Fu-Go - The Balloon Bombs of Japan

One of the most remarkable weapons of the Second World War was the so-called Japanese balloon bomb or “Fu Go” that was an early example of using the winds in the upper atmosphere to conduct a military attack.

During the latter stages of the war, people in various parts of the USA became aware of sudden explosions that appeared to be taking place in random fashion across the country. Little damage was done but the US Military, particularly the Air Force, became increasingly interested.

After investigating the site of one such explosion they made an astonishing discovery. It appeared as though the explosions had been caused by bombs carried by some type of lighter than air balloon - and a very large one at that. It was calculated that the balloon in question was, when inflated, about 10m (33 ft) in diameter.

Above: A captured Fu-Go balloon relaunched by the American Military for research purposes. (Image from Wikipedia Commons - click to enlarge)

By examining the sand ballast attached to the object they were able to establish that the sand came from Japan and that the balloon was filled with hydrogen. Furthermore it was found that the balloon itself was made from a special type of paper called washi – a Japanese product.

It was realised that the Japanese were launching bomb-carrying balloons from Japan, and these were climbing to an altitude of around 10km where they were picked up by the upper level jet stream that carried them across the Pacific Ocean to the United States. After a journey of around three days the balloons arrived over North America and the bombs, usually consisting of incendiary and antipersonnel devices, were jettisoned automatically.


Left: The Fu-Gos were carried across the Pacific Ocean from Japan to North America in the upper air jet streams. A typical journey took three days. (Click to enlarge)

Jet streams are high speed rivers of air moving from west to east in the upper levels of the atmosphere and occur as a result of temperature differences and the spin of the Earth. Wind speeds in excess of 250 kph (155 mph) sometimes occur.
The jet stream made visible by cloud. This view taken from the Space Shuttle, shows the jet stream across eastern Canada in May 1991. (NASA image - click to enlarge)

Normally there are four such streams, two in each hemisphere, called the polar jet and subtropical jet and these tend to move in waves around the Earth. These jets also move north and south according to the seasons and affect different parts of the USA at different times of the year.

The US Government wanted to avoid public panic and ordered that the presence of the balloons be kept secret, but after a family was killed by an explosion in Southern Oregon, warnings were issued to the public.

Between November 1944 and April 1945 the Japanese launched some 9300 balloons with around 300 reaching the USA. Bombs were dropped over widespread areas including Alaska, Washington, Oregon, California, Arizona, Idaho, Montana, Utah, Wyoming, Colorado, Texas, Kansas, Nebraska, North and South Dakota, Michigan and Iowa, as well as Mexico and Canada. Interestingly there were a few cases where the balloons missed their mark and circumnavigated the globe, crossing back over Japan after a week or so in the air.

Government authorities were particularly worried that the incendiary bombs could trigger forest fires and even more by the possibility that the balloons could be used to introduce biological agents and livestock diseases into the USA. Fighters were ordered to intercept and shoot down the balloons wherever possible but after B29 bomber raids destroyed two of Japan’s main hydrogen producing plants in April of 1945, the Japanese abandoned the offensive.

Left: Gun camera footage of Fu-Go's being shot down by American fighters during the latter stages of World War 2. (Image from Wikipedia Commons)

The Fu Go balloon bomb would go down in the history books as a fairly ineffective device but it produced widespread concern across the USA and was one of the very few times the mainland of North America was actually attacked by an enemy during armed conflict.

The Queensland Floods

The recent disastrous flooding in Queensland is closely connected with the La Nina phenomena, when waters across the central and eastern equatorial Pacific Ocean cool, and warmer ocean areas gather closer to northeast Australia.

Put simply, rain tends to cluster around the warmest parts of the ocean because the warmth produces rising air, and this in turn generates cloud and rain. La Ninas are usually associated with enhanced rainfall over eastern Australia with moist tropical air often extending down from Queensland well into the southern states, even as far as Tasmania, where flooding occurred during the second week in January 2011.

The present La Nina weather pattern across Australia kicked in rapidly around May of 2010, flipping across from the opposite El Nino phase that is usually associated with dry weather for eastern Australia.

The onset of the La Nina resulted in a rising crescendo of major rainfall events that rolled across Queensland from September onwards. Catchments right across the state became increasingly saturated as one rainfall event followed another.

The Barron Falls inland from Cairns, in raging flood during January 2011. Photo by Barbara Menz.

At the end of 2010 most of the catchments across south-eastern Queensland were totally saturated and any additional rainfall would then just run off into the adjacent river systems – a critical situation to be in during only the early stages of the Australian tropical wet season.

Disastrous flash flooding erupted through Toowoomba on Monday 10th January, when a wall of water swept through the town, killing an unknown number of people and causing immense property damage as houses and cars were literally swept away by the deluge. This occurred as high intensity rainfall, around 100mm in just one hour, fell on the already saturated catchment of the Lockyer Creek.

Major flooding then burst across much of southeast Queensland on Tuesday 11th and Wednesday 12th January with Brisbane itself inundated as the Brisbane River burst its banks and rose to levels just short of the 1974 flood. The degree of flooding in the area places the disaster in the “top three” of floods, alongside 1893 and 1974.

Major flooding around Boonah in Queensland in January 2011. Photograph by Leona Taylor.

The La Nina phenomenon marches to an irregular beat but has always been a big part of Australia’s climate, as has the opposite El Nino phase. Dorothea Mackellar summed up their impact poetically when she described our climate as one of “droughts and flooding rains”. Indeed it has been said, somewhat tongue in cheek, that average rainfall in many parts of Australia equals drought plus flood divided by two.

Following the massive flooding of early 2011, many people are asking if climate change is somehow behind the tremendous rainfall intensity we have just seen. Here expert opinion is somewhat divided.

Total inundation of the surrounding countryside near Moorang, Queensland during January 2011. Photo by Angela Gray

Some climatologists believe that rising ocean temperatures around northern Australia, that are about 1.5C above pre 1970’s levels, will produce more intense La Ninas, even if their frequency remains the same. Warmer oceans produce warmer air above and an atmosphere of this type can hold far more moisture that then becomes available for rain.

The unusually strong monsoon that produced devastating floods across India and China around mid 2010, followed by the flooding disaster in Pakistan in August has been linked to this pattern.

However other experts have remarked that although it is almost certain that rising ocean temperatures will be affecting the La Nina/El Nino see-saw it is too early to say how. They point out that the period of recorded history is too short to reach any firm conclusion.

However there is little doubt that the extraordinary weather events that occurred right around the world during 2010, together with our own Australian experience of extreme weather, has brought the topic of climate change back on the front page after a notable absence during much of 2010.

I'm a Neanderthal Man

In 1829 and 1848 skeletal remains of heavily built “humanoid type” creatures were discovered in Belgium and Gibraltar, triggering massive scientific interest. Then in 1856, in the Neandertal Valley in Westphalia, Germany, further fossil evidence of the same type was indentified and given the name “Neanderthal Man”.

For the first time scientists realised that it was likely that another "homo species", running parallel with our own Homo sapiens, existed many millennia ago but for some reason had died out, leaving Homo sapiens to develop into the modern human being.

Many more similar skeletons were later discovered across parts of Europe, the Middle East, western and central Asia and southern parts of Great Britain, but interestingly not in Africa, believed to be the birthplace of Homo sapiens.

Above: The skeleton of a Neanderthal Man in the American Museum of Natural History. (Image from Wikipedia Commons - click to enlarge)

The remains of more than 400 Neanderthals have been discovered since, and dating of these indicates that they existed from around 130,000 years to 30,000 years before the present time, before unaccountably disappearing.

The sites where Neanderthal remains have been discovered. (Image from Wikipedia Commons - click to enlarge)

Using forensic reconstruction techniques based on existing skeletons, scientists have been able to make an educated guess as to their appearance. The males were about 165 to 168 cm (65 to 66 inches) in height with the females a little smaller at 152 to 156 cm. (60 to 61 inches). This was about the same height as the Homo sapiens of the same era.

However the skeletal evidence indicates that the Neanderthals were far more thickset, and the large bones point to the fact that stronger muscle groups would have anchored Neanderthals together. They would have been far more powerful than Homo sapiens, perhaps of similar strength to the modern chimpanzee.

But far from being the hulking, unintelligent brutes of folklore, recent evidence reveals many modern traits about the Neanderthals. It is now believed that they made weapons and tools, cooked, lived in family groups, developed a language and wore clothing.

It appears that Neanderthals disappeared around 30,000 years ago after cohabiting their area with Homo sapiens for some 20,000 to 30,000 thousand years.

And the fascinating question arising from this disappearance is obviously – what caused it?

There are several theories and these include

(a) Climate change
(b) Increased competition from and possibly warfare with Homo sapiens
(c) Interbreeding and absorption with Homo sapiens.

The most significant climate event during the time of the Neanderthals, as deduced from Antarctic ice data, was a sudden jump in global temperatures from around 120 to 110 thousand years ago, followed by a marked cooling from that point to about 100 thousand years ago. Global temperatures then fluctuated erratically over the next 30,000 years.

Temperature fluctuations during the time of the Neanderthals - did these lead to extinction? (Click to enlarge)

It has been suggested that these temperature variations produced significant changes in the vegetation patterns, together with the various dependant animal species. This may have tested the Neanderthals ability to cope with change, with the competing Homo sapiens more effective in this respect.

Another possibility is that increased competition and possibly warfare occurred with Homo sapiens, with the latter winning out through slightly more efficient social skills and cooperation.

But another, more fascinating theory, is that the Neanderthals did not disappear at all but were absorbed through interbreeding with Homo sapiens and continue to live on in the genes of modern humans. This theory has received some powerful reinforcement in recent times when researchers were able to reconstruct the genome sequence of the Neanderthals and found that “up to 2 percent of the DNA in the genome of present-day humans outside of Africa originated in Neanderthals or in Neanderthals' ancestors”.

This interbreeding appeared to take place between 80,000 and 50,000 years ago across parts of the Middle East before spreading to other areas across Europe.

The interbreeding hypothesis is still an area of scientific debate, but the mystique and intrigue surrounding what could be our closest ancestor continues to fascinate the scientific community, as well as the general public.

In 1970, the British band “Hotlegs” wrote a song called Neanderthal Man that was interspersed with the chorus:

"I'm a Neanderthal man
You're a Neanderthal girl
Let's make Neanderthal love
In this Neanderthal world."

Hear it here:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0e0qYP_PTlY&feature=grec_index

Although the lyrics were far from award winning, Neanderthal Man reached No.2 in the UK Singles chart in July 1970 and No. 22 in the US, ultimately selling two million copies worldwide. It success was possibly due in part to the fascination we have for this strange and enigmatic being that trod the Earth so long ago and may continue to exist as part of us today.

References:
http://www.genome.gov/27539119

http://www.chrisdellavedova.com/2007/10/30/science-tuesday-chatty-redheads-or-dirty-hands/comment-page-1/

That Mother Board

“Dem Bones” is a very clever melody that was written by the acclaimed African American author and songwriter James Weldon Johnson (1871 to 1938) as a way of teaching children the basic anatomy of the human body.

Left: James Weldon Johnson, a man of kaleidoscopic talents who was at various times in his life a writer, lawyer, university professor, diplomat, teacher, civil rights worker and anthologist. (Image Wikipedia Commons )

It was written in traditional spiritual style and was not only an entertaining and instructive teaching aid but also became a highly popular novelty item on the hit parades of several countries, including Australia, in the 1940’ and 50’s.

One of the choruses goes like this:

The head-bone connected to the neck-bone,

The neck-bone connected to the back-bone

The backbone connected to the thigh-bone

The thighbone connected to the knee-bone

The knee-bone connected to the leg bone

The leg bone connected to the foot bone

Oh hear the word of the Lord

A great 1950's version of the song, as performed by the Delta Rhythm Boys singing ultra smooth five-part harmonies, can be heard here:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=pYb8Wm6-QfA

After recently hearing a version of the song, just by coincidence, it occurred to me that we need a more modern version to explain the mysteries of the computer world to the over sixties (like me), so I’ve had a try, borrowing from James Johnson's idea. Here’s the result:

That Mother Board

The Wifi’s connected to the I phone
The I phone’s connected to the e-zone
The e-zone’s connected to the ring tone
It's the word of the Mother Board

The Airports connected to the Blue Tooth
The Blue tooth’s connected to the tweet zone
The tweet zones connected to the batch file
It's the word of the Mother Board

The bitmaps connected to the Android
The Androids connected to the hard drive
The hard drive’s connected to the firewall
It's the word of the Mother Board

The half tones connected to the V-Ram
The V-Rams connected with the screen shot
The screen shots connected with the inkjet
It's the word of the Mother Board

The clock speeds connected to the bandwidth
The bandwidth’s connected with the add-on
The add-ons connected with the ASCII
It's the word of the Mother Board
It's the word of the Mother Board!

To the Baby Boomers - hope that makes it all clear.

James Weldon Johnson was one of the most influential and high achieving black Americans of the early twentieth century. He was one of the very first African American professors at New York University and later became a professor of creative literature and writing at Fisk University.

In 1988 the United States Postal Service issued a 22 cent postage stamp in his honour.

References:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/James_Weldon_Johnson

http://www.suite101.com/content/usps-black-heritage-stamps---james-weldon-johnson-a267955

Sugar Ray and Joey Maxim - In the Heat of the Night

The weather affects many areas of human endeavour in a whole variety of ways but one of the strangest and most famous of these concerned a world title boxing bout that took place in New York back in 1952.

The summer of that year proved to be one of the hottest ever across many parts of the United States, affecting most areas from the Continental Divide to the Atlantic coast. During June of 1952 monthly temperatures were an astonishing 10F above normal in Kansas City, and Nashville’s maximum temperatures for the month beat the previous record by 3F.

From the 24th to the end of the month, temperatures climbed above 100F as far north as Boston and Detroit, and many all time temperature records were broken as the searing heatwave marched across America.

During this furnace-like week, most offices and factories throughout New York and Detroit that weren’t air conditioned sent their employees home early and thousands flocked to the beach around Coney Island and Rockaway where they stayed overnight to try and escape the oppressive heat of the inner city.

In the middle of this heatwave a world championship boxing bout had been scheduled at Yankee Stadium, and a most unusual one at that.





Yankee Stadium in the late 1920's
(Image from Wikipedia Commons - click to enlarge)

The world middleweight champion Sugar Ray Robinson had challenged the world light heavyweight champion Joey Maxim for his crown. Robinson had already won two other world titles at lesser weights, and this would have given him world titles in three different weight divisions – an almost unprecedented achievement.


The World Middleweight Champion in 1952 - Sugar Ray Robinson. (Image from Wikipedia Commons - click to enlarge)

Normally a middleweight would have little chance against a light heavyweight, but Sugar Ray Robinson was no ordinary fighter, even by world championship standards. Equipped with silky speed and a killer punch in either hand, he was rated by many as the best ever boxer, pound for pound, in the history of the ring.



Joey Maxim - the World Light Heavyweight Champion in 1952 (Image from Wikipedia Commons - click to enlarge)

Maxim was big and strong and the fact that he was world light heavyweight champion meant he was a very tough hombre. The fight promised to be a fascinating one.

It was organised for 10 pm on the night of June 25 1952, outdoors at Yankee Stadium, and, as it turned out, in the middle of the New York heatwave. Robinson weighed in at 160 pounds and Maxim 175 – a big advantage. As the two fighters climbed in to the ring the temperature was measured on the ring apron as 104F, with high humidity conditions adding to the acute discomfort.

The fight commenced and then proceeded pretty much as the experts had predicted with the much faster Robinson scoring punches at will and piling up a big points lead over the first nine rounds. He even managed to stagger Maxim with a big right hand in the seventh.

Then things began to go awry for Robinson. His fast style was generating great heat from his muscles – heat that couldn’t be dissipated in the ultra hot and humid conditions. The core heat of his body began to rise and he started to show signs of imbalance, disorientation and exhaustion – all classic symptoms of hyperthermia or heat exhaustion.

In the meantime, people in the audience had been collapsing with the heat, and the sweat soaked referee Goldstein signalled that he could not go on after round ten. He was replaced by the reserve referee, Ray Miller.

In the thirteenth round Robinson threw a huge right hand, missed, and then fell flat on his face. He was a man noted for his superb balance in the ring so this rang alarm bells all through the crowd.

This moment was captured in the photograph here:

http://www.antekprizering.com/maximrobinson9815.html

He was just able to last to the end of the round.

But he was unable to answer the bell for the start of the fourteenth round and Maxim was declared the winner by way of knockout. It was the first time that Sugar Ray had ever been stopped inside the distance.

It took a totally spent Ray Robinson some 6 weeks to recover from the fight and he always claimed it was the heat, rather than Maxim that had beaten him.

However Maxim himself denied that heat was the main factor. He later said "Did I have air conditioning in my corner? I pushed him all night. He knocked himself out".

Sugar Ray, after a brief retirement from the ring, came back and regained his world middleweight crown and went on fighting until 1965 when he was 43 years of age. He was named the greatest fighter of the 20th Century by the Associated Press, and the greatest boxer ever by ESPN.com in 2007. Perhaps of even more significance, Ring Magazine voted him the best pound for pound fighter of all time. He died in 1989 aged 68.

Joey Maxim lost his world title soon after the Robinson fight and eventually retired from the ring in 1959. He was inducted into the International Boxing Hall of Fame in 1994, and died in 2001, aged 79.

Vision of this famous fight can be seen here:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=IV8lTKRrE_o

For information about one of Australia's best ever fighters go to

http://passingparade-2009.blogspot.com/2012/01/young-griffo-zephyr-of-ring.html


Reference: Sugar Ray, Putnam and Company, London, 1969

How to Make a Good Cup of Tea

Recently I attended a meeting of the local Rotary Club where the guest speaker was a coffee and tea specialist. He planned to deliver a talk on a topic that seemed to me at the time to be a rather boring subject.

But it certainly was not and instead it turned out to be both interesting and instructive.

It was how to make a good cup of tea.

Above - A tea leaf (Image from Wikipedia Commons - click to enlarge)

Tea making goes back many centuries and was originally practiced in China, India, Sri Lanka, Tibet and Burma before later spreading to Russia, Japan and Korea. Tea itself became a valuable trade item with the West during the nineteenth century and now continues to be widely enjoyed in most countries.

A tea plantation in India (Image from Wikipedia Commons - click to enlarge)

The famous English vessel the "Cutty Sark" was a fast sailing ship specially built for transporting tea from China back to Britain and was one of several vessels of the time known as "tea clippers".

But according to our Rotary Club expert, despite our great familiarity with this drink it continues to be be prepared wrongly, producing a bitter taste that we have to mask by adding milk and sugar. He demonstrated by preparing a brew using the correct method and the result was transforming - a great taste with no milk or sugar required.

The "Cutty Sark" preserved at Greenwich, England. (Image from Wikipedia Commons - Atelier Joly - click to enlarge)

Here's how you do it.

Use leaf tea (not tea bags) - preferably from India, China or Sri Lanka as these tend to be the best quality. Measure out two or three teaspoons into your pot depending on how strong you want to make it. Then add boiling water, as soon as possible after reaching the boiling point. If you let it cool before addition the flavour is degraded.

And now the vital point - let it stand for 20 to 30 seconds BUT NO LONGER. After 30 seconds astringents are released from the tea leaves that produce an unpleasant and bitter taste.

You can then pour your tea into a cup - if possible through a filter - or you can separate it from the leaves into another pot. You'll find that a mild and smooth flavour is produced with no milk or sugar required.

The technique applies to all types of tea including the camomile, green and herbal varieties.

Common myths:

(1) Use a spoonful of tea for each person and add one for the pot - almost guaranteed to produce a strong and bitter brew.

(2) The pot should be heated with boiling water before the tea is added - this makes virtually no difference.

Kamikaze - The Divine Winds of Japan

We are all familiar with the word “kamikaze” used as a reference to the large group of young Japanese men that formed the world’s first suicide pilot squadrons during World War 2. Kamikaze pilots flew their aircraft, usually packed with explosives, into allied ships operating in the Pacific Ocean during 1944 and 1945 in an attempt to inflict maximum possible damage at the expense of the life of the pilot.

The kamikaze squadrons inflicted a large amount of damage on allied shipping but were too late to change the course of the war.

However the term “kamikaze” was not originally used to describe suicidal military action but was in fact used many centuries earlier to describe two famous meteorological events that occurred when the Mongol warlord, Kublai Khan twice tried to invade Japan using formidable naval armadas.



Portrait of Kublai Khan, circa 1265 (Image from Wikipedia Commons - click to enlarge)

The first time, in the year 1274, the Mongol fleet was smashed by a typhoon, with an estimated loss of one in three ships and more than 10,000 warriors drowned.

Kublai Khan tried again, seven years later, in the year 1281, this time with part of his fleet successfully landing in Hakata Bay where they were fought off by Japan’s Samurai warriors. However the Mongol fleet was reinforced by a much larger naval force some two months later and it seemed that the Japanese would be overrun.

Then, amazingly, another typhoon blasted across the area, this time doing far more damage than had been seen in 1274. Some 3000 ships were sunk with thousands of invading Mongols drowned. Kublai Khan gave up the idea of a Japanese invasion after this disaster.


Depiction of the loss of the second Mongol fleet in the typhoon of 1281. This was painted by the Japanese artist Kikuchi Yosai in 1847. (Image from Wikipedia Commons - click to enlarge)

The Japanese had twice been saved from invasion by the mighty blasts of typhoons, and these storms were thereafter named “Kamikaze”, or “Divine Winds” that had been sent by the Gods to save their country.

Tropical revolving storms are called “hurricanes” in the Americas and this is from the Mayan storm God “Hunrakan”, although the Caribs also had their God of Evil named “Hurican”. Throughout the far-east, including Japan, they are known as typhoons, and this is derived from the Chinese “tai fung” meaning “great wind”. However there is also an Arabic word “ tufan” meaning a sudden or violent storm, and this, in turn may be related to the ancient Greek word “tuphon”, meaning “father of the winds”.

In India, Australia and Bangladesh these storms are known as tropical cyclones.

It has been estimated that since 1850 alone, more than two million people from around the world have died as a result of tropical revolving storms, but the actual figure is probably far higher as records are incomplete and probably inaccurate.

Typhoon "Jelawat" nears the coastline of Japan in June, 2006. (Image courtesy of NASA - click to enlarge)

In the case of Kublai Khan however, typhoons smashed his military ambitions, and his fearsome Mongol armies, all-conquering through China and Korea, were never able to capture Japan.