75th Birthday

1630Boston · April 18, 2019 1:41PM

In honor of Smokey Bear’s 75th birthday this year [on August 9, 2019]
Post a coin with a bear on it
PS I guess the Smokey Bear PSA [public service announcement] is the longest running PSA.

291fifth · April 18, 2019 1:51PM

He can spot a fire before it starts to flame ... that's why they call him Smokey that's how he got his name,

... hey, what is hanging from those balloons floating in from the Pacific?

Hemispherical · April 18, 2019 1:53PM

Smokey the Polar Bear has that look... that look right before he pounces on you and feasts on your....censored.... as you gurgle in pain.

Here’s a bear that just eats grass (bamboo). Not my specific coin.

Hemispherical · April 18, 2019 1:57PM

@291fifth said:
He can spot a fire before it starts to flame ... that's why they call him Smokey that's how he got his name,

... hey, what is hanging from those balloons floating in from the Pacific?

“Balloon bombs aimed to be the silent assassins of World War II. Hitching a ride on a jet stream, these weapons from Japan could float soundlessly across the Pacific Ocean to their marks in North America.

Still largely unknown, these armaments were a byproduct of an atmospheric experiment by the Axis power. In the 1940s, the Japanese were mapping out air currents by launching balloons attached with measuring instruments from the western side of Japan and picking them up on the eastern side.

The researchers noticed that a strong air current traveled across the Pacific at about 30,000 feet.

Using that knowledge, in 1944 the Japanese military made what many experts consider the first intercontinental weapon system: explosive devices attached to paper balloons that were buoyed across the ocean by a jet stream.

The Pattern of Attack

Experts estimate it took between 30 and 60 hours for a balloon bomb to reach North America's West Coast.

Atmospheric uncertainty made for an uncontrolled attack. "An awful lot of this was just 'put them up there and see what happens,' " said Dave Tewksbury, a member of the geosciences department at Hamilton College, New York. But the lack of a governed outcome was tempered by the fact that no Japanese troops were at risk.

Locating the Source

When the balloons made landfall, there were no obvious clues as to where they originated. But forensic geology, then in its infancy, was able to pinpoint Japan as the point of launch. When Col. Sigmund Poole, head of the U.S. Geological Survey military geology unit at the time, was given sand from one of the balloon's ballast bags, he is alleged to have asked, "Where'd the damn sand come from?"

His team of geologists knew it wasn't a type of sand found in North America or Hawaii. "Japan was a logical guess," said Tewksbury. The sand was unique enough to narrow the source down to two areas on the island of Honshu. "Most likely it had been coming from a small chunk of beach east of Tokyo," he added.

A Single Success

The first balloon was launched on November 3, 1944. Between then and April 1945, experts estimate about 1,000 of them reached North America; 284 are documented as sighted or found, many as fragments (see map). Records uncovered in Japan after the war indicate that about 9,000 were launched.

The Japanese government withdrew funding for the program around the same time that Allied forces blew up Japanese hydrogen plants, making the commodity needed to fill the balloons scarcer than ever. Plus it was unclear whether the weapons were working; security was so good on the U.S. side that news of the balloon bombs' arrival never got back to Japan.

The downside to such secrecy was that American citizens didn't know what these weapons were. As a result, a single one achieved its goal.

On May 5, 1945, five children and local pastor Archie Mitchell's pregnant wife Elsie were killed as they played with the large paper balloon they'd spotted during a Sunday outing in the woods near Bly, Oregon—the only enemy-inflicted casualties on the U.S. mainland in the whole of World War II.“

https://news.nationalgeographic.com/news/2013/05/130527-map-video-balloon-bomb-wwii-japanese-air-current-jet-stream/

Kkathyl · April 18, 2019 1:59PM

He is not what he used to be. Seems like in Cali the fire line is exactly in area the train was to be going. Lets hope he does a better job than this past year.

291fifth · April 18, 2019 2:33PM

The US was very concerned about forest fires during this period. In 1942 a Japanese submarine based float plane had dropped bombs on a forest in the northwestern US in an attempt to start forest fires.

ricko · April 19, 2019 6:32AM

Smokey Bear is an icon and appears yearly with the advent of fire season...Last year was certainly a disastrous year for fires...Hopefully the heavy rains in the west will help to reduce the problem this year. Cheers, RickO

asheland · April 19, 2019 7:25AM

Hemispherical · April 19, 2019 8:11AM

@asheland said:

The panda Ag’s are nice and you don’t need a magnifier to see what the panda’s are doing; unlike the panda Au’s. Though, I do prefer Au.

—————

Let’s go to the land down-under!

RAM’s $200 Koala.

Reminds me of an Ewok.

asheland · April 19, 2019 9:04AM

@Hemispherical said:

@asheland said:

The panda Ag’s are nice and you don’t need a magnifier to see what the panda’s are doing; unlike the panda Au’s. Though, I do prefer Au.

—————

Let’s go to the land down-under!

RAM’s $200 Koala.

Reminds me of an Ewok.