Elleda Wilson: Too little, too late
May 4—On May 5, 1945, the only civilians killed on the U.S. mainland during World War II died in Bly, about 50 miles east of Klamath Falls. Here's what happened:
Elsye Mitchell, pictured, who was pregnant, her husband, Rev. Archie Mitchell, and five Sunday school children, including a brother and sister, drove to Gearhart Mountain for a picnic.
While Archie parked the car, Elyse and the children went exploring in the forest, came upon a weird-looking object, and shouted to him about it. "I ... hurriedly called a warning to them," Archie recalled, "but it was too late. Just then there was a big explosion. I ran up — and they were all lying there dead."
Adding to the community's misery over the losses, the military insisted that the story be kept secret, because the deaths had been caused by a Japanese balloon bomb, sometimes described as the first successful intercontinental weapon. This technology took more than two years of effort and engineering, along with study of the jet stream winds, which would enable the balloons to reach the U.S. in a few days. They stayed afloat with the help of a complicated system of sandbag releases until all that was left was the bomb by the time it reached the U.S.
It's estimated that the Japanese launched about 9,000 of these balloons, and that 1,000 made it to the U.S. mainland, smithsonianmag.com said. Although many incidents involving the balloons being spotted were reported, including a bomb blast in Dec. 1944 in Thermopolis, Wyoming, but the only deaths were in Bly.
Finally, on May 22, 1945, the War Department took the lid off the secrecy, and issued a statement about the bombs, "so the public may be aware of the possible danger and to reassure the nation that the attacks are so scattered and aimless that they constitute no military threat." Which was surely of little comfort to the community of Bly. The warning was too little and far too late. (Photo: Elsye/"On Paper Wings," Balloon/U.S. Department of Defense)
