During the winter of 1944-45, westerly winds carried thousands of balloon bombs across the Pacific Ocean from Japan. Over two hundred and fifty of these bombs, made with the help of Japanese school children, are known to have landed in North America from Alaska to Mexico and as far east as Michigan.
This one landed near Minton, Saskatchewan, on 12 January 1945. The bomb-bearing gondola is now in the Canadian War Museum where it is shown, in this picture, against a drawing of the full apparatus.
Soon after balloon bombs were recovered in Canada, A.E. Porsild, Chief Botanist at the National Museum of Canada, coordinated research of the origin and possible launching areas of the bombs. The source and production sites of the balloon bombs were determined partly through analyses of sand, vegetable matter and marine shell fragments contained in the ballast, and the sites were bombed.
Courtesy: Canadian War Museum, National Museum of Man, National Museums of Canada (S83-8)
