The tragic tale of the only mainland U.S. casualties in World War II due to enemy attack will be told this Saturday in Florence. May 5th, 1945 a church group on a picnic in rural Klamath County encountered a balloon bomb launched by a Japanese submarine off the Oregon Coast.
It had landed far from the ocean, and far from civilization. It exploded, killing a 26 year old woman and four teens. Historian John Baker of Newport will talk about that incident, along with tales of how the entire Oregon Coast was a military theater of operations during the war.
Baker is the main program at Saturday afternoon’s Oregon Coast Military Heritage Museum Kilroy Corps picnic. The picnic runs from two to seven pm at the airport.
