Page 35 - The 'X' Chronicles Newspaper - Febrary/March 2020 Edition

A Japanese Attack on America Stopped 35

An Ill Wind: How

American Secrecy

Stopped a Japanese

Terror Attack

Continued from Page 32

Utah State University’s Michael S.
Sweeney, who wrote the definitive history of the
Office of Censorship, says: “Civilian censors
could cajole, suggest, argue, and threaten but
had no authority to punish beyond publicizing
the names of violators. They did not need such
power. The vast majority of journalists endorsed
the codes as well as the administration of them.”
Editors went out of their way to comply.
Newspapers that ran the initial stories about the
bombs, for instance, first checked with the
censorship office to see if the articles would
trigger the code’s caution about items that
discussed “operations, methods, or equipment
of the United States, its allies, or the enemy.”
The office gave them all the green light.
None of this pleased the military, which
hope to still the locals at the sites involved. his wife and the kids, ranging in age from 11 to
realized that even stories that were little more
Instead, it tried to keep the stories from getting 14, began looking for a suitable picnic spot. One
than conjecture could confirm to Japan that the
out of hand. As Washington learned more about of the youngsters found something strange on
balloons were reaching the U.S. interior. The
what the balloons were and their intent, the the ground, and apparently pulled at it or gave it
Oregonian story was the last straw for Brigadier
military and the FBI worked hand-in-hand to a good kick.
General William H. Wilbur, WDC chief of staff.
level with townspeople about the devices and It was a balloon bomb, and the
Under his orders, intelligence officers on
underscore that it was their patriotic duty to stay movement set off an explosion.
January 2, 1945, phoned the three primary wire
mum about it all. Archie’s frantic efforts to extinguish the
services and six other major news outlets and
Typical is the way they handled the flames were fruitless: his wife and all five
asked them to hold off making public any
discovery on February 23, 1945, by farmer children were dead. As a monument now
details of any balloon landings until further
Edwin North of an intact balloon snagged in a marking the spot notes, it is the “only place on
notice. The press response: let’s see what the
tree some 30 miles north of Manhattan, Kansas. the American continent where death resulted
Office of Censorship has to say.
With the help of two neighbors, North deflated from enemy action during World War II.”
In fact, the office had a policy against
the balloon and carted it in a horse-drawn wagon It was not an incident that could be kept
requesting the national press to refrain from
to the nearby town of Bigelow. Bigelow under wraps. A joint funeral in Klamath Falls for
publishing stories that had already appeared in
postmistress Lena Potter told historian Bert four of the young victims drew 450 attendees.
local outlets. Byron Price, the executive news
Webber: “Ed brought the apparatus to me at the But the military tried to obfuscate. An
director of AP whom Roosevelt had tapped to
Post Office and asked my opinion. I said we’d intelligence officer from Fort Lewis in Pierce
head the office, refused to waive that policy. But
best call the sheriff, who should take custody of County, Washington, secured the site and told
other government entities put pressure on Price
the mysterious thing.” Sheriff Charles A. reporters to identify the explosion as being of
and in less than a week he reversed himself. He
Anderson in turn handed the issue over to the “unknown origin.”
sent a confidential memo to all American news
U.S. Army Air Forces base in Topeka; the army
outlets warning that “any balloons approaching
immediately moved to contain news of the (Continued on Page 36)
the United States from outside its borders can be
find—which North figured was by then known
enemy attacks” and imploring that there be no
to at least 30 neighbors. FBI agents and soldiers
dissemination of news about locating remains of
formed teams that went through Bigelow door-
such balloons, for doing so would “aid the
to-door, asking residents not to tell anyone about
enemy.”
the balloon.
As they had throughout the war,
At site after site, most people complied.
reporters and editors censored themselves.
They had been conditioned by a barrage of
Citizens continued to uncover balloon scraps at
Office of War Information posters with slogans
sites including ones near Julian and Red Bluff,
like “Silence Means Security,” “Free Speech
California, in late January; near Rapid City,
Doesn’t Mean Careless Talk,” and “Loose Talk
South Dakota, and Burwell, Nebraska, in
Can Cost Lives.”
February; and in Pocahontas, Iowa, in mid-
March. By May 12 the list of balloon incidents
EVERYTHING CHANGED ON
the WDC compiled had reached 150. But in
MAY 5, 1945.
those five months, not a word about the balloons
appeared in print or in radio newscasts. As John
Willard, then a reporter at the Helena (Montana) hat was the day that Archie Mitchell, the pastor
Independent Record, recalled more than 50 of the Christian and Missionary Alliance Church
years later, after the Kalispell incident “we in Bly, Oregon, and his pregnant wife, Elsie,
heard stories about other balloon bombs landing took five of their Sunday school students on a
around the state and talked about them in the fishing trip to Leonard Creek, which wends
newsroom. But we just didn’t write stories among ponderosa pines near Gearhart
about them.” Mountain, eight miles northeast of Bly. Archie
The government, though, could hardly parked the car and began unloading food while