Balloon Bomb Tragedy

A small memorial marks the spot in the tiny unincorporated town of Bly, Oregon where the only fatalities from enemy action in WWII occurred in the continental United States.

May 5 was a sunny day in 1945 when Archie Mitchell, a pastor from Bly, his wife, Elsie Mitchell, 26, and five kids who went to Elsie’s Sunday School class decided to go for a picnic on nearby Leonard Creek. They saw a curious thing in the bushes nearby.

What happened next was the tragic result of one of the most ingenious and curious war inventions known up to that point: a paper balloon bomb.

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