Nine-year-old Lawrence “Buzz” Bailey and two neighbor kids ran excitedly toward a large balloon floating to earth on farmland in North Dorr, a rural community in Allegan County south of Grand Rapids. It was Feb. 23, 1945, and they didn’t realize they were discovering the remnants of a Japanese attack on the U.S.

Bailey went on to serve in the U.S. Army in Germany in the early 1950s. "I tell the guys in the VFW post I'm a part of that I was in the Second World War at age 9," says Bailey, now 84 and living in Newaygo. "I was a balloon expert."

November marks the 75th anniversary of the start of an unusual, mostly unknown chapter of World War II — Operation Fu-Go, the Japanese launching of more than 9,300 large, bomb-laden, hydrogen balloons, carried east across the Pacific Ocean by the jet stream at high altitudes to cause destruction and chaos in the U.S. and Canada.

The effort mostly failed, though about 280 of the balloons or their components were later found in North America, with the two easternmost discoveries being in Michigan — at North Dorr and another discovered near 8 Mile and Gill roads in Farmington the following month.

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The balloon attacks went almost completely uncovered in the U.S. news media at the time — because the U.S. War Department wanted it that way. American media largely adhered to a request from the federal government's Office of Censorship to not publicize the balloon findings.

"It was a different era," said Ross Coen, an assistant professor of history at the University of Alaska-Fairbanks and author of "Fu-Go: The Curious History of Japan's Balloon Bomb Attack on America."

"They didn’t want there to be panic in the streets over bombs raining down silently from the skies all over the United States. But also, they wanted to deny the Japanese any sort of intelligence on where and when these balloons were landing — information that could be used to better perfect their flights on later balloon launches."

A retaliation plan

The Japanese had multiple goals with the operation, Coen said.

"On a practical level, the Japanese thought it would create large, widespread wildfires in the western states that Americans would have to fight by diverting resources that would otherwise go toward the war in the Pacific."

The balloon bombs also were intended as weapons of terror, he said.

"They were hoping word would get in the newspapers and people would be terrorized," Coen said. "On the other side, if they were able to boast that raging fires were occurring all over the U.S., it would boost the morale of the Japanese people as well."

Show caption Hide caption This Japanese bomb-carrying balloon caught in a tree on the Roland E. North farm on Feb. 23, 1945. The balloon was the only one reported... This Japanese bomb-carrying balloon caught in a tree on the Roland E. North farm on Feb. 23, 1945. The balloon was the only one reported to have landed in Kansas. No bombs were found; no damage inflicted. This photograph was taken by North with a Kodak before the balloon was deflated. U.S. Army

That morale among Japanese citizenry had taken a blow following the Doolittle Raid, a surprise attack on Tokyo on April 18, 1942, by U.S. bombers launched from an aircraft carrier. While the raid itself inflicted little damage, it humiliated Imperial Japan and its military, said Michael Unsworth, a retired history librarian at Michigan State University who has written and lectured on the balloon bombs.

"They felt honor-bound to retaliate," he said.

But the Japanese had no similar long-range capabilities — particularly after the significant losses their Pacific fleet had taken in the Battle of Midway in June 1942.

That's when Japanese strategists and researchers hit upon using the jet stream, a west-to-east air current in the upper atmosphere only discovered by a Japanese researcher, Wasaburo Oishi, in the mid-1920s. His research didn't receive extensive international attention because he published it in Esperanto, a dialect invented in the 1880s in an attempt to create a uniform international language.

The balloons developed for the mission were 33 feet in diameter and filled with about 19,000 cubic feet of hydrogen. They were made out of layers of thin, fibrous paper made from mulberry bushes that, pasted together with a vegetable-based glue, made for a tough, canvas-like balloon material.

Hanging from the balloons by ropes was an elaborate "chandelier" featuring fuses, switches, batteries and, typically, one high-explosive bomb and two incendiary bombs. Ringing the chandelier were 7-pound sandbags.

Show caption Hide caption The bomb load of a Japanese Fu-Go balloon is attached to a “chandelier” with an automatic release mechanism. An exploding fuse releases a sandbag to... The bomb load of a Japanese Fu-Go balloon is attached to a “chandelier” with an automatic release mechanism. An exploding fuse releases a sandbag to help keep the balloon at sufficient altitude, as shown in this movie still. National Archives, U.S. Army Air Corps (Air Force)

"Japanese engineers knew that at night, at 35,000 feet, temperatures would drop to minus-65 centigrade," or minus-85 Fahrenheit — temperatures that would cause the high-flying, hydrogen balloons to begin to drop, Coen said.

The sandbags were ballast, he said. When the balloons dropped below a certain height, an onboard altimeter would trigger a small charge, dropping a sandbag from the balloon.

"It was an ingenious way to keep the balloons aloft for the 6,400-mile journey to the United States," Coen said. "That said, it's estimated there was probably about a 90% failure rate."

As the balloons dropped their last sandbags and neared the ground, other small flash bombs would trigger to drop the incendiary bombs and high explosive. As the last bomb was dropped, a long, 64-foot fuse was also lit, leading to another flash device to destroy the balloon.

"If the thing worked as planned, you'd have unexplained explosions, maybe a flash in the sky," Unsworth said.

Bombs on the wind

On Nov. 3, 1944, after nearly two years of research and manufacture — which included enlisting Japanese schoolgirls to help make the balloons — the Japanese military began to launch the bomb-laden balloons into the sky from Japan's main island of Honshu.

Within two days, a Navy patrol off the coast of California spotted balloon debris in the Pacific that ultimately made its way to the FBI. As the weeks passed, more balloon fragments were found at sea.

In November and December 1944, reports began to pop up across the western U.S. of citizens finding fragments of the balloon bombs or hearing explosions.

"Over the month of December was when the War Department figured out what was going on and put that censorship order in place," Coen said.

But the large-scale wildfires the Japanese had hoped for never materialized.

"The jet stream is the strongest in the winter months, from November to March," Coen said. "That's the best window when you could expect the balloons to make it to the United States. But that's also the same time that the jet stream is bringing all of this moisture from the Pacific, which is why it's rainy in the Pacific Northwest. That worked to prevent fires from spreading."

The war reaches Dorr

Bailey was accompanied by his friends, neighbors Robert and Kenneth Fein, ages 11 and 10, respectively, as he chased the sinking balloon in the sky that February morning in 1945.

"We lived out on a dairy farm, wide-open spaces," Bailey said. "From the next house, you're 1,320 feet apart, but neighbors are neighbors.

"When we first saw it, it was in the sky, coming down on a slow angle. It landed about a half-mile from us."

A family friend of the Baileys, Joe Wolf, was visiting, and took the boys in his pickup to the balloon landing site, off 21st Street, about 50 yards off the road.

There, they found a deflating balloon canopy with numerous ropes hanging off of it. "It had a platform on it about 4 foot square, 6 inches thick, made of steel. It was all charred black," Bailey said.

The balloon's bombs had already been dropped. But, in that moment, the boys and Wolf had no idea what they'd found.

The large balloon was hooked to the back of Wolf's pickup and slowly dragged back to the Feins' house, Bailey recalled. They stuffed it through the back door and down into the basement, where its sheer bulk filled the room, Bailey said.

"We didn't know what to do with it."

The Fein brothers' mother, Genevieve Fein, called the local parish priest to the house to share the finding, Bailey said.

"We lived in a Roman Catholic neighborhood," he said. "In those days, anything that was unusual, the first person you called was your priest. That's just the way you did it."

The priest suggested contacting the police, and the Kent County Sheriff's Department responded.

"I always thought that was odd since it was Allegan County," Unsworth said. "But I'm told it was just a rural thing. In those days, there was less concern about jurisdictional boundaries, and whoever was closest would respond."

Deputies contacted the National Weather Service. "They didn't know anything — they didn't have any balloons in the air," Bailey said.

The Michigan Department of Conservation, the precursor agency to the DNR, also was called, Bailey recalled.

"The next day, the federal government — I don't know the agency, it was intelligence of some kind — they came out, and (the balloon) disappeared," Bailey said. "And then you couldn't learn a thing about it for 30 years."

A firebomb on 8 Mile Road

On a Sunday afternoon in late March 1945, Mr. and Mrs. William Hedt were sitting in the living room of their home on Fendt Street, near 8 Mile and Gill roads in Farmington, when Mrs. Hedt's attention was captured by an unusual sound.

"At the time Mrs. Hedt had heard a muffled report similar to a shot, and happened to look out the window," a classified report from from the U.S. Army's Security and Intelligence Division would later state.

She noticed a fire in an open lot, approximately three-quarters of a city block northeast of their home, the since-declassified Army report states. She called over her husband to look, and he suspected it was a bonfire.

The fire lasted about 3 minutes, but then began to "spurt," according to the report. William Hedt thought the spurting flames "were similar to those which he had seen caused by magnesium," the report stated.

The fire died out, and the couple forgot about it — until their neighbor, John T. Cook, brought over an unusual object more than two months later.

Cook was tending his garden on Gill Road in late April when he found what looked to him like a shiny, new tin can. He flung the can aside with his shovel and continued his work.

That June, Cook was again working in the garden, again encountered the tin can, and again moved it away, the Army report stated. The next day, Cook read a newspaper story about Japanese balloon bombs that urged citizens to report to police any suspicious-looking objects. He took a second look at the tin can from his garden. It was 13 inches in circumference, about 9 inches long, and had a wooden plug about 3.75 inches long encased in the top of the can. The wooden plug had unusual grooves.

Cook decided to show the can to his neighbor, a Michigan State Police sergeant — William Hedt. The Hedts recalled the fire they'd seen in March as in the vicinity of where Cook had found the can.

"This object is being turned over to the Army Intelligence at Detroit Michigan for disposition," a Michigan State Police report dated June 9, 1945, stated.

The Army intelligence report from 10 days later confirmed the item as the lower portion of a Japanese incendiary bomb from the Fu-Go campaign.

For all the Japanese balloon bombs that likely didn't complete their mission, it appears the one from Farmington did, Unsworth said.

"In that case, I think the balloon worked as designed," he said. "There was an explosion, there was a fire, and nobody ever found the balloon. My guess is that it self-destructed over Ontario."

A tragedy in Oregon

On May 5, 1945, the Rev. Archie Mitchell, his pregnant wife, Elsye Mitchell, and a group of Sunday school children headed to Gearhart Mountain in southern Oregon for a picnic.

Elsye Mitchell and the children left the car, and Archie Mitchell then parked it. As he was returning, he heard his wife and the children excitedly calling out about something they'd found in the woods. Before he could warn them to stay away from it, there was an explosion.

They had found one of the Japanese balloon bombs, which had probably been on the ground for two months, Coen said. One of the children must have inadvertently set off its high-explosive bomb, he speculated.

Killed were Elsye Mitchell, 26; Sherman Shoemaker, 11; Eddie Engen, 13; Jay Gifford, 13; Joan Patzke, 13; and Dick Patzke, 14.

It made them the only U.S. fatalities from an enemy attack on the U.S. mainland in World War II.

Show caption Hide caption A master aneroid (center, covered) controls the Japanese Fu-Go balloon’s minimum altitude. The others are used if the master fails. Uncovered aneroids show how the... A master aneroid (center, covered) controls the Japanese Fu-Go balloon’s minimum altitude. The others are used if the master fails. Uncovered aneroids show how the electrical current circuit is closed when increased air pressure forces down the disk, bringing a wire loop in contact with a horizontal pin which passes through center of the loop. This fired off a small charge that would drop a ballast sand bag, helping to keep the balloon at the desired altitude for the long journey across the Pacific to North America. National Archives, U.S. Army Air Corps (Air Force)

It was after that incident that the War Department lifted the censorship policy. "There may be other balloons laying on the ground out there, and if we keep it a secret, more people could be killed," Coen said.

Once Bailey learned of the Oregon incident, he realized how lucky he and his friends had been when they encountered only the balloon portion of the Japanese Fu-Go bomb in North Dorr.

"We would have moved it and everything, anyway," he said. "If the bomb had still been on there, there's a chance we would have detonated it. You wouldn't be talking to me now."

One other balloon bomb incident brought the most incredible of coincidences. On March 10, 1945, a Fu-Go balloon bomb tangled in high-power lines near Hanford, Washington, knocking out power to the Hanford Site, a plutonium processing facility working on the Manhattan Project, the atomic bombs that would later be dropped on Hiroshima and Nagasaki and hasten the end of World War II. The facility averted a nuclear meltdown, but was shut down for three days.

They may still be out there

By mid-April 1945, having received little feedback on the results of their balloon bombing campaign and needing to concentrate on homeland defense as American bombing raids intensified, the Japanese ended Operation Fu-Go.

The Japanese had launched more than 9,300 balloon bombs toward the West. Only 284 were found in North America, though researchers believe perhaps 1,000 made it across the Pacific.

That means they may still be out there. The last remnants of one of the balloon bombs was found by forestry workers in the mountains near Lumby, British Columbia, in Canada in 2014. Only some of the metal canopy remained; no signs of the balloon were discovered. A naval bomb squad was called in to detonate the fragments as a precaution.

UPDATE: A British Columbia newspaper reported that a man searching for mountain goats found the remnants of a Japanese balloon bomb last month — October 2019 — in a remote area of dense forests and mountains by the Raush River west of Dunster.

Show caption Hide caption A Japanese-launched balloon bomb like this one apparently exploded near Farmington in March 1945 during World War II. A canister from the balloon's incendiary bomb... A Japanese-launched balloon bomb like this one apparently exploded near Farmington in March 1945 during World War II. A canister from the balloon's incendiary bomb was found by a man tending his garden near 8 Mile and Gill roads. Free Press file, Free Press file

Meanwhile, the North Dorr balloon has returned to Michigan, after more than 70 years. After Army Intelligence took the balloon, it ultimately ended up at the U.S. Naval Air Station at Lakehurst, New Jersey, an airship base and balloon research facility. Stationed at the base was Don Piccard, who came from a family of balloon researchers and adventurers. At the end of World War II, Piccard was allowed to take one of the collected Japanese balloons as a souvenir back to his home state of Minnesota. He chose the balloon that landed at North Dorr.

Two years later, in 1947, Piccard flew the balloon over the Twin Cities to earn his Free Balloon Pilot Certificate from the Civil Aviation Agency, now the Federal Aviation Administration.

The balloon then sat, rolled up in a large drum, at Piccard's house for decades. When a Grand Rapids TV reporter tracked down the story in 2017, it piqued the interest of the Byron Center Historical Society, a few miles from North Dorr. With the help of a donor, the society purchased the balloon from Piccard for $10,000. Plans are underway to display the balloon at the Air Zoo Aerospace and Science Museum in Portage, and the Byron Center Historical Society is raising funds to help make it happen.

Robert C. Mikesh, now 91, was a pilot and author who wrote one of the first books on Operation Fu-Go, "Japan's World War II Balloon Bomb Attacks on North America," in 1973.

The Japanese operation can't be called a failure, he said. It was the first intercontinental ballistic missile in the history of warfare.

"This is a story of bombing the contiguous United States," he said. "Even though it wasn't very effective, it achieved its objective of long-range bombing attacks."

Contact Keith Matheny: 313-222-5021 or kmatheny@freepress.com. Follow on Twitter @keithmatheny.