It was a cold day in 1945 at Mari Lake, about 20 kilometres north of Flin Flon, when two men out ice fishing made a curious find.
When the anglers drew in their net, they found a balloon – not just any balloon, mind you, but a large, thick balloon. Unable to pile it into the back of a truck to take it into town, the men called RCMP and alerted them to the find. One of the fishers cut a piece of the fabric off with a knife.
Scraps of the fabric were passed around the community. The local gossip mill began to turn. No one knew the oddity’s origin.
Once the RCMP and the Armed Forces were alerted, it didn’t take long for them to respond.
“The kids had somehow found out about it and were talking about it in the schoolyard. The RCMP came down and laid down the riot act to them,” Creighton-based historian and archeologist Dennis Strom said.
Scraps of the balloon were confiscated, and their owners were told to stay silent. Nobody was directly told why. Those who asked questions did not receive answers. Local media figures, having received word of the mystery material, were shushed.
Years later, it became more clear. The mystery airship of Mari Lake was, in fact, a primitive Japanese explosive – an early, balloon-based intercontinental explosive.
Fugo
The bombs, often referred to as ‘fugo’ or ‘fire balloons’, consisted of hydrogen balloons with a series of bombs and incendiary devices attached underneath.
Built by high school students at the behest of the Imperial Japanese Navy, fugo were designed to be a low-tech and inexpensive way for Japan to attack North America during WWII. Made out of waxed and varnished paper, the fugo were released into the jet stream off Japan’s eastern shore.
Once they reached the air currents, engineers hoped that the fugo could fly across the Pacific and land – and explode – in the western US and in Canada.
“They were on timers, based on the first balloons they sent. They figured out that after 80 hours, the bomb would be at a certain area. They had seven jet streams, so some of them would go to California, some of them would go to BC, some of them would get to Manitoba,” said Strom.
“Initially, they sent over really good ones – rubber balloons with radio transmitters on them. At any given time, they could pinpoint where they were. Once they had that figured out, they just bombarded with them.”
Japanese military leaders hoped the bombs would explode near military bases or cities. If the bombs missed population centres, the navy had hoped the incendiary devices could start forest fires, which could cause great damage to a country dedicating its resources to the war effort.
More than 9,000 fugo were built and released. Naval engineers had hoped that one in 10 fugo would reach North America, but due to the long distance, volatile weather and design flaws, few made it across the Pacific. Between 300 and 400 fugo have been found in North America.
Finding out
After the Mari Lake fugo was found, RCMP and Canadian military personnel took the remains of the bomb away. The US Army, which maintained a presence throughout the war at the Island Falls hydroelectric dam, even sent reinforcements to the area.
Aside from strips that had been scavenged from the balloon, little tangible evidence of the fugo landing existed.
Strom said an entire squadron of the Royal Canadian Air Force was sent out over the Pacific, with specific orders to shoot down any fugo they found.
Some local residents knew about the landing, but any official discussion about the existence of the balloon was hushed up. Details of the bomb itself were fuzzy. Some said the bomb contained some kind of chemical agent, some said the bomb actually exploded.
Those details may never be fully known.
“Once you lose the details, they’re hard to reestablish. You need some leads,” said Strom.
“They didn’t want the Japanese to know how successful they were. There was no press coverage allowed. I don’t know if it was agreed or if they were ordered to, but I think there was a bit of pressure.”
Along with other local historians, Strom searched long and hard for any artifacts of the fugo. Several years ago, they had a breakthrough.
“There was a lady who was a cook at the camp at Mari Lake near where this was found. There was somebody who had cut off strips and was giving them away,” said Strom.
The lady, Lona Fitzpatrick, was living in a nursing home in Thompson. Strom met with her in person.
“She had one piece left and we talked her into giving us that one piece,” he said.
The piece Strom received from Fitzpatrick is now an exhibit at the North West Mounted Police Museum in Creighton, on display with information about the fugo and the sighting near Flin Flon.
While the authorities confiscated most of the balloon strips, authorities themselves sometimes kept them as souvenirs.
Greg East, the grandson of former RCMP Sgt. D. J. Brims, said his family also owned a piece of the balloon.
“It was in the family for quite some time. It was a piece of the balloon,” said East. “He ran the police station in those days. We had a piece of it – I don’t know where it went in the family.”
Aftermath
The Mari Lake bomb was not the only one reported in 1945. As many as eight fugo landed in Saskatchewan in the first half of the year, with another six reaching Manitoba. Balloons were found mostly in northern Manitoba, in Nelson House, Oxford House and Waterhen Lake. A fugo was also found at William Lake, just north of the American border.
None of the fugo that landed in Canada ever exploded or caused damage, but due to the secrecy and censorship that surrounded the aircraft after they landed, information can be hard to find.
That wasn’t always the case. At least two of the bombs that landed in the United States exploded. One fugo exploded and killed six picnickers in Oregon, causing the only American casualties in the continental US during the entire war. Another fugo exploded in Washington state, cutting off power to a military base where American engineers were designing their own lethal payload – the atomic bomb.
Since the fugo were aimed at remote areas, some of the bombs are still being discovered. Just three years ago, a military bomb squad detonated a fugo found in the mountains near Lumby, B.C, more than seven decades after it was launched.
