As US planes bombed Japan in World War II, the Japanese sent balloons across the ocean to try to set the US on fire

• Chinese surveillance balloon's flight over the US has highlighted the military uses of balloons.
• During World War II, Japan used balloons to strike the US as US troops advanced across the Pacific.
• Japan had limited resources, and bomb-laden balloons were a low-tech way to launch long-range attacks.

This story was originally published in August 2020.

On May 5, 1945, Rev. Archie Mitchell, his pregnant wife, Elsie, and five children from Mitchell's congregation were heading for a picnic at Gearhart Mountain near Bly, Oregon.