Fire Bomb

[The Dane]

Pretty interesting ...
Source: http://www.thecombatreport.com/index.php?option=com_content&task=view&id=705&Itemid=91

Written by Hanna Laney Wednesday, 06 August 2008

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Napalm bombs being prepared for deployment


Editors Note: This article was originally featured in an issue of the Naval Aviation News, May 1951. Focusing on the effectiveness of napalm use in Korea, the article also gives factual information regarding the tactical movement towards incendiary bombing as regular practice. Written within the first decade of napalm use, it gives important insight into military sentiment regarding the use of incendiary weapons as well as a rare, Pre-Vietnam War point of view.

While the use of napalm today likely conjures images of its controversial use in Vietnam, it is important to remember the integral role fire bombing played in World War Two (specifically the Pacific Theater) and especially the destruction of Tokyo on 9 March 1945. The Combat Report has included commentary on this article written by TCR Staffer Hanna Laney, as well as included the original text. The original text of the article is featured in plain font, and the accompanying commentary in italics. Parts of the original story have been omitted for length consideration.

Let’s take a closer look at he most feared weapon used by the US in the Korean War- the searing napalm fire bomb.

Pilot after pilot returning from the war zone has said he’d rather have a couple of droppable gasoline tanks full of napalm than any other weapon, bombs, rockets or guns. Reports of devastation caused by fire bombs say it is effective against almost any target-troops, tanks, buildings and even railroad tunnels. Enemy troops fear it more than anything thrown at them, according to prisoners of war.

Napalm isn’t a new weapon- it was used with terrific success against the Japanese dug into caves on Peleliu, Iwo Jima and Okinawa. The Air Force dropped many thousands of napalm bombs on Japan to burn out its cities.



Napalm was first used in World War Two on the island of Tinian. It was still in the experimental stages, but grew in popularity as it was found to be highly effective in both bombing runs and flame-throwers. A single fire bomb could leave 2500 square yards of scorched earth. During this time, Japanese towns were primarily constructed out of wood, making them prime targets for the blistering fire of napalm. Japanese soldiers often used series of underground tunnels or bunkers to navigate the islands’ jungle terrain and napalm soon became the most effective way to attack cities as well as the labyrinthine chains of Japanese jungle bunkers.
Flame throwers used by ground troops use a thinner version of the same jellied gasoline to destroy enemy gun emplacements, bunkers and cave hideouts. But in the Korean War it really reached its peak of popularity with United Nations forces.

Napalm is well known as a weapon, but few know just what is in it besides gasoline. Early attempts in World War Two to use flame as a weapon saw fuel oil mixtures used. Rubber was tried as a thickening agent until the Japanese cut off the rubber supply. It was found a mixture of aluminum naphthenate and aluminum soaps of coconut fatty acids was best as a jelling agent. Hence the name “nap” for the naphthenic acids and “palm” for the coconut acids contained in the “devil’s brew”.


Ironically, the napalm used in Vietnam most famously was not napalm at all. In fact, the post-Korea napalm included neither ingredient giving it the namesake. While the newer versions of napalm were often referred to as “super napalm” it was a new mixture of polysytrene, gasoline and benzene.

It is an off-white granular powder. Newest formulas call for about 65% oleic acid, 30% coconut fatty acids and 5% naphthenic acid. Napalm gels are made by stirring gasoline while napalm powder is added slowly. But more on that later, let’s look at the combat record over in Korea.

Finding a target, the carrier pilot drops his napalm bomb. It explodes on contact and burns anything it touches. It burns oxygen from the air so fast that persons within 30 feet of the fire often suffocate. Forward air controllers with the Marines reported the enemy would stay “holed up” when rockets or bombs were fired at them, but they broke and ran when they saw napalm coming down from the much-feared “blue airplanes”. It has a similar deadly effect on tanks, suffocating the crew inside even if it doesn’t burn them.


The effect on the skilled Japanese enemy was indeed similar to the Korean effect and was paramount in their eventual surrender. While the Japanese army had the upper hand as far as jungle preparedness, it was this type of psychological toll from the fire-bombing that gave the Allied forces a distinct advantage against the adept Japanese forces.

LCdr. Elwin A. Parker, a Princeton pilot, decided to assess napalm damage. After some Skyraiders firebombed a village harboring Communist troops, he went in to look around. He found many Reds dead without a mark on them. The napalm burned so furiously it took all the oxygen out of the air and the Communists were simply suffocated.


Although effective, death by napalm would certainly have been brutal. The bombs killed mostly by either burning someone to death or by asphyxiation. Those who were not killed by the immediate effects of the bomb were often victims of disfiguring keloid scarring. Other accounts note death by trampling, as hurried citizens ran from burning cities as well as people being boiled alive as they took refuge in nearby rivers.

Red tankmen weren’t afraid of diving planes at first, their tough armor would repel 20 mm fire, and it was hard to hit the maneuvering tank with rockets and bombs that had to be right on to kill a tank. Napalm was another story. Pilots drop the fire bombs short from low altitude, let it skip to the target. Accuracy is not at a premium. A napalm bomb will cover a pear-shaped area 275 feet long and 80 feet wide. A solid sheet of 1500 degree fire envelops everything, killing personnel, exploding ammunition. It is not a flash fire like gasoline alone would be, but clings and burns and burns.


The real effectiveness of napalm lied in the ability of the bomb to skid along surfaces as it fell, exploding the bomb and spraying the jellied gasoline everywhere. In this manner, even the smallest drop of napalm could set any surface ablaze.

continues...

[The Dane]

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Tokyo firebombing from above


Skyraiders and Corsairs caught a column of 280 trucks racing reinforcements to beleaguered Communists. So much napalm and high explosives were poured on them only 50 trucks escaped when darkness came. A flight of Corsairs led by LCol. N. J. Anderson sighted Red Koreans changing from uniforms to white civilian clothes in the Seoul rout. Napalm on the first pass cleaned out two large groups. As fast as the Reds moved in tanks to stop the retreat, napalm was dropped on them. They ran out of tanks and later phases of the war have seen far fewer Communist tanks in action.

Marines of the Blacksheep squadron saw enemy troops hiding in caves in a deep canyon. Maj. Kenneth Ruesser, the strike leader, got permission to give them the napalm treatment. He and Capt. Charles Graber flew into the canyon. Their planes were so low the napalm bomb fuse would not arm (it’s supposed to take about 150 feet of air travel), so Ruesser dropped his bomb and Graber ignited it with tracer fire strafing.

Navy carrier pilots used napalm the same way as Marine or Air Force pilots. Particularly against ground troops on the march on mountain roads was napalm effective. Communists soon began moving their troops and convoys at night.


During the Korean War, for example, approximately 250,000 pounds of napalm were dropped per day. On an average day, the Air Force would use 45,000 pounds, the Navy 10,000-12,000, and the Marines 4,000-5,000.

Although it was “useful” against anti-aircraft emplacements, bombs with VT fuses probably proved a better weapon. Ammunition dumps were “duck soup” for napalm, the huge flames sending almost everything up in a burst that made bombing planes keep a respectful distance.

Wooden warehouses and thatched-hut villages, common in Korea, were made to order for fire bombs, as were Japan’s wooden cities. Orders often went out to burn down a town known to be full of Red troops hiding in huts.



One such “wooden city” was Tokyo. On the night of 9 March 1945, General Curtis LeMay, without first confirming with Washington, DC called for 279 B-29s equipped with napalm to start making their way to Tokyo. They began to drop their napalm loads on the city and thanks to strong winds the massive fire spread through the city. Fires burned for days, eventually destroying 15 square miles of Tokyo, with the firestorm reaching up to 1800 degrees. It is estimated that around 100,000 people died in this attack.

The pilot credited with dropping the first napalm bomb in Korea is Capt. Richard E. Smith of the 8th Fighter-Bomber Wing. He field-assembled some bombs soon after the 38th parallel had been crossed by the Reds last summer and fired them with a hand grenade for an igniter. So popular did the napalm bomb become that the Navy soon was dropping one napalm tank for every four regular bombs, and the Air Force used up 2,000,000 pounds of napalm powder the first five months of the war.



French reporter Robert Guillain was working from Tokyo during the 1945 fire bombing and he recorded what he saw, later publishing it in a book called, I Saw Tokyo Burning. He wrote, “They set to work at once, sowing the sky with fire. Bursts of light flashed everywhere in the darkness like Christmas trees lifting their decorations of flame high into the night, then fell back to earth in whistling bouquets of jagged flame. Barely a quarter of an hour after the raid started, the fire, whipped by the wind, began to scythe its way through the density of that wooden city.” Many of the inhabitants of Tokyo were used to nightly small raids by Allied bombers, so when the raid siren went off that night, they were largely unmoved. This allowed for many to be killed instantly in the center of the raid, as well as many killed later in the subsequent fires.

Since a belly tank takes anywhere from 9 to 21 pounds of powder, depending on the consistency required, that figure could mean the Air Force could brew enough jellied gasoline for 100,000 fire bombs.

The largest fire bomb of the Korean War was on 10 November when FEAF bomber command dropped 85,000 incendiary bombs on military targets of the key North Korean communications and supply hub of Sinuiju.



Robert Guillain expanded, writing that “Around midnight, the first Superfortresses dropped hundreds of clusters of the incendiary cylinders the people called ‘Molotov flower baskets’, marking out the target zone with four big fires…hell could be no hotter.”

North Koreans often dig in behind a hilltop but napalm, with its widespread fire has proved one weapon the Marines, with their close air support technique, have found to be the answer. Heat generated in one wide area by such a bomb kills personnel exposed to it.

Demoralizing effects of fire bombing were demonstrated when four F-51s spotted several groups of 50 or more North Koreans along a ridge. A couple of napalm bombs chased them into nearby buildings. As they came in for another bombing run, the pilots saw white flags flying from their houses.

Like its use in Korea, napalm in World War Two had this sort of dramatic effect as well. Its routine use began the slow and steady breakdown of the Japanese forces. Through napalm technique, the Allied forces had finally begun to exploit the weaknesses of the Japanese.Incendiary bombs of the last war included the famous six-pound M69 filled with napalm. Three quarters of a million clusters of these bombs, 36 to a cluster, were dropped on Japanese cities. About 60% of every city given this fire bomb treatment was destroyed. Korean cities are of much the same construction.

So, the story of napalm is still being written in Korea. It is a cheap, effective weapon of multiple uses, popular with the Navy, Marines and Air Force alike. Our troops are glad the Communists are not using it against them.



Incendiary bombing in World War Two, coupled with the final atomic attacks at Hiroshima and Nagasaki eventually led to a Japanese surrender. While the use of the substance “napalm” became most widely associated with its use in Vietnam, it is important to remember its effective and indeed massively destructive presence in the second World War. Also important in the controversial and evolving history of napalm and other napalm-like substances is the transformation within modern warfare brought on by the effectiveness both physically and psychologically of incendiary bombing, eventually rivaling, if not exceeding the importance of traditional bombing.

[aimforthemedic]

Good article...interesting to hear the history and some of the pilots testimony.