After Incendiary Bombing

The center section was the demolition part filled with HE and equipped with a delayed-action fuze that acted only after the bomb penetrated the target. The nose section contained about a dozen small incendiary bombs which were released by a timing device at the desired moment. The incendiary bombs scattered burning material setting numerous intense fires, thus completing the destruction caused by HE... 

A number of modifications of Thermite were tried during and after WWI. Cu, Ni, Mn and Fb oxides were tried in place of Fe oxide, but had no greater effect. The Ger used a mixt of Mn oxide and Mg in certain early incendiary bombs. Later in the war the Brit introduced flaming... 

In 1944 and 1945, there was a sudden interest in the possibility that Japan was attempting to attack the United States by placing biological agents on balloons that then floated across the ocean. In fact, some 8,000 to 9,000 balloons were launched by Japan against the United States, however, those recovered in the United States contained only high-explosive and incendiary bombs meant to start forest fires. These balloons continued to turn up several years after the war.26... 

The small size of these [incendiary] bombs may appear almost ridiculous, particularly after considering the tons of gas that are required to produce lethal concentrations but here comes the essential difference between gas and incendiaries that makes fire far more dangerous to a large city. Gzs disiipatei while 6ie propagates. Each of these small bomljsneld within itself the devastating possibilities of h s. O Leary s cow. ... 

The war in the Pacific was marked by the most spectacular and effective use of the aerial incendiary bomb. After March 1945, General LeMay s all-out incendiary attacks against the vulnerable Japanese cities brought to a culmination the recognition which the incendiary bomb had gradually been winning throughout the war. It was air power which played a very important part in Japan s decision to capitulate, and it was the incendiary bomb which helped to make air power such a decisive force. 

Two months after he assumed office. General Porter arranged for the recall to active duty of a colonel in the Reserves who had been intensely interested in incendiaries since World War I, Professor J. Enrique Zanetti of Columbia University. Porter sent Zanetti to London to obtain firsthand information on the bomb situation and upon his return put him in charge of the incendiary bomb program in the CWS. ... 

Nor was the distinction between plan and reality confined to the training activities of the Chemical Warfare Service. After responsibility for the development, procurement, and storage of incendiary bombs was transferred from the Ordnance Department in the fall of 1941, the CWS undertook a program for which no peacetime plans had been drawn, a program that developed into one of the most important wartime efforts. The assignment of the biological warfare mission to the CWS shortly before the outbreak of war led to large-scale research and development in this new field of endeavor. 

The incendiary bomb most widely used against Japan was a 6-pounder. The NDRC conceived the idea for the bomb in 1941 after European air raids had proven the effectiveness of small incendiaries. Since magnesium was scarce, the NDRC contracted with the Standard Oil Development Company for a steel-cased bomb filled with thickened gasoline. ... 

One example of an incendiary that seemed useful in the planning stage, but proved unnecessary after it was developed and tested, was a device to ignite oil slicks on water. In September 1942 the Navy Bureau of Ordnance asked the CWS to devise such a munition. The service modified existing incendiary bombs for the job, and also tried containers filled with calcium carbide (carbide reacts with water, producing acetylene which catches fire from the heat of reaction). 

Immediately after the Pearl Harbor attack, the Under Secretary of War directed the Chief of the Chemical Warfare Service to "take all measures necessary to expedite so far as possible the delivery of incendiary bombs. In January 1942 the OC CWS, after hearing from the War Production Board that magnesium would be available by May or June, notified each of five procurement district offices to arrange for the purchase of components of the M50 bomb. The district offices began immediately to negotiate contracts for components and for casting magnesium bomb bodies. 

As with other small incendiary bombs, the M 4 was loaded and clustered not only under private contract, but at certain CWS arsenals as well. Rocky Mountain and Huntsville Arsenals loaded, clustered, and packed this bomb. No serious complication arose in filling the M74, but the Ml42 fuze caused a considerable amount of trouble. The design of this fuze, which was manufactured under private contract at the Ordnance Fire-lands Plant, Marion, Ohio, was such that visual observation did not reveal whether the fuze was armed. After several accidents caused by explosion of the fuze, the CWS changed contractors. The new contractor, the Ferro Enamel Corp., initiated a number of changes to improve safety and handling procedures, which resulted in satisfactory working conditions and a satisfactory fuze. ... 

E. Fisher, 37, 5241 (1943). Incendiary suitable for filling bombs and flares is prepd by mixing thoroughly Mg dust with pulped paper in water and then filtering to produce a uniformly flat sheet or ribbon. After drying, the sheet is cut into pieces... 

Giua, after giving a general description of incendiaries (including Napalm) used during WWII in aerial bombs, lists on p 414 the following incendiaries patented in Italy after WWII ... 

Congealing a liquid fuel has the advantage in incendiary practice that the burning gel does not run out even if unsupported, e.g. if spattered from a bomb or after a celluloid easily burns away. Thus consumption is slowed down and the flame remains in one place. Since with flames of relatively low temperature (where heat transfer is essentially convective and conductive) duration is of the greatest... 

Dresden s number thus came up. On the cold night of February 13, 1,400 Bomber Command aircraft dropped high explosives and nearly 650,000 incendiaries on the city six planes were lost. The firestorm that ensued was visible two hundred miles away. The next day, just after noon, 1,350 American heavy bombers flew over to attack the railroad marshaling yards with high explosives but found nine-tenths cover of cloud and smoke and bombed a far larger area, encountering no flak at all. 

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