What are some of the interesting tidbits about this have you heard?

I'll start off. Did you know that the Japanese were highly developed in germ warfare? In the Black Dragon project they developed systems for delivering the Black Plague and even used it once against the chinese.

I dont know the accuracy of this next part: They had developed clay bombs that would detonate at a high altitude and release the germs into the air, say over a major american city, and they were also developing the means to get the bomb to the continental US, but conflicts between the army and navy held it back enough so that the war ended too soon for it's deployment.

I think the Japanese also had some balloons with bombs attached that they'd release and let the air currents take over the U.S. I don't think they ever did anything besides scare a few people.

I think that the breaking of the "enigma" cipher so that we could read German communications was probably the most effective secret weapon we had. We often had decoded German orders before they were decoded by the German units who were to follow them.
Also the Native American soldiers who used the Navajo language to confound Japanese code breakers and keep our communications secret were critical to our success.

Another pretty good secret communication method used in the Solomon Islands was the use of messages floated in condoms. Coast watchers were given condoms which they could insert a small written message into and blow up like a balloon. They would then be set adrift on the ocean currents to be picked up later. The inventor of this was Julia Childs, who at the time worked for British intelligence. Later of course she went on to fame for her cooking show. I heard her discussing this in an interview, and she said the toughest part was keeping the operation secret when she went into military hospitals to pick up the hundreds of condoms needed. The medics always thought she was having way to good a time.

Originally posted by LionelHutz
I think the Japanese also had some balloons with bombs attached that they'd release and let the air currents take over the U.S. I don't think they ever did anything besides scare a few people.

Actually I think one of these bombs was discovered by a group out on a picnic...one of the kids poked at the thing and it exploded killing some kids and a woman if I remember right...

they also used incindiary devices attached to the baloons to try and set forest fires in the west.

one thing I heard was that the japs had a submarine aircraft carrier. I dont know if it ever got to sea but there were plans and everything.

I heard a story about this on the news the other day. Some divers found one of these submarine carriers sunk off the coast of Hawaii. I will attempt to find the story and post a link.

yep, they existed. They weren't too big for an aircraft carrier (one plane) but you could launch a nasty suprise attack w/ one of em. Especially if you had a WMD.

I found the news story on the Japanese submarine aircraft carrier. Here is a link to the story.

http://starbulletin.com/2005/03/20/news/story1.html

They apparently carried 3 planes, and were to be used with biological weapons. When the weapons were not available, they were ordered to attack the Panama Canal. That mission was never completed because the commander committed suicide. The submarine was captured by the Americans at the end of the war, and sailed to Hawaii, where it was scuttledbecause the Russians wanted to examine it. There are some interesting pictures of the wreck.