342-FH-3B23422 (18161219731)

342-FH-3B23422: Japanese balloon, Fu-Go. Completed Japanese balloon is inflated for laboratory tests at a California base. It was recovered at Alturas, California, January 10, 1945. Ineffective as it is, however, the Japanese balloon is an ingenious device. The balloon itself at a maximum altitude is a true sphere, 100 feet in circumference. It is made of five layers of mulberry paper, each about as thick as cigarette paper, but strong and water-repellant when cemented together. It is filled with hydrogren. Suspended like a chandelier below the envelope by 19 shroud lines, each 45 feet long, is a device for automatic control of altitude. The bomb load is attached to the “chandelier” with an automatic release mechanism. The balloon is further equipped with automatic demolition blocks which are supposed to destroy it in the air. On many of the balloons recovered, the self-destroying device failed to function. Print received August 1945 from Publications Sec., AC/AS, Intelligence. Used in August 1945 issue of Impact. Copied August 27, 1945. U.S. Army Air Corps (Air Force) photograph, now in the collections of the National Archives. (5/26/2015).