Battle of Los Angeles

It was Wednesday, Feb. 25, 1942, i.e. during WW II. Los Angeles residents woke up to the blasts of anti-aircraft artillery. The AAAs were firing at a huge object floating above the area (i.e. an Independence Day-style UFO). This is but one of the many related links on the Net:
http://www.rense.com/ufo/battleofla.htm

My question is, if it had been a weather ballon or a Japanese bomb-carrying balloon (I don't think they started the program then), wouldn't it had been filled with hydrogen (which incinerates easily) than helium, which we use now? Furthermore, could a weather balloon sustain multiple AAA hits without dropping in attitude significantly for an extended period of time?

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Alan Hsu said:
...My question is, if it had been a weather ballon or a Japanese bomb-carrying balloon (I don't think they started the program then), wouldn't it had been filled with hydrogen (which incinerates easily) than helium, which we use now? Furthermore, could a weather balloon sustain multiple AAA hits without dropping in attitude significantly for an extended period of time?



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The US was using helium as early as 1930 or 1931.

Brightnorm

Hydrogen would have been used. The USA had a near monopoly on the supply of Helium.In addition Helium is somewhat problematic for a balloon with a long life. The helium atom is so small, it will diffuse through almost anything. Such a balloon would have had a very hard time making it across the Pacific.

That is why Helium Balloons you buy, don't float for all that long. Hydrogen is cheap, and easy to produce.

Those Japanese balloon bombs never made it down anywhere near LA. Only a few made it all the way across and detonated. None of them came down in a populated area. I watch History Channel quite a bit, and I remember this. Also the balloon bomb program was later than 1942 and a dismal failure at that.

Whatever it was, it was not American, Japanese, or German.

americans were killed by one of those balloon bombs.

one had dropped, but not detonated in a forest--i dont recall where. a picknicking family came upon it and it exploded (not sure how).

it was on the history channel last year.

also, the japanese were testing biological and chemical weapons to be used in the same manner, as well as being dropped from conventional bombers.
they were very close to being viable when the war ended--they perfected the use of infected fleas. the trick was in keepng them alive through the bombing process (not trying to start any crap, but i believe in my OPINION that the atomic bombs were justified, based partly upon the above info).

Bob

During WW II, the Japanese Army had a lab in Northeastern China to experiment bio weapons on prisoners.

My Dad flew China/Burma/India back then. The CBI, as some folks refer to it, were missions flying over the Himalayans or "Hump" to protect and liberate the Chinese from the Japanese invasion.

Looks nice here but the winds are vicious and crazy. Many crews flew into mountains. If they bailed or survived a crash there was no chance of rescue.


I refer to this because I thought some of you might find it interesting and also to say I have second hand knowledge of what was going on then from a command pilot that flew in the pacific theater during that era.

Doolittle's extraordinary efforts using B-29s launched from carriers is pretty well known. Lemay's tactics are less known but worth mentioning.

"LeMay took a calculated risk and radically revised bombing strategy, changing from high-altitude, daylight precision bombing with high-explosive bombs to low-altitude night missions using incendiary bombs.
The first target was Tokyo and on the night of March 9-10, 334 B-29s struck at altitudes of 5000-9000 feet, starting fires which, aided by winds, burned out almost 16 square miles of the city. Destruction in other crowded industrial cities in follow-up raids was tremendous, wiping out thousands of war production facilities interspersed in the residential areas. B-29 losses to enemy action during these night raids were practically nil, despite the fact that B-29 bomb capacity had been increased by removing most aircraft defensive armament." Fire Bomb Raids

16 square miles of Tokyo burnt to the ground.

Many people believe the Japanese balloon bombs were a desperate attempt at retaliation for this. As has been pointed out, the program didn't start until 1944 but that doesn't mean test launching didn't occur in 1942.

I don't know what really happened over Los Angeles that night but I suspect it was a balloon bomb. If you look at the photo in the link Alan posted the artillary bursts are above the object...no hits.

Here is a balloon bomb in broad daylight:

Balloon Bombs


Here is a gun camera shot of one going down. Hydrogen, not Helium.



The west coast shore batteries were very inaccurate by today's standards and operated by a largely non-combat tested contingency. I think we may have just missed. I would rather think a benevolent visitor cruised by to see who turned out the lights but I just can't go with that story.

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The west coast shore batteries were very inaccurate by today's standards and operated by a largely non-combat tested contingency.

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aint that the truth /ubbthreads/images/graemlins/smile.gif Everyone has seen one of my favorite movies 1941 right?

those balloons really were fascinating for their time.

they used the jet stream and a simple mechanical altimiter and drop-ballasts to to keep it at proper altitude/course. again, i dont recall the mechanism, but it was incredibly simple and effective.

pretty darn inventive.

Bob

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Icebreak said:
Doolittle's extraordinary efforts using B-29s launched from carriers is pretty well known.

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I thought they were B-24s, not B-29s.

hmmm. The literature refers to them as b-25s but I suppose that's just to keep the enemy confused. Whatever they were, they were not designed to take off from carriers. It amazes me that they could do that without catapults.
http://members.cox.net/warbirds/raiders.htm

Oops. I had the incendiary missions on my mind. Definitely not B-29s for Doolittle...pretty sure they were B-25s.

Dang...thought this thread was going to be about "Rage Against the Machine". Oh well...interesting topic anyway-the bombers and balloons.

Icebreak,

Thanks for the link. The link says the balloon was only 32 feet in diameter. That probably rules out the possibility that the object in the Battle of Los Angeles was a balloon bomb or weather balloon, which was too small to fuel such commotion. Of course such a device flying at low attitude might have seemed bigger, but that would have prevented it from attracting many spotlights and AAA fires.

I see what you mean.

Though those lights focus pretty tightly, the object appears to be larger than 32 ft. I think some folks may think the flashing lights around the object are part of the object. They appear to me to be AAA flashes. I think you see that too.

I do think my perception of the size is smaller than yours. As far as the commotion it caused, a 30 ft or 60 ft globe shaped object would have been a strong blip on the radar. Tension was high. I can see it causing a lot of attention.

One thing that causes me to think it might not have come from Japan is I believe it would be an odd set of wind patterns that would send it as far south as LA.

Interesting subject. Thanks for posting the thread. I need to read more about it.

The Dolittle raid used B-25 "Mitchell" bombers that were
stripped down to save on weight. They flew with no guns, etc.
They did launch off of a carrier without the benefit
of catapaults. They had painted a carrier deck on a regular
runway (on land) and practiced, practiced, practiced their
very short take-offs. The planes would literally "fall" off
of the end of the carrier deck (lose altitude) before they
began their actual "climb" to a cruising altitude.

The raid took place on April 17, 1942. The date is etched
in my memory because it is the day that my father was born!

The mission was "one-way" there was no capability to land
back on the carriers. The crews were supposed to ditch
their planes and try to land in friendly Chinese territory if possible.
The planes carried fairly light bomb loads and
did very minimal physical damage. The psychological damage
done to Japanese "face/honor" was intense and is thought
to have had an actual affect on the outcome of the war.
The Japanese were said to have kept major air resources
in the home islands to prevent future raids.

Some of the crews, including Doolittle, survived.
The most well known book about the raid is "30 Seconds Over
Tokyo". I can not recall the name of the author.

The Doolittle raid was a major boost to US morale during
some of the darkest days of World War Two.

That's really all that I can remember off the top of my head!


"Lux" /ubbthreads/images/graemlins/wink2.gif

I believe the second half of the movie Pearl Harbor offers quite an accurate description of the Dolittle raid:

http://video.movies.go.com/pearlharbor/index.html

That was pretty cool. Used Alt/F4 to get out of it.