So went to the Tokyo Edo Museum on Sunday in Rygoku (next to the Sumo stadium/museum), and got to see some WWII artifacts along with EDO period items. Two interesting items there:
1. The Japanese copy of the Instrument of Surrender. It was pretty cool reading it, but I guess the Canadian rep signed on the wrong block (He signed on the French line). The Japanese weren’t happy with this so they had to one line and initial all the other lines below (standard military writing), and everyone signed one line down from where they were originally supposed to.
2. BALLOON BOMBS!!! I always heard about these, but never really looked them up before. So I guess they used them as a Hail Mary in 1945 and sent out about 9K of them. Only about 300 hit North America, hitting such vital targets such as the Yukon, NW Territories, and Montana. I’m sure a moose died.
Other miscellaneous items from WWII was napalm bombs, a really rusted 50 Cal gun, and a bomb from an air raid.
Overall, not a bad tour and was really cheap! If you have an hour or two, I recommend stopping by.
Lol… Canadians…
as for the Balloon bombs, I seem to recall these were coming over in 42 and 43?
I’ll have to look it up again (used to have a magazine article on it from the 70’s). I seem to recall that this was “top secret” at the time, and that the Canadian government was afraid that a “small” person might actually be able to ride one of these things to north America lol…
Overall, not a bad tour and was really cheap! If you have an hour or two, I recommend stopping by.
I think it will take more than a few hours to go from the US to Japan :-D
As for “small people” dropping bombs, in 1942, the town of Brookings Oregon was bombed by the Japanese. It was bombed by a plane launched from a submarine. The plan was to have large groups of these submarine launched planes hit shipping around the Panama Canal.
Overall, not a bad tour and was really cheap! If you have an hour or two, I recommend stopping by.
I think it will take more than a few hours to go from the US to Japan :-D
As for “small people” dropping bombs, in 1942, the town of Brookings Oregon was bombed by the Japanese. It was bombed by a plane launched from a submarine. The plan was to have large groups of these submarine launched planes hit shipping around the Panama Canal.
That wasn’t until the very end of the war, and was in conjunction with the creation of a submersible aircraft carrier by the Japanese.
The only real damage done by the balloon bombs was a Sunday School class that was blown apart while on a nature walk and picnic. There are estimations that hundreds of bombs still may be laying unexploded in the Pacific Northwest.
