Herald and News, PBS History Detectives, Global News, BC Studies

Books & works: Fu-Go, White Paper, On Paper Wings

Places: Honshu, North America, British Columbia, Manitoba

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