A few posts ago I discussed a display of paper cranes at the Albuquerque Balloon Museum. This display was highly symbolic, marking a commemoration of the balloon bombs constructed by school age children in Japan, and sent over the ocean, exploding mostly in forests of the Pacific Northwest. Only one of these bombs inflicted casualties on American soil, and this incident represents the only casualties in the contiguous United States during World War II. This balloon bomb detonated in Bly, Oregon
Today in Bly stands a monument known as the Mitchell Monument. It is named after the organisers of that day’s picnic, Reverend Archie Mitchell and his wife Elsie. While the Reverend was unloading food, one of the children found the bomb and called the others over in curiosity. Mrs. Mitchell and the five children were killed instantly from the explosion.
After thinking about H.M. Thorpe’s shoe brush, an object, as a memorial to those who perished in Flanders Fields, I wondered about this memorial’s status as an object. It is certainly on display, in a fenced off area with a pathway directing visitors to the memorial. Looking at the fence as a surrounding structure, the monument sits well positioned to take advantage of its space. Built in a trapezoidal shape of stone, the memorial is reminiscent of the CCC architecture at the nearby Bly ranger station. It has become part of the community, and it is constantly adorned with flowers, both recently picked and longer-lasting plastic ones.
Since this memorial is clearly seen as an object, in a special place, which is visited to experience, remember, and contemplate, is this space then a museum as well? The Museums Association defines a museum as a place that enables “people to explore collections for inspiration, learning and enjoyment. They are institutions that collect, safeguard and make accessible artefacts and specimens, which they hold in trust for society.” Similarly, the OED dictionary defines a museum as “a building in which objects of interest or significance are stored and exhibited”. The Mitchell Monument is not a building, nor does it collect, but it certainly is a place to explore an exhibited and significant artefact for inspiration. While this space as a museum wouldn’t likely receive accreditation, it certainly does illustrate similarities.
And all of this makes me wonder, what if people treated museums as memorials? What would curators say if visitors began laying out flowers out beside every display of an Egyptian mummy, or placing a pebble in commemoration on cases displaying grave goods. Most museums preserve objects and remains that serve as memorials, and most memorials can function as artefacts (some are even in museums now-a-days), so why must our actions towards them be so different?
Between November 1944 and April 1945, Japan launched more than nine thousand balloon bombs—experimental weapons intended to kill and cause fires. The balloons, each carrying an anti-personnel bomb and two incendary bombs, took about seventy hours to cross the Pacific Ocean. Three hundred sixty-one of the balloons have been found in twenty-six states, Canada and Mexico.
On May 5, 1945, Bly minister Archie Mitchell, his pregnant wife Elsie, and five children from Mitchell's Sunday school class were on a Saturday morning picnic. Thirteen miles northeast of Bly, or about sixty miles northeast of Klamath Falls, Mitchell parked the car, and Elsie and the children headed to Leonard Creek. Mitchell later remembered: "As I got out of the car to bring the lunch, the others were not far away and called to me they had found something that looked like a balloon. I heard of Japanese balloons so I shouted a warning not to touch it. But just then there was a big explosion. I ran up there—and they were all dead."
The explosion created a foot deep, 3-foot-wide hole. Bomb fragments were found 400 feet from the explosion site. Six people died: Elsie Mitchell, 26; Dick Patzke, 14; Jay Gifford, 13; Edward Engen, 13; Joan Patzke, 13; and Sherman Shoemaker, 11.
A front-page story in the May 7, 1945, Klamath Falls Herald and News provided no details and reported only that the six were killed "by an explosion of unannounced cause." The U.S. government did not warn of balloon bomb dangers until a week later. Officials released limited information about balloon bombs on May 22 and on June 1 lifted the blackout on the explosion's cause.
Designated by the National Register of Historic Places in 2003, this is the only place on the continental United States where Americans were killed by enemy action during World War II.
