We've Got The County Covered
We've Got The County Covered
This 1945 artist's sketch of a balloon bomb shows the 'balloon' at the top center of the drawing and the bombs and ballast trailing in the lower left of the drawing. At the lower right is more detail of the ballast sand bags, dropped when the balloon began to lose altitude, the control devices for the balloon plus the incendiary and anti-personnel bombs.
A friend shared a copy of a map showing nearly 30 known locations where Japanese Balloon Bombs, launched in Japan and carried across the Pacific Ocean by the jet stream, landed in Montana toward the end of World War II. Woodcutters near Kalispell were the first to see a balloon bomb in Montana. That was December, 1944. The remaining bombs found and identified in Montana were discovered in the spring of 1945. Two of those bombs were found in Blaine County. One was found east of Turner and one was found on the Fort Belknap Reservation.
I soon learned one of the reasons these sightings were not w...
