A: Invented in , napalm saw combat for the first time in Sicily in August , when American troops incinerated a wheat field believed to shelter Germans. In the Pacific , U. Air bombardments followed in short order. If the blast didn't kill the soldiers inside, the heat likely did. Similar tactics were employed against Japanese soldiers occupying Pacific islands, who used extensive underground tunnel systems. During the conflict, U.
High-altitude bombers and dive-bombers unleashed them on enemy tanks and soldiers. After the Korean War, the United States developed a more advanced form of napalm. This type of napalm wasn't made from naphthenic and palmitic acids the source of the original napalm name. By then, napalm had already become a catchall term encompassing a variety of incendiary weapons, like when people say "Coke" to mean soda or "Kleenex" to stand for all facial tissues.
Napalm-B, a napalm successor sometimes called super-napalm, NP2 or Incendergel, is made of 33 percent gasoline, 21 percent benzene and 46 percent polystyrene [sources: Browne , GlobalSecurity. The gasoline in napalm is generally the same as that found at most gas stations, and that gasoline already has some benzene in it, but the benzene level is increased for napalm. Napalm-B was considered safer than previous forms, although when the term "safe" is used in relation to napalm, it generally refers to those who deploy the weapon, not those against whom it's used.
One of Napalm-B's safety features was that it was rather difficult to ignite, decreasing the chances of an accidental ignition. Thermite , a chemical mixture that burns at very high temperatures, is often used with a fuse to ignite Napalm-B. In World War II, the German word "bombenbrandschrumpfeichen" was created in response to napalm bombing of German bunkers. Soldiers in bunkers would be baked by the heat, and the word means "firebomb shrunken flesh" [source: GlobalSecurity.
In movies or newsreels from the era, you may have seen shots of planes diving low, then suddenly rising as enormous fireballs explode below. That's probably napalm in action. One retired U.
Air Force Lieutenant Colonel, speaking to the San Francisco Chronicle, described the effect as "like a fiery blanket [that] burns everything that it hits" [source: Taylor ]. Although the Vietnam War produced numerous images of bombs exploding and their aftermath, none is as indelible and well-known as that of Phan Thi Kim Phuc, taken by Associated Press photographer Nick Ut.
Kim Phuc was 9 years old when she and fellow villager were napalmed accidentally by a South Vietnamese plane. In the famous picture, Kim Phuc and a group of children are running, fleeing their village. Phuc is naked, screaming because napalm is burning her body. Upon realizing how hurt she was, Ut took Kim Phuc to a hospital.
She survived but after enduring extensive third-degree burns and 17 operations. In her late teens and early 20s, the Vietnamese government used Kim Phuc as a propaganda tool, forcing her to speak to reporters from abroad.
Eventually, she and her husband fled to Canada. She now lives in a suburb of Toronto, and although she still deals with pain from her injuries, she speaks publicly about the horrors of napalm [source: Omara-Otunnu ]. She's also a U.
Goodwill Ambassador. The photograph taken by Ut has become, along with images of burning monks, one of the most widely seen photos from the war. The use of napalm in Vietnam helped to galvanize the antiwar movement in the United States. One target was Dow Chemical Company, which manufactured napalm for the U.
Protests against Dow and boycotts of its products occurred across the country. Company recruiters faced virulent protests on college campuses, in some cases finding themselves barricaded in buildings. In response to criticism, Dow said that it had a responsibility to the U. The company also claimed that napalm only represented a small fraction -- 0. After Dow's contract expired, American Electric Inc. There is a photo of a nine-year-old Vietnamese victim of a misdirected napalm attack running down a road.
She is naked because she has ripped off her burning clothes. Napalm has not been outlawed as a weapon of war, but a United Nations convention forbids its use against civilian populations. Napalm is not beautiful, it is obscene. Sport for a new generation — Birmingham, Birmingham. Eyewitness identification from a different angle — Birmingham, Birmingham. Dyslexia: What's New? Edition: Available editions United Kingdom.
Become an author Sign up as a reader Sign in. The strategy of attrition is more likely to create collateral damage, in which infrastructures and civilians who were not primarily targeted by the strike are destroyed, wounded or killed because of their proximity to the target.
Collateral damage generally reinforces the determination to fight. Several factors could explain the shift, from the development of new precision bombing strategies to pressure from civil society to reduce civilian deaths. Clearly, many in the US military became more skeptical of the efficiency of attrition strategies after the Vietnam War. Consequently, the reputation of the napalm as a tactical asset was undermined. From to the Vietnam War, many in the military regarded napalm as an effective weapon of war.
Some soldiers felt a strong repulsion against napalm, specifically the odor of skin burnt by it. This odor haunted many of them after the Vietnam War. Also, a broader change in attitudes regarding civilian harm in warfare occurred following the American defeat in Vietnam. In between, the strategic bombing campaigns of World War II caused great civilian destruction through fire-bombing of cities and, ultimately, the atomic attacks against Hiroshima and Nagasaki.
It also became for many activists a symbol, not only of an inhumane war, but also of the inhumanity of certain means of warfare that violate the laws of war. This domestic pressure against napalm took a variety of forms, from large demonstrations and teach-ins to demonstrations against the Dow Corporation which produced the napalm used in Vietnam. Many opponents of the Vietnam War started to specifically denounce the use of napalm by the US military. One reason for this is that napalm was associated in the popular imagery with terrible injuries and suffering to civilians, especially children.
The first images of babies and children hit by napalm started to circulate in through mass circulation magazines. If they did not trigger a particular reaction in , this started to change after , as protesters were often seen brandishing these pictures. These images contributed to the perception that napalm was an inhumane weapon. Napalm, like the atomic bomb, is one of a few weapons tightly attached to one specific representation in the public imagination.
This is the picture taken by Nick Ut on June 8, , in a South Vietnamese village hit by an aerial attack of napalm. This is only partially true: it was in fact a South Vietnamese, not a US, pilot who dropped napalm on the village. Of course, US pilots trained the South Vietnamese pilots and provided napalm. They therefore have a full responsibility for the terrible suffering created by napalm, but they did not launch the attack on the village.
Moreover, the village was not the initial target of the South Vietnamese pilots: they were supposed to hit another village suspected of hosting opponents. The fact that the destruction of the village with napalm was neither originally planned nor led by US pilots does not mitigate the gravity of the attack.
Regardless, the image captures something essential at the core of the denunciation against napalm: the fact that the weapon, because of its firepower and capacity to ignite rapidly and for a long time, was also used as a tool to terrorize and hurt civilians.
Soon after a certain repugnance emerged not only against napalm, but also against those who were associated with it.
While Louis Fieser was awarded several medals for having contributed to the creation of napalm in the s, the situation radically changed for him after He was then repeatedly criticized for his role in the development of napalm.
Everything changed for the Dow Corporation i. Students refused to apply for jobs there; religious groups protested against it, important universities refused it access to student job fairs. This ultimately led the company to cease napalm production in Yet, even now, the company is still tainted producing napalm.
By the late s, the status of napalm had changed fundamentally in the popular imagination.
0コメント