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One aspect of World War II that set it apart from most wars, is that it was an “all hands on deck” war. Not only were millions of young men enlisted in the military, but millions of men and women were sent to factories and dockyards to build the ammunition, planes, tanks, and ships used in the war. Thousands of doctors and nurses traveled overseas to work in hospitals, farmers grew more crops than ever to send to troops overseas, people rationed their use of metal and rubber to save supplies for the military, and even many children across the country were asked to gather scrap metal to use in supply manufacturing. One area of contribution many people have forgotten is the thousands of people who served in the Civilian Defense network which helped develop defense and safety plans for towns and cities in the US. Obviously areas like Hawaii, Alaska, and the coastlines of the US would require constant vigilance from aerial and submarine attacks; but even areas as far inland as Lac qui Parle County had their own Civilian Defense office.
Prior to the Japanese attack on Pearl Harbor the United States had little to no worries about attacks from other nations on American soil. The British Army had fought multiple campaigns in America during the War of 1812, but by 1941 that war was well past any living memory and the offending nation was now an ally under siege. Even with the aggression of the Japanese Empire and the Nazi’s threatening allies across the world, Americans still generally believed they were too far out of the way for either country to pose a threat. But as we all know, Japan liked their chances enough to launch a surprise aerial attack of Pearl Harbor on December 7th in an attempt to take out America’s Pacific fleet.
The attack on Pearl Harbor failed to completely knock out America’s Pacific fleet, but it did succeed at stunning and scaring Americans who were now suddenly aware of the capabilities of modern aircraft and their carriers. You could write a whole series of books explaining how aircraft carriers changed warfare, but the most basic benefit was that an attacking nation no longer had to land troops to set up an airfield or stick to bombarding coastal targets from the sea. Now an attack could come from the air with little to no warning and could hit targets hundreds of miles inland (more than a thousand miles if the attacker was willing to make a one-way trip).
Naturally the US government and military had to develop a series of plans and preparations for how to defend towns and cities across America in case of an air attack. The Office of Civilian Defense had been established in an executive order by FDR a few months earlier in May of 1941 but now that the US was properly at war, the office and its duties were given new importance. All across the US, in every state and county, preparations were made to find and train airplane spotters, teach citizens how to best prepare for an air raid, create and promote programs to gather war bonds, and establish locations local citizens can visit to get information on the war or medical care if they did come under attack.
In Lac qui Parle, the county was separated into seven districts, each with their own chairman who organized and appointed people to the various committees and programs under the civilian defense banner. The seven districts aligned with the seven towns in the county and their surrounding townships. For example, the Bellingham Division handled Bellingham along with Perry and Agassiz townships. Each division had a chief air warden and a set of assistants who kept an eye out for air attacks and went from house to house in their district to give people instructions and advice on how to handle a bombing raid. The county as a whole also had committees dedicated to organizing disaster relief, medical care, rationing, and establishing locations people could visit to learn about what was going on during the war. Throughout the war, hundreds of Lac qui Parle citizens volunteered their time and effort to the Civilian Defense program. Far too many to all name here, but if you are interested in knowing more about who served in the program, a directory is available at the museum.
With Lac qui Parle being so deep into the country, there was pretty much no need to add air defenses or engage in most air raid drills; so the primary responsibility of the Civilian Defense force in the area came down to officers handing down instructions, information, and advice for the citizens in LqP along with the air wardens who watched the sky. You might be reading this thinking, “Well even that much seems like overkill, there’s no reason to attack this area and no way to even get here” but you may be surprised to know that enemy bombs were dropped less than 120 miles away.
In the fall of 1944, the US military had the Japanese Empire on the ropes. The Japanese lacked the metal and oil resources to keep up with the US Navy’s fleet and had to search for any edge they could find. To try and keep up, they adopted many new tactics that would have seemed ridiculous before the war including suicide attacks, guerilla warfare, and the little-known Fu-Go ballon bombs. The Fu-Go balloon bombs were a series of high-altitude ballons with small incendiary bombs attached. The ballons were initially launched in Japan by the hundreds, they would then cross the Pacific Ocean via the Pacific Jet Stream and finally land somewhere in the continental US and/or Canada. The hope for the Fu-Go bombs was that they would land in a forest, blow up, and cause a series of forest fires that would spread fear and divert valuable resources. The ballons couldn’t be aimed so the Japanese opted for a sort of buckshot approach launching more than 9,000 ballons from November 1944 to April 1945.
To keep Japanese morale down, the US censored many of the reports of how well the Fu-Go bombs worked, but after the war it was revealed that the bombs were pretty much useless starting no forest fires and mostly landing in the ocean. One Fu-Go bomb did kill six American civilians in Bly, Oregon in May 1945, making them the only American casualties in the contiguous US during the war. Most of the ballons landed in the western quarter of the US, but a few were carried further west into Nebraska, Iowa, and South Dakota. The closest a confirmed Fu-Go bomb came to landing in LqP was an unexploded ballon found near Madison, SD, less than a two-hour drive away. So while it may seem silly for Lac qui Parle residents to be on the lookout for bombing attacks during the war, we were only an unlucky wind away from seeing bombs dropped on our county.
