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The Day The Japs Bombed DeLeon, Texas
kimi
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From an e-mail:
The Day The Japs Bombed DeLeon, Texas
I have been asked at least a dozen times, if an article I wrote several years ago for the Free Press, about the Japanese bombing of DeLeon, Texas was true. A newspaper in Lake Charles, Louisiana even called to get sources so they could write a feature story. Well, the story is true and it occurred in the spring of 1945.
By the time the Jap bombs dropped around the DeLeon area, the war was winding down. A little more than a month after the bombings, Germany surrendered. Everyone felt that it was just a matter of time until Japan did the same, but most feared that it would take an invasion of the Japanese mainland with the loss of thousands, if not hundreds of thousands more lives. Though rumors abounded among U.S. servicemen that a super bomb was under construction, few realized that the two atomic bombs would so quickly end the fighting. Most feared it would take another year for the ultimate victory to be achieved.
One of the reasons for the belief that the war with Japan might take yet another year was the persistence of the obviously defeated Japanese. They had tried kamikaze attacks, banzai attacks, and in many battles, had chosen mass suicide rather than surrender.
On November 3, 1944, the Japanese began a new wave of terror, launching bomb carrying balloons from the eastern shore of Japan into the what we now call the jet stream on a path toward the United States. The date picked to start the bombings was the birthday of their Emperor. The balloons were made of five layers of paraffin covered rice paper and were filled with hydrogen. Each carried five bombs, four of which were incendiaries and one 33 pound fragmentary anti-personnel device.
Research on the subject has revealed some differences in the number of bombs officially listed by the military as having fallen in Texas and the number reported in the newspapers of the day. Sadly, there are no DeLeon papers available from that time period to clarify the events.
It was not until a minister on a picnic in Oregon watched as his pregnant wife and six children were killed by one of the bombs while he parked the car that the military began to inform people of the danger and acknowledged that bombs were coming from Japan on the jet stream. The deaths in Oregon occurred forty-three days after bombs fell in the Texas area.
Just less than 300 bomb laden balloons out of about 9,000 that were launched, managed to cross the Pacific into North America between November 1944 and July 1945. Upon reaching the jet stream, some 30,000 feet in the air, they would move at a speed of between 80 and 120 miles an hour, dropping bombs from Alaska, through Canada and as far south as DeLeon and as far east as Detroit and Sault St. Marie.
Officially, balloons dropped bombs in Texas at three locations, one east of DeLeon, one south of Desdemona and one near Woodson in Throckmorton County. However, several newspapers carried stories of bombs dropped in Brown County.
The bombs in the DeLeon appear to have dropped from two separate balloons, both of which appear to have passed over the area on or about March 23, 1945. I will refer to one as the DeLeon balloon and the other as the Desdemona balloon.
The DeLeon balloon was spotted as it crossed south of the DeLeon city limits. It apparently dropped one of its bombs between DeLeon and Comyn, as an explosion was heard that was so loud that farmers from just east of DeLeon to some well into Erath County reported hearing the blast. The papers of the day reported the explosion but blamed it on a fuel tank. After the war, the bomb attack was acknowledged and the fuel tank explanation dropped. This balloon is believed to have landed near Desdemona, but in Erath County.
Better documented is the balloon that landed just west of the present home of Pug and Vonnie Guthery a mile or so south of Desdemona.
Several people throughout the area had signed up as Civilian Air Observers. One such individual was Inez Heeter. Mrs. Heeter, was the daughter of Dr. Snodgrass, perhaps the most respected citizen ever to have lived in Desdemona and had grown up in the community.
Although she had maintained a vigil of the skies throughout the war, there had been virtually nothing to report until the afternoon of March 23, 1945.
According to the Dallas Morning News, a Japanese balloon floated over the Magnolia Refinery and across Desdemona just after school let out for the day. Visibly emblazoned on top with the rising sun of Imperial Japan, Mrs. Heeter was certain it was no weather balloon. She immediately called the number she had been provided but found the officer on the other end of the line skeptical of her report.
But Mrs. Heeter was by no means the only person to see the balloon. The men at the refinery watched it pass over the plant and the kids heading home on the school bus saw it too. The balloon drifted downward until it landed just south of Desdemona, inside Comanche County, a couple of miles from the Desdemona cemetery.
When Pug Guthery got off the school bus, he raced toward the balloon. By the time he reached it, the balloon had flattened out. He remembered it as being a large balloon with grass ropes and a gondola attached to the bottom. He immediately got a whiff of creosote and because of that, kept his distance. Other kids who arrived very quickly after Pug were not so careful and began to remove pieces of the balloon. They were extremely lucky, for the balloon had already released its bombs.
It appears that both the DeLeon and Desdemona balloons had begun dropping their bombs as they started to descend over Brown County. One bomb buried itself eight feet deep in a Brown county pasture before exploding and creating a crater at the site. A second bomb apparently exploded in the air southwest of DeLeon. A third bomb was buried about six feet deep in a field just north of DeLeon, but failed to explode. The other bomb exploded between DeLeon and Comyn.
The next day, military officials came to the area to retrieve the balloons. They went to the Desdemona school to collect the pieces taken by the students but gave no explanation of what the balloon was, where it came from or even warning them of the danger.
The Desdemona kids could hardly be blamed for their lack of caution. The military secrecy did not let the public know of the danger and the silence resulted in the loss of the people in Oregon. A memorial plaque at that Oregon site bears the following inscription, "The only place on the American continent where death resulted from enemy action during World War II."
The balloons were hard for the military to bring down. In Minnesota, an Air Corps plane attempted to overtake a balloon. The pilot climbed to 17,000 feet and was still well below the balloon and could not match its speed. The military claimed that only two bombs seriously threatened a real military target. One fell near a military post in California, the other only ten miles from a major Detroit plant. They never acknowledged that the bombs that fell in Brown County were not all that far from Camp Bowie.
A G-2 Periodic report now available on the internet indicates that in the cases of the two balloons, the military found a single balloon in one case while in the other they found both the balloon and fragments of a bomb. Both were recorded as having been found at Desdemona.
Just 135 days later on August 6, 1945 (DeLeon date August 5 due to international date line), the U.S. dropped the first atomic bomb on Hiroshima and ten days later Japan surrendered.
Sources: Fort Worth Star Telegram, August 23, 1945; The Houston Post, The Dublin Progress August 24, 1945; Comanche Chief; the Dallas Morning News Westward supplement, December 7, 1980.
This article originally appeared in the September/October 1995 issue of The Messenger.
The Day The Japs Bombed DeLeon, Texas
I have been asked at least a dozen times, if an article I wrote several years ago for the Free Press, about the Japanese bombing of DeLeon, Texas was true. A newspaper in Lake Charles, Louisiana even called to get sources so they could write a feature story. Well, the story is true and it occurred in the spring of 1945.
By the time the Jap bombs dropped around the DeLeon area, the war was winding down. A little more than a month after the bombings, Germany surrendered. Everyone felt that it was just a matter of time until Japan did the same, but most feared that it would take an invasion of the Japanese mainland with the loss of thousands, if not hundreds of thousands more lives. Though rumors abounded among U.S. servicemen that a super bomb was under construction, few realized that the two atomic bombs would so quickly end the fighting. Most feared it would take another year for the ultimate victory to be achieved.
One of the reasons for the belief that the war with Japan might take yet another year was the persistence of the obviously defeated Japanese. They had tried kamikaze attacks, banzai attacks, and in many battles, had chosen mass suicide rather than surrender.
On November 3, 1944, the Japanese began a new wave of terror, launching bomb carrying balloons from the eastern shore of Japan into the what we now call the jet stream on a path toward the United States. The date picked to start the bombings was the birthday of their Emperor. The balloons were made of five layers of paraffin covered rice paper and were filled with hydrogen. Each carried five bombs, four of which were incendiaries and one 33 pound fragmentary anti-personnel device.
Research on the subject has revealed some differences in the number of bombs officially listed by the military as having fallen in Texas and the number reported in the newspapers of the day. Sadly, there are no DeLeon papers available from that time period to clarify the events.
It was not until a minister on a picnic in Oregon watched as his pregnant wife and six children were killed by one of the bombs while he parked the car that the military began to inform people of the danger and acknowledged that bombs were coming from Japan on the jet stream. The deaths in Oregon occurred forty-three days after bombs fell in the Texas area.
Just less than 300 bomb laden balloons out of about 9,000 that were launched, managed to cross the Pacific into North America between November 1944 and July 1945. Upon reaching the jet stream, some 30,000 feet in the air, they would move at a speed of between 80 and 120 miles an hour, dropping bombs from Alaska, through Canada and as far south as DeLeon and as far east as Detroit and Sault St. Marie.
Officially, balloons dropped bombs in Texas at three locations, one east of DeLeon, one south of Desdemona and one near Woodson in Throckmorton County. However, several newspapers carried stories of bombs dropped in Brown County.
The bombs in the DeLeon appear to have dropped from two separate balloons, both of which appear to have passed over the area on or about March 23, 1945. I will refer to one as the DeLeon balloon and the other as the Desdemona balloon.
The DeLeon balloon was spotted as it crossed south of the DeLeon city limits. It apparently dropped one of its bombs between DeLeon and Comyn, as an explosion was heard that was so loud that farmers from just east of DeLeon to some well into Erath County reported hearing the blast. The papers of the day reported the explosion but blamed it on a fuel tank. After the war, the bomb attack was acknowledged and the fuel tank explanation dropped. This balloon is believed to have landed near Desdemona, but in Erath County.
Better documented is the balloon that landed just west of the present home of Pug and Vonnie Guthery a mile or so south of Desdemona.
Several people throughout the area had signed up as Civilian Air Observers. One such individual was Inez Heeter. Mrs. Heeter, was the daughter of Dr. Snodgrass, perhaps the most respected citizen ever to have lived in Desdemona and had grown up in the community.
Although she had maintained a vigil of the skies throughout the war, there had been virtually nothing to report until the afternoon of March 23, 1945.
According to the Dallas Morning News, a Japanese balloon floated over the Magnolia Refinery and across Desdemona just after school let out for the day. Visibly emblazoned on top with the rising sun of Imperial Japan, Mrs. Heeter was certain it was no weather balloon. She immediately called the number she had been provided but found the officer on the other end of the line skeptical of her report.
But Mrs. Heeter was by no means the only person to see the balloon. The men at the refinery watched it pass over the plant and the kids heading home on the school bus saw it too. The balloon drifted downward until it landed just south of Desdemona, inside Comanche County, a couple of miles from the Desdemona cemetery.
When Pug Guthery got off the school bus, he raced toward the balloon. By the time he reached it, the balloon had flattened out. He remembered it as being a large balloon with grass ropes and a gondola attached to the bottom. He immediately got a whiff of creosote and because of that, kept his distance. Other kids who arrived very quickly after Pug were not so careful and began to remove pieces of the balloon. They were extremely lucky, for the balloon had already released its bombs.
It appears that both the DeLeon and Desdemona balloons had begun dropping their bombs as they started to descend over Brown County. One bomb buried itself eight feet deep in a Brown county pasture before exploding and creating a crater at the site. A second bomb apparently exploded in the air southwest of DeLeon. A third bomb was buried about six feet deep in a field just north of DeLeon, but failed to explode. The other bomb exploded between DeLeon and Comyn.
The next day, military officials came to the area to retrieve the balloons. They went to the Desdemona school to collect the pieces taken by the students but gave no explanation of what the balloon was, where it came from or even warning them of the danger.
The Desdemona kids could hardly be blamed for their lack of caution. The military secrecy did not let the public know of the danger and the silence resulted in the loss of the people in Oregon. A memorial plaque at that Oregon site bears the following inscription, "The only place on the American continent where death resulted from enemy action during World War II."
The balloons were hard for the military to bring down. In Minnesota, an Air Corps plane attempted to overtake a balloon. The pilot climbed to 17,000 feet and was still well below the balloon and could not match its speed. The military claimed that only two bombs seriously threatened a real military target. One fell near a military post in California, the other only ten miles from a major Detroit plant. They never acknowledged that the bombs that fell in Brown County were not all that far from Camp Bowie.
A G-2 Periodic report now available on the internet indicates that in the cases of the two balloons, the military found a single balloon in one case while in the other they found both the balloon and fragments of a bomb. Both were recorded as having been found at Desdemona.
Just 135 days later on August 6, 1945 (DeLeon date August 5 due to international date line), the U.S. dropped the first atomic bomb on Hiroshima and ten days later Japan surrendered.
Sources: Fort Worth Star Telegram, August 23, 1945; The Houston Post, The Dublin Progress August 24, 1945; Comanche Chief; the Dallas Morning News Westward supplement, December 7, 1980.
This article originally appeared in the September/October 1995 issue of The Messenger.
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I had read of the Oregon incident... But, not the Texas one. Thanks.
I had heard of Oregon also they were hoping to start fires in the forest.
Just 135 days later on August 6, 1945 (DeLeon date August 5 due to international date line), the U.S. dropped the first atomic bomb on Hiroshima and ten days later Japan surrendered.
Payback's a *, ain't it?
Thanks to Jack Lehman, Navy Diver (Ret.), for bringing this to my attention. Authored by Norm Goyer, it was found on Aircraft Market Place Blog.
September 9, 1942, the I-25 B1 type Japanese submarine was cruising in an easterly direction raising its periscope occasionally as it neared the United States Coastline. The B1 type was the most numerous class of Japanese submarines. They were fast, long-ranged, and carried a seaplane behind watertight doors, which could be launched on a forward catapult.
Japan had attacked Pearl Harbor less than a year ago and the Captain of the attack submarine knew that Americans were watching their coast line for ships and aircraft that might attack our country. Dawn was approaching; the first rays of the sun were flickering off the periscopes lens. Their mission; attack the west coast with incendiary bombs in hopes of starting a devastating forest fire. If this test run were successful, Japan had hopes of using their huge submarine fleet to attack the eastern end of the Panama Canal to slow down shipping from the Atlantic to the Pacific. The Japanese Navy had a large number of I-400 submarines under construction. Each capable of carrying three aircraft. Pilot Chief Warrant Officer Nobuo Fujita and his crewman Petty Officer Shoji Okuda were making last minute checks of their charts making sure they matched those of the submarine's navigator.
The only plane ever to drop a bomb on the United States during WWII was this submarine based Glen.
September 9, 1942: Nebraska forestry student Keith V. Johnson was on duty atop a forest fire lookout tower between Gold's Beach and Brookings Oregon. Keith had memorized the silhouettes of Japanese long distance bombers and those of our own aircraft. He felt confident that he could spot and identify, friend or foe, almost immediately. It was cold on the coast this September morning , and quiet. The residents of the area were still in bed or preparing to head for work. Lumber was a large part of the industry in Brookings, just a few miles north of the California Oregon state lines.
The aircraft carried two incendiary 168 pound bombs and a crew of two.
Aboard the submarine the Captain's voice boomed over the PA system, "Prepare to surface, aircrew report to your stations, wait for the open hatch signal" During training runs several subs were lost when hangar door were opened too soon and sea water rushed into the hangars and sank the boat with all hands lost. You could hear the change of sound as the bow of the I-25 broke from the depths, nosed over for its run on the surface. A loud bell signaled the "All Clear." The crew assigned to the single engine Yokosuki E14Ys float equipped observation and light attack aircraft sprang into action. They rolled the plane out its hangar built next to the conning tower. The wings and tail were unfolded, and several 176 pound incendiary bombs were attached to the hard points under the wings. This was a small two passenger float plane with a nine cylinder 340 hp radial engine. It was full daylight when the Captain ordered the aircraft to be placed on the catapult. Warrant Officer Fujita started the engine, let it warm up, checked the magnetos and oil pressure. There was a slight breeze blowing and the seas were calm. A perfect day to attack the United States of America. When the gauges were in the green the pilot signaled and the catapult launched the aircraft. After a short climb to altitude the pilot turned on a heading for the Oregon coast.
The "Glen" was launched via catapult from a I-25 class Japanese submarine.
Johnson was sweeping the horizon but could see nothing, he went back to his duties as a forestry agent which was searching for any signs of a forest fire. The morning moved on. Every few minutes he would scan low, medium and high but nothing caught his eye.
The small Japanese float plane had climbed to several thousand feet of altitude for better visibility and to get above the coastal fog. The pilot had calculated land fall in a few minutes and right on schedule he could see the breakers flashing white as they hit the Oregon shores.
Johnson was about to put his binoculars down when something flashed in the sun just above the fog bank. It was unusual because in the past all air traffic had been flying up and down the coast, not aiming into the coast.
The pilot of the aircraft checked his course and alerted his observer to be on the lookout for a fire tower which was on the edge of the wooded area where they were supposed to drop their bombs. These airplanes carried very little fuel and all flights were in and out without any loitering. The plane reached the shore line and the pilot made a course correction 20 degrees to the north. The huge trees were easy to spot and certainly easy to hit with the bombs. The fog was very wispy by this time.
Warrant Officer Fujita is shown with his Yokosuka E14Y (Glen) float plane prior to his flight.
Johnson watched in awe as the small floatplane with a red meat ball on the wings flew overhead, the plane was not a bomber and there was no way that it could have flown across the Pacific, Johnson could not understand what was happening. He locked onto the plane and followed it as it headed inland.
The pilot activated the release locks so that when he could pickled the bombs they would release. His instructions were simple, fly at 500 feet, drop the bombs into the trees and circle once to see if they had started any fires and then head back to the submarine.
Johnson could see the two bombs under the wing of the plane and knew that they would be dropped. He grabbed his communications radio and called the Forest Fire Headquarters informing them of what he was watching unfold.
The bombs tumbled from the small seaplane and impacted the forests, the pilot circled once and spotted fire around the impact point. He executed an 180 degree turn and headed back to the submarine. There was no air activity, the skies were clear. The small float plane lined up with the surfaced submarine and landed gently on the ocean, then taxied to the sub. A long boom swung out from the stern. His crewman caught the cable and hooked it into the pickup attached to the roll over cage between the cockpits. The plane was swung onto the deck, The plane's crew folded the wings and tail, pushed it into its hangar and secured the water tight doors. The I-25 submerged and headed back to Japan. Destroyer USS Patterson sank I-25 off the New Hebrides on 3 September 1943, almost exactly one year after the Oregon bombing.
This event ,which caused no damage, marked the only time during World War II that an enemy plane had dropped bombs on the United States mainland. What the Japanese did not count on was coastal fog, mist and heavy doses of rain, which made the forests so wet they simply would not catch fire.
Fifty years later the Japanese pilot, who survived the war, would return to Oregon to help dedicate a historical plaque at the exact spot where his two bombs had impacted. The elderly pilot then donated his ceremonial sword as a gesture of peace and closure of the bombing of Oregon in 1942.
1945:: A Japanese balloon bomb kills six people in rural eastern Oregon. They are the only World War II U.S. combat casualties in the 48 states.
Months before an atomic bomb decimated Hiroshima, the United States and Japan were locked in the final stages of World War II. The United States had turned the tables and invaded Japan's outlying islands three years after Japan's invasion of the U.S. naval base at Pearl Harbor.
That probably seemed a world away to a Sunday school teacher, her minister husband and five 13- and 14-year-old students near Klamath Falls. Rev. Archie Mitchell was driving the group along a mountainous road on the way to a Saturday afternoon picnic, according to the Mail Tribune, a southern Oregon newspaper.
Teacher Elyse Mitchell, who was pregnant, became sick. Her husband pulled the sedan over. He began speaking to a construction crew about fishing conditions, and his wife and the students momentarily walked away.
They were about a hundred yards from the car when she shouted back: "Look what I found, dear," the Mail Tribune reported.
One of the road-crew workers, Richard Barnhouse, said "There was a terrible explosion. Twigs flew through the air, pine needles began to fall, dead branches and dust, and dead logs went up."
The minister and the road crew ran to the scene. Jay Gifford, Edward Engen, Sherman Shoemaker, Dick Patzke and their teacher were all dead, strewn around a one-foot hole. The teacher's dress was ablaze. Dick Patzke's sister Joan was severely injured and died minutes later, the Mail Tribune wrote.
The six were victims of Japan's so-called Fu-Go or fire-balloon campaign. Carried aloft by 19,000 cubic feet of hydrogen and borne eastward by the jet stream, the balloons were designed to travel across the Pacific to North America, where they would drop incendiary devices or anti-personnel explosives.
Made of rubberized silk or paper, each balloon was about 33 feet in diameter. Barometer-operated valves released hydrogen if the balloon gained too much altitude or dropped sandbags if it flew too low.
In all, the Japanese released an estimated 9,000 fire balloons. At least 342 reached the United States. Some drifted as far as Nebraska. Some were shot down.
Some caused minor damage when they landed, but no injuries. One hit a power line and temporarily blacked out the nuclear-weapons plant at Hanford, Washington.
But the only known casualties from the 9,000 balllons - and the only combat deaths from any cause on the U.S. mainland - were the five kids and their Sunday school teacher going to a picnic.
And now Jap vehicles are built in Texas.
Damn straight! Great economy there! [:D]
As the end of the war approached In 1945, Unit 731 embarked on its wildest scheme of all. Codenamed Cherry Blossoms at Night, the plan was to use kamikaze pilots to infest California with the plague.
Toshimi Mizobuchi, who was an instructor for new recruits in Unit 731, said the idea was to use 20 of the 500 new troops who arrived in Harbin in July 1945. A submarine was to take a few of them to the seas off Southern California, and then they were to fly -in a plane carried on board the submarine and contaminate San Diego with plague-infected fleas. The target date was to be Sept. 22, 1945.
Ishio Obata, 73, who now lives in Ehime prefecture, acknowledged that he had been a chief of the Cherry Blossoms at Night attack force against San Diego, but he declined to discuss details. "It is such a terrible memory that I don't want to recall it," he said.
Tadao Ishimaru, also 73, said he had learned only after returning to Japan that he had been a candidate for the strike force against San Diego. "I don't want to think about Unit 731," he said in a brief telephone interview. "Fifty years have passed since the war. Please let me remain silent."
It Is unclear whether Cherry Blossoms at Night ever had a chance of being carried out. Japan did indeed have at least five submarines that carried two or three planes each, their wings folded against the fuselage like a bird.
But a Japanese Navy specialist said the navy would have never allowed Its finest equipment to be used for an army plan like Cherry Blossoms at Night, partly because the highest priority in the summer of 1945 was to defend the main Japanese islands, not to launch attacks on the United States mainland.