Welcome to the WWII Forums! Log in or Sign up to interact with the community.

Biological Fugo's

Discussion in 'What If - Pacific and CBI' started by mille125, Apr 3, 2011.

  1. mille125

    mille125 Member

    Joined:
    Apr 2, 2011
    Messages:
    12
    Likes Received:
    0
    Great responses......what are your thoughts on the balloons that were largely unsuccessful but supposedly did cause one forest fire injuring 3 mainland civilians (the only mainland civilians likely killed in the war).....was this a one time try or did the japanese try a more widespread campaign that just resulted in very limited success....I cannot find a lot of info on this.....If someone has a resource, please share.....By the way this is a great forum...
     
  2. formerjughead

    formerjughead The Cooler King

    Joined:
    Dec 29, 2008
    Messages:
    5,627
    Likes Received:
    1,006
    It wasn't a forest fire it was an actual unexploded bomb that was found by a family while on a pic nic near Bly Oregon Killing a woman and 5 children.
    Here is a link to one of the Forest Rangers who responded to the incident:
    BLY, OREGON BALOON BOMBING

    The presence of these weapons was highly classified. There was a Parachute Infantry Battalion that was tasked with responding to any fires caused by these devices; the 555th PIB which had detachments in several towns on the west coast, including Chico and Redding California with a headquarters unit in Pendleron, Oregon.
    http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/555th_Parachute_Infantry_Battalion_(United_States)
     
  3. lwd

    lwd Ace

    Joined:
    Jul 24, 2007
    Messages:
    12,322
    Likes Received:
    1,245
    Location:
    Michigan
    The influenza virus can't live outside a host for very long so the balloons wouldn't be a good way of delivering it. I'm not sure what diseases the Japanese weaponized but I know there was at least one. I don't think it was ammenable to the balloon delivery either.
     
  4. lwd

    lwd Ace

    Joined:
    Jul 24, 2007
    Messages:
    12,322
    Likes Received:
    1,245
    Location:
    Michigan
    It was apparently quite an extensive program although not very successful. I've heard some of the balloons got as far as Michigan.

    About the dangers of radiation. I remember hearing that Mac wanted to create a radioactive bearier between China and Korea. Given the knowledge at the time does anyone have any idea just how hot he planned on making it?
     
  5. formerjughead

    formerjughead The Cooler King

    Joined:
    Dec 29, 2008
    Messages:
    5,627
    Likes Received:
    1,006
    Considering the transit from Japan took only 3-4 days it is plausible that even if someone with the flu sneezed on the rice paper balloon the virus could have been transmitted. It is also not uncommon for other viruses to present themselves with flu like symptoms in the early stages as influenza viruses are often used as the "Host virus" for many bio weapons.
     
  6. lwd

    lwd Ace

    Joined:
    Jul 24, 2007
    Messages:
    12,322
    Likes Received:
    1,245
    Location:
    Michigan
    I've seen nothing about the Japanese having a capability for combining viruses. Most of the effort I've read about in WWII era was simply how to "weaponize" biologicals. I thought I'd remembered the flu virus surviving a matter of minutes outside the host so I looked it up. Here's what wiki says about it at:
    Influenza - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
    If you don't like wiki (I don't trust it all that much myself) here's another source:
    http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/18359825
    Given the low temps aloft it's possible that the viruses would still have been active. However they wouldn't have been arosolized so it would depend on some one coming into contact with the rice paper soon after it landed and then putting his hand in his/her mouth or nose soon after contact and before washing hands note the 5 minute survival time on human skin. Given the population density in the regions target by the Japanese and the fact that fire bombs could be very effective (perhaps even more effective) in low population areas I would think it highly unlikely that they attempted this. Even if they did I'm not sure it would have caused a noticeable increase in the presence of flu in the US population.
     
  7. formerjughead

    formerjughead The Cooler King

    Joined:
    Dec 29, 2008
    Messages:
    5,627
    Likes Received:
    1,006
    You're missing what I am saying. Given the amount of effort, by the US Government, to conceal the presence of these weapons (from both the Japanese and US citizens) it would be interesting to see if there was a correlating spike in illnesses reported to the health departments or any type of 'suggested' innoculations; wther it be 'influenza' or some other virus.
     
  8. lwd

    lwd Ace

    Joined:
    Jul 24, 2007
    Messages:
    12,322
    Likes Received:
    1,245
    Location:
    Michigan
    A campaign to increase inoculations might indeed be suggestive of at least some suspicions on the part of American authorities. Given the low probability of infection unless it was some weird tropical disease I doubt any increase could be discerned vs the back ground.
     
  9. RabidAlien

    RabidAlien Ace

    Joined:
    Mar 2, 2011
    Messages:
    1,084
    Likes Received:
    102
    I read recently that the Japanese sent up thousands of the fire-bomb balloons, but most of them either drifted astray and lost pressure, coming down in the ocean, or burst due to flaws in the materials, and only a very few actually made it to the US. Due to the low population density in the areas that the balloons went feet-dry (the Japanese failed to take into account that the jet stream did not cross over San Francisco, apparently), most of the bombs either disappeared, or started small fires in the rain-forests on the north-west coast, which either burned themselves out rather quickly, were put out without much problem by locals, or simply failed to explode due to corrosion/damage done by the high winds in the jet stream. Of course, take this info with a very large grain of salt....I couldn't even finish the book, it was so poorly written/edited (spelled one guy's name two different ways...within three sentences of each other). It would be interesting to find out what our plans were, had the Japanese actually employed a successful biological attack, whether directed against our troops, or against the civilian populations. I can imagine that, at that point, all gloves come off and the Allies get REALLY pissed.
     
  10. lwd

    lwd Ace

    Joined:
    Jul 24, 2007
    Messages:
    12,322
    Likes Received:
    1,245
    Location:
    Michigan
    Looking around I didn't find anything to support Japanese use of flu as a weapon. However I did find the following info at: Unit 731
    Looks like the quote function isn't working right
     
  11. mille125

    mille125 Member

    Joined:
    Apr 2, 2011
    Messages:
    12
    Likes Received:
    0
    Influenza cannot be weaponized in a way that it would be delivered via balloon bomb. I am an MD. Trust me on this one
     
  12. formerjughead

    formerjughead The Cooler King

    Joined:
    Dec 29, 2008
    Messages:
    5,627
    Likes Received:
    1,006
    I used influenza as an example because the virus has been able to live for up to 17 days on items such as money. Many bio weapons exhibit 'flu like symptoms' after exposure and I would assume that, in lieu of other symptoms (especially in the early stages or limited exposure) or direct attack, exposure to a biological weapon might be passed off as a strain of influenza by public health.

    The only point I am try ing to make is that: Japan may very well have tried to release a bio weapon via balloon bomb; however, any such infections or outbreaks could have been 'covered up' in the interest of national security and recorded simply as 'Influenza' or another common viral infection.

    I am not saying they weaponized the flu. What was said is that the transit time from Japan to Mainland US was 3-4 days and that if a child, who had the flu, gluing the rice paper balloon together sneezed on the paper the flu virus could still be active on the paper. Then it was nit pic'd into the flu can't be weaponized. Most bio weapons exhibit flu like symptoms in the early stages after exposure. That's all there is to it.
     
  13. formerjughead

    formerjughead The Cooler King

    Joined:
    Dec 29, 2008
    Messages:
    5,627
    Likes Received:
    1,006
    Move along....nothing to see here...double post.
     
  14. mille125

    mille125 Member

    Joined:
    Apr 2, 2011
    Messages:
    12
    Likes Received:
    0
    You are missing my point. I am simply refuting your initial point of delivering a bioweapon via a balloon/balloon bomb. Even with today's advances it would be very difficult to do this using a balloon as a delivery system.
     
  15. brndirt1

    brndirt1 Saddle Tramp

    Joined:
    Jul 7, 2008
    Messages:
    9,713
    Likes Received:
    1,501
    I believe that Brad was trying to convey that we (America) had full knowledge of the "plague bombs" used by the Japanese in China where bubonic plague was spread by dropping clay bombs which would explode at a few hundred meters after being dropped from aircraft without killing the infected fleas within them. These were successfully employed and killed thousands of Chinese.

    The fear was that Unit 731 may have developed a method of keeping the fleas alive for their trip across the Pacific in the Jet Stream using the Fugo hydrogen balloons, and could have created a biological weapon in so doing. Just what that Unit had been doing since the Chinese "experiments" was largely unknown to the US, and that was the reasoning behind the fear. Or perhaps they had figured out ways of delivering other bio-weapons by balloon which we knew full well they had used in China. Anthrax, Glanders, etc..
     
    A-58, USMCPrice and formerjughead like this.
  16. formerjughead

    formerjughead The Cooler King

    Joined:
    Dec 29, 2008
    Messages:
    5,627
    Likes Received:
    1,006
    It could have been a very viable weapons platform and could have been untilized as such had the Japanese known, for certain, any of the balloons had reached the US. Of the 9,000 balloons launched there have only been 1,000 confirmed as successfully reaching the US so to say that Japan never tried to introduce Bio weapons via this mechanism is pretty narrow. I think it is even more narrow to assume that had Japan known that they had successfully reached the US with more than 10% of these bombs, or if any of the bombs had found a populated area, they wouldn't have tried bio weapons.

    11% is a not a bad number considering the simplicity of the delivery mechanism. I just don't think there is enough known about this program to use words like 'never' and 'couldn't'.

    I grew up hearing stories about these and even when I was a kid in the 70's we were cautioned about not touching these if we found them. A couple of years ago a friend of mine in Oregon found parts one while logging. There is a lot more to these than we'll ever know.

    Exactly.....:S!
     
  17. brndirt1

    brndirt1 Saddle Tramp

    Joined:
    Jul 7, 2008
    Messages:
    9,713
    Likes Received:
    1,501
    Here is a good site on the Fugo bombs.

    Goto:

    Fugos

    And as Brad said, there are still some of the buggers being found even today. They have been reported as far north as Alaska, as far south as Mexico, and as far east as Michigan. That site doesn't give the same number as Brad's did, fewer than a thousand out of 9,000... But still an interesting break-down of the delivery system.
     
  18. formerjughead

    formerjughead The Cooler King

    Joined:
    Dec 29, 2008
    Messages:
    5,627
    Likes Received:
    1,006
    Here's another site and is the one I pulled my numbers from:
    Japanese Balloon Bombs (Fu-Go Weapon)

    Wiki and it's broad strokes provides a very concise synopsis:
    http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fire_balloon
     
  19. lwd

    lwd Ace

    Joined:
    Jul 24, 2007
    Messages:
    12,322
    Likes Received:
    1,245
    Location:
    Michigan
    A source I mentioned down thread a bit does state that some Japanese generals considered attacking the US with biological balloon bombs. I suspect however that their technical experts convinced them it just wasn't possible to accomplish much that way for several reasons:
    1) The balloon bombs would produce an extremely strenuous regime to most biologicals. Very few agents of the time could survive the transit.
    2) The probability of human contact was low and much of the contact would involve a significant delay after the balloon landed. The chances of even one landing in a city were very remote. Most probably ended up in the Rockies or the Cascades and a fair number at sea. East of the Cascades and West of the Mississippi was a very low population area at that time.
    3) Even with contact the chance of someone actually getting the disease would in most cases have been pretty low. The list of agents that were hardy enough to make the trip and still remain highly contagious was certainly not large.

    If they had tried it the US would probably not have had to try and hide anything during the war. The cases would have been so few as to be unnoticeable in the general background noise.
     
  20. mille125

    mille125 Member

    Joined:
    Apr 2, 2011
    Messages:
    12
    Likes Received:
    0
    My point is that if the Japanese wanted to use biological weapons against the US interests, their best bet would have be to do something similar to what was done in China (ie Plague) in the Phillipines, SE Asia, or some other theater that was within striking range. The idea of biologicals in a balloon released thousands of miles away is bereft of logic. For biologicals to be effective you must have some control over the delivery system and over the area that you are targeting. Biologicals in a balloon does neither of these. It is a very time consumptive process especially in the 1940s to devise a plan like this.
     

Share This Page