La prima arma intercontinentale della storia

[Ospite intruder]

Purtroppo non c'è materiale in italiano se non un vecchio articolo di Selezione di circa 40 anni fa.

 

 

At about quarter past six on the evening of December 6, 1944, three men and a woman working outside a coal mine near the town of Thermopolis, Wyoming, heard a soft whistling sound overhead. There was an explosion. They looked up and saw flames high in the sky, and something like a parachute floating down. The next morning, searchers found a small crater nearby.

 

Less than a week later, two men stumbled on the crumpled remains of what seemed to be a large balloon strewn in a forest near Kalispell, Montana. They reported the incident to local authorities, who in turn notified the FBI. Inspection of the debris revealed Japanese markings. The Army, Air Force and Navy were informed of the discovery.

 

On December 31, another deflated balloon was found tangled in a tree near Etascada, Oregon. Charred metallic equipment dangled from it. Investigators carefully dislodged the pieces and carted them to the local high school, where they spread the fragments out on the floor of a tennis court for study. From the looks of it, the device might have been hanging in the tree for three or four days.

 

More strange debris turned up in Alaska and Saskatchewan. A few papers ran a story about the bomb-dropping balloon in Wyoming, but the other incidents received little publicity. Suddenly, on January 4, official wartime censorship clamped down. Pending further notice, editors were instructed to withhold all printed or broadcast news about the balloons.

 

It was a most unlikely turn of events. The U.S. government was shocked that so late in the war it would suddenly have to confront the renewed prospect of air attack against the American mainland. Though the public remained largely unaware, the military had some warning that something might be going on. In the preceding weeks, pieces of large balloons had been fished out of the ocean near Hawaii and off the coast of California. The initial report of the bomb near Thermopolis and sporadic retrievals of shredded balloon debris of unknown origin in the following days increased concerns, but the magnitude and exact nature of the threat was still unclear. Sightings of balloons in flight soon began coming in to air defense facilities; the first air interception of an unidentified balloon was fruitlessly attempted on December 19 over Los Angeles.

 

Technical Intelligence teams quickly organized an intensive study of the recovered mystery balloon components. What they found was startling. Despite initial speculation that the devices might be coming from Japanese detention centers in the Pacific Northwest, analysis of the equipment carried by the balloons led to the conclusion that they were probably originating in Japan itself. Using common materials, simple components, and sophisticated weather forecasting, the Japanese had evidently developed the first operational intercontinental weapon delivery system.

 

The first concern of US authorities, once the origin of the devices had been established, was the exact nature of what they could carry. In the second week of December, Colonel Murray Sanders, a bacteriologist from Fort Detrick, Maryland, the Army's biological warfare center, flew to Washington state to examine the collected debris.

 

The balloons were brought in, and we all stood around them, in a circle [sanders recalled]. All the scientific and military experts, all of us with our own thoughts. We examined them, and then we went away to make our own individual reports. Mine scared them stiff. . .. I told them that if we found Japanese B-encephalitis on any of the balloons we were in real trouble. Mosquitos were the best vectors - and we had plenty of those in the States - and our population had no defenses against B-encephalitis. . . . four out of five people who contracted it would have died, in my view.

 

Sanders was concerned about other possibilities:

 

Anthrax is a tough bug.... [the Japanese had] used it in China. They could have splattered the west and southwest of Canada and the United States. They could have contaminated the pastures and forests and killed all the cows, sheep, horses, pigs, deer -- plus a considerable number of human beings. The hysteria would have been terrible; one of the strengths of [biological warfare] as a weapon is that you can't see it, but it kills.

 

The menace of balloon-delivered toxicological materials was taken seriously. In at least a few instances, civilians were startled to see recovery personnel dressed in full protective garments prodding balloon wreckage with long poles, searching for evidence of germ-dispensers or chemical agents. As the debris was carted off for analysis, witnesses were told to keep quiet about what they had seen.

 

Canadian authorities provided Sanders with a mysterious little plastic box that they had found in balloon wreckage in Saskatchewan. To his relief, there were no dangerous microorganisms in it (it was probably nothing more sinister that the celluloid container protecting the balloon's battery). Sanders commandeered an old B-19 bomber and started a personal aerial reconnaissance of the Pacific Northwest, searching for downed balloons.

 

To forestall possible outbreaks of disease, under a program called "Lightning Project," the Army's Western Defense Command quietly began to stockpile decontamination supplies in areas deemed at greatest risk. Farmers' organizations and veterinarians were advised by government agencies, without elaboration, to be particularly watchful for unusual diseases in crops or livestock.

 

The Japanese called the balloon weapons Fu-Go ("Fu" being the first character of the Japanese word for balloon). They were assembled by hand -- usually by schoolgirls after classes -- and made from cheap, non-critical materials. The balloons themselves were thirty-three feet in diameter, made of a type of paper derived from a common Japanese shrub, and gas-proofed with vegetable starch. Suspended by cables from the spherical balloon envelope was an aluminum ring, about three feet across, which supported a control and ballast system and the bomb load. Around the rim of the ring was a series of 32 "blow-out plugs" similar to explosive bolts. Each plug supported a ballast sandbag.

 

The balloons were launched, partially filled with hydrogen, from several sites on the east coast of Honshu, the Japanese main island. Climbing rapidly, they would soon reach a cruising altitude of about 30,000 feet. Japanese Army researchers had discovered that at these heights there existed high-speed currents of wind which could carry the Fu-Go all the way to North America. Above 16,000 feet, the hydrogen would expand the envelope into a spherical shape. As night fell and the gas cooled, the balloons would begin to shrivel and lose altitude. At a predetermined minimum altitude, barometric switches would snap closed, energizing electrical circuits to the blowout plugs. A pair of ballast bags would be cut free, and the Fu-Go, lightened, would begin to climb back into the high-altitude windstream. If the balloon flew too high, a spring-loaded valve would release a puff of hydrogen. Day and night the cycle repeated. If all went according to plan, by the time the last plugs, fastened to the bombs, were fired, the balloon would be over enemy territory. As a final step, a flash-bomb attached to the balloon was supposed to detonate, incinerating the evidence and adding to the mystery of the device's origin. The plans were ambitious. 10,000 of the inexpensive Fu-Go were going to rain bombs on North America. In November, 700 were actually launched; the next month, 1,200.

 

At first, American authorities were not greatly concerned by the small fire-bombs carried by the balloons, but they realized that if biological warfare agents turned out to be present on the balloons, it would be necessary to mount a full-scale interception effort. In preparation, they needed to thoroughly understand the balloon's design and flight performance. Several well-preserved examples were quickly reassembled and tested by military labs. Elaborate blueprints of all components were prepared. The ballast system was analyzed to determine cruising altitude and endurance. The US military was concerned that the radars it possessed would have trouble detecting the balloons at their high float altitudes; by the middle of February, several Fu-Go were sent to Army radar laboratories in New Jersey for reflectivity tests. Samples of sand from recovered ballast bags were distributed to geologists for analysis. Based on the analysis of fossil marine microorganisms in one sample, the scientists made a remarkably accurate guess at its launch site. Ballast from another balloon found in Canada contained distinctive particles of blast furnace slag, giving another clue to its origin.

 

Fu-Go and the US Fire Raids

 

The initiation of the Japanese balloon bombing campaign against the US came just as the American strategic bombing of Japan was moving into its decisive phase. The huge new Boeing B-29 Superfortress was operating in increasing numbers against the Japanese home islands from bases in China and the Marianas Islands. In the preceding months, the bombers had dropped their loads of high-explosive bombs from high altitudes, aiming by radar to avoid flak and fighter interception with inevitable reduction of strike accuracy. On November 24, 1944, the first US strike on Tokyo since the famous 1942 Doolittle raid produced little significant damage.

 

In the fall of 1944, a panel of experts under the direction of Dr. Vannevar Bush had noted the that unique nature of Japanese targets -- largely densely packed wood and paper structures -- could make incendiary bombing much more effective than the so-called "precision bombing" techniques in standard use. Special clustered fire bombs were developed for the B-29s, and experimental raids in late December had favorable results. By the beginning of the new year, General "Hap" Arnold, Chief of Staff of the Army Air Force, had assigned generals Curtis LeMay and Roger Ramey the task of leading bombing operations against Japan. On January 3, 1945, in a major escalation of the fire-bombing technique, fifty-seven B-29s, each carrying about three thousand pounds of incendiaries, struck Nagoya.

 

At 5:40 on the evening of January 4, a small incendiary bomb fell from the sky and exploded on a farm outside Medford, Oregon. About a half hour later, a largely intact Japanese balloon settled into a field near Sebastopol, California, bearing four fire bombs. It was these incidents, combined with concerns over biological warfare, which provoked the imposition of censorship about the Japanese balloon attacks. The American public was not to know that the Japanese were striking back in kind (if not in proportion).

 

For the next two months, Fu-Go arrived over North America in increasing numbers. 2,500 of the devices drifted through the North Pacific skies in February alone, and despite the obstacles of distance, weather, and mechanical malfunction, many survived to reach the US and Canada. Bombs fell in California and Saskatchewan. Fu-Go debris was discovered in Arizona, Alaska, Iowa and Nebraska. A few balloons were intercepted and shot down by fighters. Soon reports were coming in at the rate of several per day. Bits of metal, fragments of paper, exploded and unexploded bombs turned up in Washington, British Columbia, Manitoba, Idaho, Colorado, Michigan, Mexico, Texas. One Fu-Go even dropped in Everett, Washington, uncomfortably close to the Boeing plant.

 

By the end of March, American intelligence authorities produced an "estimate", or probability study, of the possible purpose of the Japanese balloon campaign. In descending order of probability, they concluded that the devices were employed for:

 

1. Bacteriological or chemical warfare, or both.

2. Transportation of incendiary and antipersonnel bombs.

3. Experiments for unknown purposes.

4. Psychological efforts to inspire terror and diversion of forces.

5. Transportation of agents.

6. Anti-aircraft devices.

 

The vital Boeing facilities near Seattle had to be guarded at all costs. As the Everett balloon had shown, sheer coincidence could bring a bomb down in some critical spot. Even a brief disruption of B-29 production had to be avoided. Civilian morale was a fragile thing. If the Japanese learned that their attacks were having an effect, they would be encouraged to increase the tempo of launches. In the worst-case scenario of the actual use of biological warfare substances in the balloons, large portions of the Pacific Northwest might be in grave danger. The threat of balloon-ignited forest fires was an additional nightmare. If the incendiary bomb flights continued into the dry summer months, a major disaster was all too possible. Nearly three thousand soldiers were put on call to fight balloon-ignited fires.

 

Prior to the advent of the Fu-Go, the Army had largely dedicated its west coast air bases to training activities due to the lack of a realistic air threat from Japan. It quickly began to construct a suitable network of command and control facilities to deal with the balloon problem. To protect the strategic installations surrounding Seattle, the Army initiated "Sunset Project," an integrated radar warning and fighter control system.

 

Sunset Project

 

The Project's early-warning radar network west of Seattle consisted of three search radars, with two more sited southwest of the city and another based at Paine Field. In addition, a contingent of hundreds of civilian spotters, called the Ground Observer Corps, was trained to scan the skies for strange objects. (it is unclear whether the GOC observers were told the exact nature and importance of the targets they were seeking. In view of the secrecy surrounding the Fu-Go it seems possible that full details were withheld).

 

Contacts by GOC observers and search radars would be relayed to a Filter Center, where air defense officers would consolidate sighting reports with information about weather conditions, known air traffic and the status and location of interceptor aircraft. If an observation was judged to be a genuine hostile target, the Filter Center would scramble an interceptor. The fighter, usually a Lockheed P-38 Lightning or Northrop P-61 Black Widow, would be directed to the vicinity of the target by another type of radar facility called Ground-Controlled Intercept (GCI). GCI controllers would track both the unknown target and the interceptor, guiding the fighter to the vicinity of the unknown where its on-board radar should be able to acquire the target. In view of the nature of the targets, an easy kill could be expected. The system was partially in place by late April 1945.

 

On February 19, Curtis LeMay elevated the firebombing of Japan the top priority of his command. Six days later, 450 tons of incendiaries rained on Tokyo. LeMay made an even bigger shift in tactics a few days later, when he ordered his crews to strip their bombers of nearly all defensive armament and make their next drops from a mere 6,000 feet. Late on the windy night of March 9, B-29s began to incinerate downtown Tokyo. 279 of the huge bombers unloaded 2,000 tons of napalm into the crowded homes and factories of the capital. An incredible hurricane of flame erupted from the paper city. Sixteen square miles were obliterated, 100,000 were killed; 1,000,000 were left homeless.

 

On the afternoon of March 10th, a soggy Fu-Go sank from a rainy Washington sky and floated into the high-tension power lines leading from the Bonneville Dam. The lines shorted and protective gear shut them down. Power was lost to a portion of the state. Inside the blacked-out region was the Manhattan Project's supersecret Hanford Works, where the new "B" Reactor was generating plutonium for experiments at Los Alamos, the headquarters of America's top secret nuclear bomb project. Deprived of its electric cooling pumps, "B" Reactor shut down. It was three days before full production could be resumed.

 

Ironically, the Tokyo fire raid helped to bring an end to the Fu-Go project. Subcontractors were destroyed and hydrogen production was disrupted. US censorship had denied the Japanese significant intelligence on the effectiveness of the weapon. Continued effort seemed wasted. Launches virtually ended in April.

 

By the time the elaborate Sunset Project balloon interception network became fully operational in May, there was no longer a Fu-Go threat to counter. The setup and integration of the radar stations had taken almost two months, but the highly motivated and primed observers were finally equipped and ready to scan the skies. At several bases, interceptors stood alert to engage and destroy the deadly intruders, and antiaircraft artillery sites were on hair-trigger status.

 

The watchers expected balloons, and even though there were no more Fu-Go, they saw them: sixty-eight times interceptors were scrambled by the Seattle Control Group on non-existent Fu-Gos which turned out, on further investigation, to be Navy blimps, Venus, or the weather balloons launched four times a day from the bigger airports in the country.

 

The interceptor force commanders were puzzled by the continual false alarms. There was obviously some fundamental problem with visual tracking of unknown aerial objects. Both ground personnel and fighter crews would benefit from practical experience with locating and intercepting realistic targets under controlled circumstances. The idea of repairing captured Fu-Go and sending them toward Seattle was mooted, and there was even a proposal to develop special target balloons for training purposes. The schemes were never implemented and the Sunset Project died with the end of the War.

 

But the Fu-Go saga was not over. Over 9,000 had been launched. The grounded remains of hundreds of the lethal devices were scattered over a vast area of North America -- pieces would continue to turn up into the 1960s -- and the public was largely unaware of their existence. On May 5, 1945, two adults and five children were picnicking in a forest near the small town of Bly, in south central Oregon, when they stumbled on the ballast device of a downed Fu-Go. One of them must have tampered with it. A fragmentation bomb still attached to the device exploded, instantly killing one of the adults and all five children. Incredibly, secrecy remained in place for another two weeks. Finally, on May 22, over a month after Fu-Go launches had probably ended, the US government issued a statement warning of the Japanese balloons and the hazards of handling strange debris.

 

The Japanese finally had scored a propaganda victory, and they proceeded to exploit it. Broadcasting in English on June 4, a Japanese military spokesman claimed that the launches up to that point had merely been experiments. Soon, "large-scale attacks with death-defying Japanese manning the balloons" would be launched. It was a seeming confirmation of the worst-case US estimate in March. US technical intelligence engineers quickly calculated that a manned balloon using Fu-Go technology was feasible. The diameter of the envelope would have to be doubled, and a pressurized gondola would be necessary to insure the survival of the occupant at stratospheric altitudes for the four days needed to cross the Pacific. If launched from a ship or submarine close to US coastal waters, however, such a device might be less complex. [1]

 

Shortly after the June 4 statement, another Japanese spokesman threatened ominously that the Fu-Go were merely a "prelude to something big. "

 

J. Robert Oppenheimer, the director of the Manhattan Project, would recall an incident at Los Alamos, high on a remote plateau in New Mexico, just before the fateful Trinity nuclear tests test on July 16, 1945:

 

Very shortly before the test of the first atomic bomb. . .I remember one morning when almost the whole project was out of doors staring at a bright object in the sky through glasses, binoculars, and whatever else they could find; and nearby Kirtland Field reported to us that they had no interceptors which had enabled them to come within range of the object. Our director of personnel was a man of some human wisdom; and he finally came to my office and asked whether we would stop trying to shoot down Venus.

 

The most brilliant physicists in the world were no less prone to war jitters than anyone else. Some of the scientists were convinced that they could see a "gondola" hanging from the "balloon."

 

Sources and Notes

 

[1] As bizarre as the idea of waves of attack balloons occupied by suicidal Japanese soldiers may have seemed, the threat had some substance. The Japanese had proven all too willing to resort to suicide attacks. They had designed two different types of aircraft -- one propeller-driven, one rocket-powered -- specifically for use by Kamikaze suicide pilots. The rocket-boosted machine, the MXY-7 Ohka (Cherry Blossom), was actually used in combat in the final stages of the war, as many as 75 being launched at Allied targets in the vicinity of Okinawa. A Kamikaze balloon would be an unlikely but not totally impossible extension of this technique. When the Kalispell, Montana Fu-Go was recovered in late 1944 and before the imposition of censorship, Newsweek magazine openly speculated (1 Jan 45 issue) that the balloon might have been used to transport an agent from Japan. Moreover, the Japanese had developed a special version of the Fu-Go that was intended to be launched from submarines - but carried only a new form of special incendiary payload designed to burn forests.

 

[2] For the record, this is the same W Guy Banister who became a figure in the JFK assassination mythos in the 1960s. No endorsement of these conspiracy theories is intended or implied. However, years after his involvement with the Fu-Go and Twin Falls "disc" incidents, Banister made bizarre and intriguing statements linking unusual outbreaks of cattle and crop diseases in the US and Canada to "airborne germs" that he believed originated in Russia. Could this be a clue that he had the same ideas about the 1947 saucers?

 

Mikesh, Robert C. , Japan's World War II Balloon Bomb Attacks on North America (Washington, DC: Smithsonian Institution Press, 1973)

 

Rhodes, Richard, The Making of the Atomic Bomb (New York: Simon and Schuster, 1986)

 

Webber, Bert, Silent Siege III: Japanese Attacks on North America in World War II (Medford, OR: Webb Research Group Publishers, 1997)

 

Williams, Peter and David Wallace, Unit 731: Japan's Secret Biological Warfare in World War II (New York: The Free Press, 1989)

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Fu Go

Modificato 1 Luglio 2008 da intruder

[Blue Sky]

Molto interessante Intruder!

Ho Trovato un Link molto simile al tuo !!!

The first intercontinental weapon system: Japanese Fu-Go balloons By Joel Carpenter

 

Altro Link da prendere in considerazione!!!

Japanese Fu-go Bombing Balloons (Il Link contiene altri collegamenti inerenti l'argomento!)

Modificato 1 Luglio 2008 da Blue Sky

[Dominus]

Ne parla anche Millot nel suo libro, in ogni caso furono un fallimento anche se bisogna dargli atto di esser stati fantasiosi.

[Ospite intruder]

Se furono un fallimento è grazie anche al grande senso di responsabilità dei cronisti americani che accettarono di non divulgare la notizia, così come fu fatto in un paio di casi di attacchi a terra da parte di sommergibili giapponersi emersi davanti le coste deella California e dell'Oregon (in un caso pare abbiano sparato a terra proiettili caricati con spore di non so quale porcheria preparate dall'Unità 731). Altrimenti il panico avrebbe fatto più morti di Little Boy.

[Gian Vito]

Ricordo il bombardamento effettuato con un piccolo idrovolante imbarcato su sommergibili (E14Y). Sganciò sull'Oregon 4 bombe al fosforo, sopra le foreste. Pare non se ne sia accorto nessuno.

Come giustamente dice Intruder, fu il controllo e l'autocontrollo della stampa ad impedire la diffusione della notizia dei palloni. Anche nel dopoguerra la notizia venne censurata a lungo: l'idea avrebbe potuto essere sfruttata dai russi.

[Pete57]

Una curiosità: un Fu-Go fu l'unica vittoria aria-aria conseguita dai Bell P-63 Kingcobra dell'USAAF.

[vorthex]

(in un caso pare abbiano sparato a terra proiettili caricati con spore di non so quale porcheria preparate dall'Unità 731)

c'è qualche informazione in più circa questo avvenimento?

[Ospite intruder]

c'è qualche informazione in più circa questo avvenimento?

 

 

Francamente non so, provo a cercare sull'web, è una cosa che lessi tempo fa da qualche parte, mi pare su Soldier of Fortune o su un volume o articolo dedicato all'Unità 731.

[CHAFFEE79]

beh su un libro di fantasia avevo letto di un tentato attacco conidrovolanti, nonpensavo fosse vero.

[Ospite intruder]

beh su un libro di fantasia avevo letto di un tentato attacco conidrovolanti, nonpensavo fosse vero.

 

 

Il libro cui ti riferisci è di Clive Cussler e ti assicuro che si documenta molto bene. L'attacco con gli idrovolanti fu studiato veramente, anche se non al porto di San Francisco, ma alle chiuse del canale di Panamà. Datti un'occhiata a questo bestione:

 

Si tratta delle foto di un sommergibile giapponese del tipo I 400. Ne furono costruiti solo 3 o 4 esemplari, dovevano portare tre idro da bombardamento Aichi Seiran in un hangar più un quarto smontato e fino all'entrata in servizio dei Lafayette furono i più grandi battelli subacquei mai costruiti, dislocavano oltre seimila tons in immersione...

 

 

 

Aichi Seiran conservato allo Smithsonian di Washington.

 

 

Displacement: 5,223 tons

6,560 tons

Length: 122 m (400 ft)

Beam: 12.0 m (39 ft)

Draft: 7.0 m (23 ft)

Propulsion: 4 diesels: 7,700 hp (5.7 MW), surface

Electric motors: 2,400 hp (1.8 MW), submerged

Speed: 18.75 knots (35 km/h), surfaced

6.5 knots (12 km/h)

Range: 37,500 nmi. at 14 knots

(69,500 km at 26 km/h)

Test depth: 100 m (330 ft)

Complement: 144

Armament: • 3 Aichi M6A1 Seiran sea-planes

• 8 × 533 mm forward torpedo tubes

• 1 × 140 mm (5.51 in) 40 caliber gun

• 3 × 25 mm 3-barrel machine gun

• 1 × 25 mm machine gun

 

 

 

Lo hangar.

 

 

ù

L'equipaggio fotografato dopo la cattura da parte americana del battello.

 

 

Guarda le dimensioni del ponte...

 

 

 

 

Japan's WWII Monster Sub

How the deadly Sen-Toku mission almost succeeded.

by Irwin J. Kappes

 

Jules Verne's fictional "Nautilus" submarine had every comfort, including a pipe organ and picture windows. But even Verne's fertile imagination would have been overtaxed by the possibility of submarines large enough to have hangars that could each carry and launch three bomber aircraft. It's a notion that wouldn't even have appeared in the daydreams of an errant 20th century schoolboy. But born of desperation, just such a monster submarine actually made its little-known appearance in World War II.

 

 

Il resto dell'articolo lo trovi qui: http://www.militaryhistoryonline.com/wwii/...monstersub.aspx

Modificato 4 Luglio 2008 da intruder

[Ospite galland]

“Storia generale della Guerra nel Pacifico” è una autentica miniera di notizie; trattate col rigore e la misura propri dell’autore Prof. Alberto Santoni. Vediamo come affronta il tema del topic di Intruder.

 

All’inizio del 1944, viste le difficoltà sorte nella realizzazione del Fugaku, prese forma in Giappone un interessante piano di bombardamento del suolo metropolitano statunitense per mezzo di palloni di carta di riso aventi un diametro di dieci metri. Questi palloni, riempiti di idrogeno e trasportanti ciascuno tre bombe esplosive da 15 kg. ed una bomba incendiaria da 5 kg., sarebbero stati affidati alla corrente aerea detta “jet stream” e avrebbero dovuto raggiungere gli Stati Uniti alla velocità di 160-320 km/h e ad una quota compresa tra i 9.150 e i 10.700 metri. L’ardito progetto ebbe origine dallo studio prebellico inteso ad inviare dalla Manciuria al territorio sovietico palloni carichi di materiale propagandistico.

Dopo un fallito tentativo compiuto nell’aprile del 1944 con il lancio di duecento palloni, uno speciale reggimento di aerostati iniziò il 1° novembre dello stesso anno e continuò per altri sei mesi il regolare involo di circa 9.300 palloni esplosivi verso gli Stati Uniti, in esecuzione dell’operazione denominata FU-GO diretta dal gen. Kusaba .

L’ingegnoso sistema di bombardamento per mezzo dei suddetti palloni merita di essere chiarito. Un preventivo studio sulle velocità delle correnti aeree alle varie altezze indusse i tecnici nipponici a dotare i palloni di un sistema regolatore di quota basato su una bilancia barometrica, che costringeva gli stessi a navigare tra i 9.150 e i 10.700 metri. Quando i palloni tendevano a superare la quota prescritta veniva messo automaticamente in funzione dalla bilancia barometrica un meccanismo che permetteva la fuoriuscita di una giusta quantità di idrogeno; se invece essi scendevano al di sotto della quota consentita un altro meccanismo lasciava cadere nel vuoto un certo numero di sacchetti di sabbia da zavorra.

In seguito ad un calcolo approssimativo delle variazioni medie di quota, forniti da altri palloni guida costruiti in seta e gomma e muniti di radio-segnale, i tecnici giapponesi imbarcarono sui palloni bombardieri un numero di sacchetti di sabbia sufficiente per far raggiungere agli ordigni, alla quota stabilita, il territorio americano, avendo l’accortezza di collegare lo sganciamento dell’ultimo sacchetto con quello del carico bellico e con l’attivazione di un congegno di demolizione dell’involucro.

I risultati di questo ingegnoso impegno giapponese non furono tuttavia pari alle aspettative e agli sforzi, tenendo soprattutto presente a quest’ultimo riguardo che dal febbraio 1945 il numero dei palloni costruiti mensilmente raggiunse le 5.578 unità e che in tutto ne vennero completati sedicimila, aventi ciascuno un costo di circa ottocento dollari dell’epoca.

Il primo recupero di un pallone esplosivo fu effettuato il 4 novembre 1944 da un battello costiero americano presso le spiagge meridionali della California e l’11 dicembre successivo fu avvistato a Kalispell, nel Montana, il primo degli ordigni in volo. Da allora si verificarono circa centocinquanta recuperi di frammenti di palloni dalle Aleutine al Messico e dalla California al Michigan.

All’inizio le autorità statunitensi cedettero di avere a che fare con frammenti di palloni meteorologici, ma dal gennaio del 1945, con il ritrovamento di parti più complete di quegli ordigni, si fece strada la convinzione che si trattasse di strumenti bellici. L’esatta natura dei palloni non fu però identificata neanche in quel periodo ed ancora nel marzo del 1945 le autorità americane pensavano che essi fossero veicoli per armi batteriologiche e propagandistiche, oppure perfino vettori di spie e terroristi. Infine il recupero di un pallone intatto, scoperto in volo da un velivolo da ricognizione e sospinto forzatamente verso terra dal flusso d’aria causato dall’elica dell’aereo, permise agli studiosi americani di conoscere completamente le sue caratteristiche e la sua missione.

In seguito agli avvistamenti e ai recuperi dei palloni esplosivi si provvide negli Stati Uniti a costituire un apposito organo difensivo e la 4° Forza Aerea fu interessata a tale scopo. Tuttavia gli strumenti d’intercettazione predisposti non ebbero tempo di provare la loro efficacia contro la nuova minaccia, in quanto ai primi di maggio del 1945 i palloni bombardieri nipponici cessarono di giungere sul continente americano, essendo stato posto termine all’operazione FU-GO. Infatti il rigido riserbo delle autorità statunitensi ed una accurata censura avevano ottenuto da soli l’effetto di scoraggiare i giapponesi dal proseguire quel tipo di incursioni dai risultati sconosciuti. Questi ultimi del resto, come abbiamo detto, furono veramente modesti e le uniche vittime riconosciute dell’intera operazione FU-GO furono sei membri di una comitiva uccisi il 5 maggio 1945 da una bomba ritrovata nei boschi dell’Oregon presso Bly. Secondo altre recenti notizie tali ordigni nipponici avrebbero anche interrotto per qualche tempo il rifornimento di energia elettrica ai laboratori di Hanford nello Stato del Washington, dove venivano compiuti i lavori per la terza bomba atomica americana.

 

La vicenda dei palloni di carta di riso viene anche narrata in “Guerra aerea 1939-1945” di Janusz Piekalkiewicz, Editore De Agostini.

[Ospite intruder]

Non sapevo di queste opere, tutto quello che ho sotto mano io è in lingua inglese e il ricordo di un vecchio articolo su Selezione degli anni 60. Grazie per la precisazione, comunque.

[Ospite galland]

Non sapevo di queste opere, tutto quello che ho sotto mano io è in lingua inglese e il ricordo di un vecchio articolo su Selezione degli anni 60. Grazie per la precisazione, comunque.

Dato che, come ripeto di continuo, sono una persona mezzo istruita (ho la III media) non conosco l'inglese, perciò non so se quanto da te postato ed il brano di Santoni (cliente della libreria Ares e da me conosciuto personalmente) citato collidano come nozione dei fatti.

Dovrebbe esserci anche un ulteriore libro che ne parla, devo cercarlo appena arrivo a casa...

[Ospite intruder]

Ci sono alcune differenze fra i due testi, più che altro nelle date e località del primo ritrovamento (fra l'altro i palloni finitrono pure in Canada, pare), ma non posso escludere che l'imprecisione appartenga al testo inglese che ho postato io dall'web. Ho tre libri sull'argomento (uno limitato alla sola Unità 731), ma non li ho ancora letti, lo farò quanto prima.

 

 

Una cosa rimarcano tutte le fonti anglosassoni che ho potuto consultare, ed è la paura che quei palloni portassero bombe batteriologiche, i giapponesi le avevano usate con successo in Cina provocando epidemie di antrace, peste, vaiolo e colera che fecero almeno 200 mila morti. Secondo alcune fonti in almeno un pallone furono trovate bacilli dell'antrace, le altre non ne parlano. Intanto consiglio a tutti i tre volumi, almeno a quelli che sanno l'inglese, perché in italiano fino al tuo post di poco fa credevo ci fosse nulla.

 

 

 

 

Mikesh, Robert C. , Japan's World War II Balloon Bomb Attacks on North America (Washington, DC: Smithsonian Institution Press, 1973)

 

 

 

Webber, Bert, Silent Siege III: Japanese Attacks on North America in World War II (Medford, OR: Webb Research Group Publishers, 1997)

 

Williams, Peter and David Wallace, Unit 731: Japan's Secret Biological Warfare in World War II (New York: The Free Press, 1989)

Modificato 9 Luglio 2008 da intruder

[Gian Vito]

Nessun timore. La storia del progettato attacco è vera. Per quanto riguarda invece l'unico bombardamento aereo riuscito (con idrovolanti):

 

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Yokosuka_E14Y

 

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/I-25_%28submarine%29

 

P.S.: Ricordo anch'io gli articoli di Selezione anni '60. I migliori. Ne ho una bella raccolta.

Modificato 9 Luglio 2008 da gianvito

[Ospite intruder]

Un pallone abbattuto ripreso dalla cinemitragliatrice di un P38.

 

 

 

 

Sarebbe interessante scoprire da dove esce il termine Fu Go, i giapponesi li chiamavano 風船爆弾 fūsen bakudan, pallone bomba.

 

Ho scoperto un'altra cosa interessante. Gli inglesi attuarono un programma analogo, Outward, che previde il lancio di 99142 palloni: 53343 portavano 3 bombe incendiarie da 6 libbre (2,7 kg), e 45599 cavi d'acciaio che dovevano cortocircuitare gli elettrodotti tedeschi incontrati sulla via. I primi furono lanciati il 20 Marzo 1942, gli ultimi il 4 Settembre 1944. L'idea venne a Winston Churchill, dopo che il 17 Settembre 1940 una tempesta aveva strappato dagli ormeggi diversi palloni da sbarramento che erano arrivati fino in Finlandia, danneggiando elettrodotti e creando scompiglio ai tedeschi.

 

Outward riscosse un discreto successo, dopo i primi incendi causati alle foreste e le interruzione di corrente (in un caso, nel Luglio 1942, saltò un'intera centrale nei pressi di Lipsia, bloccando improtanti industrie belliche per giorni), i edeschi si videro costretti a tentare di intercettare quei cosi, e sicuramente costò a loro più tempo e carburante e quindi denaro che agli inglesi costruirli e lanciarli.

 

BIBLIOGRAFIA: James Healy, Operation Outward, Aviation News Magazine, (Novembre 1986): pag. 590:591.

 

 

Forse i giapponesi si ispirarono a questa operazione, di cui, giuro, non avevo mai sentito parlare prima d'ora.

 

 

 

Per quanto riguarda gli altri attacchi al Nord America, volendo escludere le Hawaii e l'Alaska (entrambi semplici Territori, all'epoca, e le Hawaii sono comunque in Oceania), ho trovato questo:

 

 

Faro di Estevan Point, British Columbia, Canada: 20 Giugno 1942, il sottomarino giapponese I26, al comando di Minoru Yokota, emerse davanti ad esso e sparò 30 colpi col suo cannone da 140 mm. Fece molto rumore e pochi danni, ma costrinse le autorità a ordinare lo spegnimento di tutte le luci dei fari con conseguenze disastrose per la navigazione.

 

 

La notte fra il 21 e 22 Giugno 1942, vi fu invece l'unica azione della guerra contro una installazione militare sul territorio americano. Il sottomarino I25, ai comandi di Meji Tagami, emerse davanti la foce del Columbia, nello stato dell'Oregon, e sparò diversi colpi contro Fort Stevens, colpendo il locale campo di baseball e alcuni cavi (aerei) telefonici. Non fu risposto al fuoco per non fornire la posizione delle batterie, e il sommergibile fu successivamente attaccato da alcuni aerei in volo di addestramento ma sfuggì. E probabilmente è in questo caso che furono sparati proiettili contenenti spore di antrace, anche se pare ne siano stati ritrovati anche nei palloni bomba.

Modificato 9 Luglio 2008 da intruder

[Ospite galland]

Mentre stavo effettuando una ricerca di tutt'altro genere mi sono reso conto che sul numero 169 dell’ottobre 2007 di “"Storia Militare"” è contenuto un importante articolo sull'argomento "I palloni da bombardamento" di Mauro Fiorini.

In tredici pagine l'autore affronta l'utilizzo di tale arma da parte degli inglesi (Operazione "Outward"), a suo parere:

 

"Senza un grande sforzo in termine di costi, materiali e uomini, i britannici riuscirono a mantenere in allarme le difese aeree tedesche, con il conseguente dispendio di materiali e macchine per i tentativi di intercettazione; questo fu vero almeno per tutto il 1942, quando lo sforzo diurno dell’ 8° Air Force americana non era ancora al suo massimo. Per gli anni seguenti [l'operazione cessò il 4 settembre 1944] non si può certo fare un confronto diretto con il sempre maggiore impegno che i tedeschi profusero contro la minaccia rappresentata dai bombardieri anglo-americani."”

 

Viene quindi analizzata l'operazione "Fugo" dei giapponesi, corredato con numerose foto ed una cartina indicante le località di partenza. L'apparato di note e la bibliografia, nonché la serietà della rivista diretta da Erminio Bagnasco sono garanzie dell’esattezza dei dati riportati.

Chi volesse copia dell’articolo mi contatti a mezzo MP.

 

Il sito web della rivista è: www.storiamilitare-aes.com (Scuste ma non so fare il link).

 

Faccio comunque notare come, in Giappone la tradizione delle mongolfiere sia assai remota, di molto precedente a quella dei noti fratelli in Francia.

Modificato 13 Luglio 2008 da galland

[Ospite intruder]

Mentre stavo effettuando una ricerca di tutt'altro genere mi sono reso conto che sul numero 169 dell’ottobre 2007 di “"Storia Militare"” è contenuto un importante articolo sull'argomento "I palloni da bombardamento" di Mauro Fiorini.

In tredici pagine l'autore affronta l'utilizzo di tale arma da parte degli inglesi (Operazione "Outward"), a suo parere:

 

"Senza un grande sforzo in termine di costi, materiali e uomini, i britannici riuscirono a mantenere in allarme le difese aeree tedesche, con il conseguente dispendio di materiali e macchine per i tentativi di intercettazione; questo fu vero almeno per tutto il 1942, quando lo sforzo diurno dell’ 8° Air Force americana non era ancora al suo massimo. Per gli anni seguenti [l'operazione cessò il 4 settembre 1944] non si può certo fare un confronto diretto con il sempre maggiore impegno che i tedeschi profusero contro la minaccia rappresentata dai bombardieri anglo-americani."”

 

Viene quindi analizzata l'operazione "Fugo" dei giapponesi, corredato con numerose foto ed una cartina indicante le località di partenza. L'apparato di note e la bibliografia, nonché la serietà della rivista diretta da Erminio Bagnasco sono garanzie dell’esattezza dei dati riportati.

Chi volesse copia dell’articolo mi contatti a mezzo MP.

 

Il sito web della rivista è: www.storiamilitare-aes.com (Scuste ma non so fare il link).

 

Faccio comunque notare come, in Giappone la tradizione delle mongolfiere sia assai remota, di molto precedente a quella dei noti fratelli in Francia.

 

 

In Cina pare che le prime mongolfiere siano apparse all'epoca di Annibale... la storia delle invenzioni antiche, del resto, dalle pile di Bagdad in poi, e senza tirare in ballo Mohenjo Daro, è un capitolo da discutere, ma non basterebbe tutto il forum.

Modificato 13 Luglio 2008 da intruder