In Gearhart Mountain, Oregon, Mrs. Elsie Mitchell and five
neighborhood children were killed while attempting to drag
a Japanese balloon out of the woods.
Unbeknownst to Mitchell and the children, the balloon was
armed, and it exploded soon after they began tampering
with it.
They were the first and only known American civilians to be
killed in the continental United States during World War II.
The U.S. government eventually gave $5,000 in compensation
to Mitchell’s husband, and $3,000 each to the families of Edward
Engen, Sherman Shoemaker, Jay Gifford and Richard and Ethel
Patzke, the five slain children.
The explosive balloon found at Lakeview was a product of one
of only a handful of Japanese attacks against the continental
United States, which were conducted early in the war by
Japanese submarines and later by high-altitude balloons
carrying explosives or incendiaries.
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