Origami Warfare
The Doolittle raid of 1942 was not a wild success, militarily speaking, but it did produce a number of results. Perhaps the most curious of these was the Japanese bombardment of North America that began in November 1944.
Japan has long been known for beautiful handmade paper and art objects made of paper, a technique known as Origami. However, in 1944 a new use of paper was brought to the attention of the world, huge paper balloons filled with hydrogen were used to carry antipersonnel and incendiary bombs from Japan to the USA, Canada and Mexico.
The balloons were marvelous devices, they took two years to perfect and required the development of several new technologies, including mechanized production of previously handmade paper, pressure sensors, detonators, antifreeze batteries, and cold resistant rubber for the balloon fittings. Competition between the Japanese Army and Navy was intense, each desired to gain prestige by producing the first viable balloon bomb.
The Naval, or "B-type", balloon was of rubberized silk, with a constant internal volume and a stable flight altitude. This version was not used in bombing missions, it was expensive to produce and war time shortages made the rubber very hard to come by. It also had a much smaller payload than the paper balloons.
Balloon research was consolidated in the spring of 1944 and focussed on the Army's "A-type", or paper balloon. The balloons that were eventually launched were made of four layers of long fiber paper which were cemented together with a paste made from a vegetable called konnyaku-nori, which is similar to a potato. When cut into shaped panels, hand sewn together and lacquered, the completed balloons had a circumference of about 10 meters (32.8 feet) and weighed about 152 pounds. Each balloon was girdled with a scalloped band to which shroud lines were attached and from which the gondola depended.
The gondola carried an impressive array of meteorological and radio equipment, ballast and ballast release mechanisms and other equipment designed to control the altitude of the balloon on its long journey across the Pacific Ocean to America. It also carried the bomb payload.
The balloons are known to have carried three types of bombs, two varieties of incendiary and one high explosive antipersonnel device. The smaller incendiary weighed 5 kilograms (about 11.5 pounds while the larger was 12 kilograms (about 27 lbs.) , containing three magnesium fire-pots. The high explosive bomb was 15 kilos, (about 33 lbs).The payload varied from balloon to balloon but the average seems to have been one large bomb (either incendiary or antipersonnel) and four of the smaller incendiaries.
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