War Doesn't Discriminate

War Doesn't Discriminate. . , A quiet Sunday afternoon, on May 5, 1945 Archie Mitchell, the new pastor of the Christian and Missionary Alliance Church in Bly Oregon took his pregnant wife Eiste and five Bunday school students on a picnic on Gearhart Mountain… , , Reverend Mitchell parked the car while his wife and the children headed for the bank of Leonard Creek. He heard his wife call out that they had found something, but before he could reach the group, the object , a downed balloon bomb, called "fago" , exploded. , , Shrapnel ripped through the forest, killing 26-year-old Elsie Mitchell and her unborn child, and the five students. The pastor was uninjured except for burns on his hands from trying to quench the flames on his wife's clothing. , , Richard "Jumbo" Barnhouse was operating a U.S. Forest Service grader when the carload of picnickers arrived. He heard the explosion and alerted Bly District Ranger Spike Armstrong and timber manager John B. "Jack" Smith to the tragedy that morning. Armstrong and Smith arrived with sheets, blankets, and first aid supplies, unsure what they would find. Smith checked for pulses but found none. , , While the public was largely unaware of the threat, the Forest Service had been alerted to the fact that Japan was sending balloons to the West Coast. Smith stayed with the bodies until military personnel could reach Bly. When the Army arrived, the men dismantled four more explosives. , , When family members and the community were told what happened, they were instructed to keep quiet so as not to hinder the war effort. Newspaper articles about the tragedy cited "an explosion of undetermined nature" as the cause of death. The silence had its intended effect. Japan didn't hear about the deaths and, seeing little evidence of the fugos effectiveness, deemed the project a failure. The country stopped launching balloons in April 1945. , , The six people killed were the only deaths resulting from enemy action on the American mainland during World War II, earning the event a place in history. But to the people of Bly, the explosion was personal. , , Sherman Shoemaker, age 11 , Dick Patzke, age 14 , Elsie Mitchell and baby , Joan Patzke, age 13 (Dick’s little sister) , Edward Engen, age 13 , Jay Gifford, age 13