Milsurp find, A Bomb in Lumby !

#1bcshooter

#1bcshooter

CGN Ultra frequent flyer
Rating - 100%
149   0   0
Location
North Of The DMZ (US border)
Don't run across these every day !


A piece of history has been unearthed in the hills east of Lumby.

A Tolko employee contacted Lumby RCMP Thursday morning after discovering what is believed to be an unexploded WWII Japanese balloon bomb in an area off Thunder Mountain Forest Road.

The bomb was partly embedded in the ground with the bush.

See full story below


http://www.castanet.net/edition/news-story-124578-2-.htm#124578
 
Last edited:
Thats something I'd never heard of before, I never knew that bombs had made it over here. Luckily there havn,t been any more injuries from them.
 
oh you beat me to the story #1bcshooter..
here's some pics , borrowed from castanet.net
UXGMcW3l.jpg

1plwmThl.jpg

v1Wd5APl.jpg
 
Figures there are still more out there, they launched enough of them. Cool though that 70 years on someone found one.
 
I remember reading years ago in, I think, BC Outdoors the author describing finding one of the rings while out on a sheep(?) hunt and not knowing what it was at the time.
 
Canada's West Coast defence originally rested upon Coast Watch patrols, the PCMR and then, with the availability of the new Canadian-built Hurricane II aircraft armed with 12 x .303 Brownings, active long-range Pacific patrols out of Boundary Bay.

When the fire balloon bombs came to the attention of Intelligence, the Squadron was moved to Tofino and later bolstered by 135 F/S.

Between them, the RCAF Squadrons shot down several of the fire balloons, which generally were regarded as "kills".

Long-range Pacific patrols in single-engined aircraft was hazardous in the extreme. Don't take my word: look up the list of their aircraft and check out the large number lost at sea.

Personally, I am rather thankful for this aspect of the War Effort: my Dad was RCAF and met my Mom at a dance.... in Boundary Bay. They were married a year later.... and I turned up a year after that. I guess one might say that my interest in War Production comes naturally, being that I am a part of it myself!

I do wish, however, that this thing could have been deactivated and saved; I don't know if ANY of these survive in museums.

The bombs themselves generally were large incendiaries; the idea was to set fire to Canada's entire West Coast.
 
ht tp://news.nationalgeographic.com/news/2013/05/130527-map-video-balloon-bomb-wwii-japanese-air-current-jet-stream/
 
smellie said:
Canada's West Coast defence originally rested upon Coast Watch patrols, the PCMR and then, with the availability of the new Canadian-built Hurricane II aircraft armed with 12 x .303 Brownings, active long-range Pacific patrols out of Boundary Bay.

When the fire balloon bombs came to the attention of Intelligence, the Squadron was moved to Tofino and later bolstered by 135 F/S.

Between them, the RCAF Squadrons shot down several of the fire balloons, which generally were regarded as "kills".

Long-range Pacific patrols in single-engined aircraft was hazardous in the extreme. Don't take my word: look up the list of their aircraft and check out the large number lost at sea.

Personally, I am rather thankful for this aspect of the War Effort: my Dad was RCAF and met my Mom at a dance.... in Boundary Bay. They were married a year later.... and I turned up a year after that. I guess one might say that my interest in War Production comes naturally, being that I am a part of it myself!

I do wish, however, that this thing could have been deactivated and saved; I don't know if ANY of these survive in museums.

The bombs themselves generally were large incendiaries; the idea was to set fire to Canada's entire West Coast.
Click to expand...


Those hangers at Boundary Bay are still there and in use, although by civilians these days!
 
Magellann said:
Thats something I'd never heard of before, I never knew that bombs had made it over here. Luckily there havn,t been any more injuries from them.
Click to expand...

Many such balloon bombs made it onto the west coast of Canada and the US, however discovery of such devices were kept secret for years in order to prevent the Japanese from knowing how effective this experimental weapon was. If i recall from a documentary, based on the amount of bombs launched, it was about 20 - 30% actually made it here to north america and made land fall. Though because of the seemingly crazy odds and the fact that they couldn't observe it's effectiveness they eventually assumed that it was a failure and stopped launching them.

#1bcshooter said:
DND blew it up today :(
Click to expand...

thats a real shame. It would have been amazing to have it deactivated and placed in the war museum. It's definitely one of those weapons that highlights human ingenuity during times of war. It's also amazing how simplistic such weapons can be using nature itself as a navigation system.
 
Last edited:
.
As SMELLIE mentioned, most of the bombs aboard were incendiary in composition. While it was an interesting idea, and was kept quiet to keep the effectiveness of the operation from the Japanese, the biggest failure of the program was the timing.

These were launched from Japan between November 1944 and April 1945. Some even reached Alberta. Only problem was:

THE TARGET WAS COVERED WITH SNOW AT THIS TIME OF YEAR.
 
You must log in or register to reply here.
Back
Top Bottom