Fu-Go: Fire Balloon - Aftermath
Facing increasingly destructive raids on the home islands that made the manufacturing and launching of the balloons more difficult, and with no indication that the attacks were succeeding, the program was abandoned in April 1945. The fu-go offensive proved to be a complete tactical failure.
The Japanese balloon project failed as a military and terror device program, but its impact might have been greater if the Japanese, as they intended, had succeeded in transforming some balloons into biological weapons.
The U.S. Army feared balloon bombs would carry biological weapons. In investigating the unexploded ordnance that landed, the person in charge wore a gas mask and protective clothing. It is said by one source that 4,000 bacteriologists were mobilized for the investigation [but this seems high] . Also, until the end of the war, it was not possible to dispel the concern that a small number of Japanese soldiers would infiltrate the American mainland on balloons. In addition, immediately after the end of the war, a bacteriological weapons researcher was dispatched to Japan to investigate the researchers involved in the development of balloon bombs.
The instruments’ saltwater-solution battery contained no pathogens, but the Japanese developed and tested successfully a soft-cased bomb designed to contain plague-carrying fleas expected to survive the small detonation and then spread widely. Only the conflict’s end prevented the bacterial bomb’s production and deployment from aircraft. The Japanese did not deploy their pathogen-filled and soft-case bombs produced before the war ended.
In October 1945, after the end of the war, an Associated Press correspondent distributed an article about the balloon bomb to the world, including an interview with an officer of the Japanese Army's Technical Headquarters. According to the article, the Japanese side confirmed the results of the war by intercepting broadcasts from Chongqing, the capital of the Republic of China during the Sino-Japanese War, and determined that only one had arrived in Wyoming. "Shinso wa Kauda", which was broadcast in December of the same year, did not explicitly mention the balloon bomb, and asked, "Is it true that an airplane launched from a Japanese submarine bombed an American city?" It only gives a vague explanation in the form of a question. Also, in April 1948, during the occupation of the Allies, the first advertising balloon after the war was hoisted on the roof of the Japanese theater, but it was banned two days later by the order of GHQ. This is because it was a reminder of balloon bombs.
As recently as October 2014 a balloon was detonated by Canadian bomb disposal personnel in British Columbia. Hawaii Five-0 - Season 6, Episode 12 deals with the case of balloon bombs allegedly brought to Hawaii by Japanese spies during World War II.
There are no actual weapons left in Japan, but there is a 1/5 model at the Edo-Tokyo Museum in Tokyo, and a 1/7 model at the Saitama Prefectural Peace Museum. The balloon part is stored in the vault of the Smithsonian Institution in the United States. The barometer and the lower portion of the bomb are displayed at the National Air and Space Museum.
In Palestine 's Gaza Strip , the Islamic fundamentalist group Hamas uses balloon bombs, which are multiple plastic balloons with detonators attached, as a means of attacking Israel. It is released from near the border of the controlled area toward the Israeli territories.
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