The Mystery of The Maryland Fire Balloon

The Mystery of the Maryland Fire Balloon
Historians love a good mystery. However, they love solving a mystery even more. We
relish scampering through libraries, archives and museums. We adore a good internet search
engine. All of these give us our evidence, for it is evidence that helps provide the answers we
crave.
During a meeting with my Department Chairman, he learned that I love to study
anything pertaining to the Second World War. He told me he had a project for me if I was
interested. At our first meeting he dropped the tantalizing comment of how Bill Bryson
mentioned that a Japanese fire balloon had made it as far as Maryland in his book: The Life and
Times of the Thunderbolt Kid. He produced a copy of the page. The comment stood starkly in
the text, no details, no footnote.
I had a passing familiarity with the fire balloons. I knew that some had landed in the
western U.S., but Maryland!?! I was hooked. I had to know more! So feeling like a rookie
detective with a new case, I head out the door.
The story of these balloons is amazing in itself. In the latter days of World War II Japan
was being blasted and burnt by marauding American bombers. In a desperate attempt to bring
the war to the American mainland, Japanese scientists developed an ingenious plan.
Their meteorologists had considerable knowledge of what we now call the jet-stream.
They had conducted studies, and concluded that a small balloon could make it to the west coast
of the United States in as little as three days. They would arm each balloon with a small anti-
personnel bomb, and two incendiary bombs. They hoped to kill Americans, and set the vast
forests of the West on fire. They didn’t want Japanese civilians to be the only ones suffering.
To keep production costs down and to utilize non-strategic materials, the Japanese
learned to craft these balloons out of mulberry bark paper, sealed with potato starch. They
recruited the nimble fingers of schoolgirls to construct the balloons. The girls were never told
what they were making, or why. The balloons were equipped with instruments that recorded
altitude and barometric pressure. These instruments controlled an automatic ballast release that
dropped sandbags when the balloon dropped too low, and a gas valve released hydrogen when
the balloon went too high. Upon arrival over the U.S., the balloon would drop its ordnance, and
they hydrogen balloon would self destruct. That was the idea anyway. Sometimes however, the
instruments malfunctioned and the balloons came down intact.
Out of about 9,000 balloons, roughly 1,000 of them made it to North America. Of those,
about 389 have been accounted for. However, I could find no information on any landing in
Maryland! In fact, according to the War Department, the farthest east the balloons were known
to have traveled was Michigan. So now what? I had sent Bill Bryson a letter through his
publisher. I wanted to know if he could give me more information on how he had learned of the
Maryland balloon. At this point I felt I was searching for the Loch Ness monster. Perhaps there
was no connection.
However, one other tip my advisor had given me was a portion of a transcript from the
PBS series, History Detectives. I found the website, and lo, the entire transcript was online! As I
scanned the transcript I thought: “Yes! Here is something!”
The episode is about investigating a young woman’s memento from her grandfather: A
fragment of paper allegedly from a Japanese balloon. In order to determine what the fragment is,
the show enlists the aid of Tom Crouch, the senior curator of aeronautics at the Smithsonian’s
National Air and Space Museum Udvar Hazy Center in Virginia. Upon seeing the fragment Mr.
Crouch comments that it resembles part of a balloon bomb envelope, but tells the show they
aren’t stored in Virginia. He then refers to the Smithsonian’s Paul Edward Garber facility in
Suitland, Maryland! That is where the envelopes they have are actually stored! Japanese
balloon bombs indeed had come to Maryland, but in a very roundabout manner.
I did a search on the internet, and learned the U.S. Army Air Force had donated a huge
collection of allied and enemy aircraft to the Smithsonian at the end of World War II. The
curator, Paul Edward Garber had this collection stored at sites in Illinois and Virginia. In the
1950’s, the Smithsonian needed a new storage facility, and Garber acquired land near Suitland,
Maryland. The construction began around 1952. The facility still exists, but is no longer open to
the public. I shot an e-mail to the Smithsonian staff, to inquire about their balloon. They
informed me it had come to earth near Bellingham, Washington. It had been received by the
museum in 1948 from the Military Intelligence Service. It is currently at the Steven F. Udvar-
Hazy center near Dulles Airport.
So it is true that a Japanese balloon bomb came to Maryland. But, it was brought there by
way of a truck. It would have been much more interesting for it to have flown all the way from
Japan. However like a good gumshoe, a historian must follow the evidence, and be faithful to its
truth. Nonetheless, I thoroughly enjoyed learning about what noted writer John McPhee referred
to as “the world’s first inter-continental ballistic missile.”

Bibliography
Bryson, Bill. The Life and Times of the Thunderbolt Kid. New York: Broadway Books, 2006.
Information, Smithsonian. “Japanese Fugo Balloon in Maryland.”“ E-mail message to Jeff

Tabor, March 2, 2009.
———. “Japanese Fugo Balloon in Maryland.”“ E-mail message to Jeff Tabor, March 11, 2009.
McPhee, John. “Balloons of War.” The New Yorker, January 29, 1996.
Mikesh, Robert C. Japan’s World War II Balloon bomb Attacks on North America. Smithsonian
Annals of Flight, Number 9. Washington, D.C.: Smithsonian Institution Press, 1973.
“Paul E. Garber Preservation, Restoration and Storage Facility.” Smithsonian National Air and
Space Museum. http://www.nasm.si.edu/museum/garber/ (accessed April 7, 2009).
White, Michael, prod. On a Wind and a Prayer. DVD. N.p.: PBS, 2008.

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The Mystery of the Maryland Fire Balloon

During a meeting with my Department Chairman, he learned that I love to study

the text, no details, no footnote.

detective with a new case, I head out the door.

instruments malfunctioned and the balloons came down intact.

scanned the transcript I thought: “Yes! Here is something!”

Hazy center near Dulles Airport.

to as “the world’s first inter-continental ballistic missile.”

Information, Smithsonian. “Japanese Fugo Balloon in Maryland.”“ E-mail message to Jeff

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