Assembled from paper by schoolchildren and women in the waning years of the war, the Japanese fire balloons were launched from fields near Tokyo and Kyoto. They often reached the U.S. mainland in just three days and two nights. Armed with incendiary bombs, the balloons’ original goal was to ignite forest fires throughout the western states, which they did at an alarming rate. Wendel’s research at the National Archives and the Smithsonian in Washington, D.C., reveals that the balloons touched down in the U.S. more than 300 times from 1944 to 1945.
The balloons proved to be a better weapon than the Imperial Army ever knew. One sailed as far east as Michigan. At one point, the Japanese high command planned to replace the incendiary bombs with nerve and gas warfare. But, it never came to that largely because of the U.S. military’s ability to keep a secret.
I was at a party in Washington D.C. during the time that the Monica Lewinsky scandal rocked the Clinton White House. It was there that I came upon the best kept secret of World War II. That secret became the gem that has spawned my latest novel–Red Rain.
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