Bly Balloon Bomb Memorial (1945)
Klamath County, Klamath County, Oregon
Marker Inscription
Weyerhaeuser Company Eastern Oregon Region in memory of Elsie Mitchell age 26 Dick Patzke age 14 Jay Gifford age 13 Edward Engen age 13 Joan Patzke age 13 Sherman Shoemaker age 11 who died here May 5, 1945 by Japanese bomb explosion Only place on the American continent where death resulted from enemy action during WWII
Erected by Weyerhaeuser Company
The Story
In the final spring of World War II, Japan launched thousands of paper-and-silk balloons carrying incendiary and antipersonnel bombs across the Pacific on the jet stream. On May 5, 1945, a Sunday-school picnic party in the Oregon woods discovered one of these fallen devices; it exploded, killing a pregnant young woman and five children. Theirs were the only deaths caused by enemy action on the American mainland during the entire war.
Why it matters
It memorializes a singular and heartbreaking chapter of the home front—proof that even the remote interior of the continent was not wholly beyond the reach of a global war.
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Related people
- · Elsie Mitchell
- · Dick Patzke
- · Jay Gifford
- · Edward Engen
- · Joan Patzke
- · Sherman Shoemaker
Related events
- · Japanese fire-balloon bombing, May 5, 1945
Themes & tags
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