When was napalm first used in vietnam

The answer came from a team of scientists led by Dr. Louis F. They created an aluminum soap mixed with naphthenic acid from crude oil and palmitic acid from coconut oil. Take the "na" from naphthenic and "palm" from palmitic and you have "napalm". The new agent, when combined with gasoline, made for a cheap, brutally effective weapon.

It also could be shot long distances and was safer for the soldiers using it. Protocol III of the convention forbade the use of incendiary weapons like napalm on civilians.

The United States ratified the convention but isn't party to Protocol III and has used napalm in many conflicts since the substance's invention. The burns caused by incendiary weapons like napalm are tough for doctors to treat, according to Physicians for Social Responsibility [source: Crawley ].

Napalm can cause death by burns or asphyxiation. Napalm bombs generate carbon monoxide while simultaneously removing oxygen from the air. The air in the bombing area can be 20 percent or more carbon monoxide [source: GlobalSecurity.

This effect occurs because napalm partially combusts the oxygen in the air, turning CO 2 carbon dioxide into CO carbon monoxide. In some cases, people have been boiled to death in rivers made hot by the heat of napalm bombs. The raw ingredients of napalm can also be harmful, though certainly less so than when a napalm mixture is ignited as part of a bomb. If you've ever felt a little dizzy after breathing in fumes at a gas station, you can understand. But when polystyrene , another common ingredient in napalm, burns at high temperatures, it becomes styrene , which is toxic [source: GlobalSecurity.

Although one of napalm's early uses was agricultural -- Dr. Fieser found that it destroyed crabgrass by burning the invasive species' seeds while preserving other, necessary grasses -- it has largely proved destructive toward the environment. In Vietnam, the U. The extensive use of napalm in Vietnam, along with Agent Orange , herbicides and a variety of unexploded landmines and munitions, are now believed to have contributed to that country's ongoing environmental and public health problems [source: King].

In the United States, the storage of unused napalm has proven a contentious issue. In , protesters turned back trainloads of napalm on their way to recycling plants, perhaps fearful of napalm canisters leaking, as happened at the Weapons Support Facility, Fallbrook Detachment, in Southern California. This stockpile, supposedly the last batch of napalm in the U. The proposal was shot down out of concern over "very toxic compounds" produced by burning napalm [source: U.

Parliament ]. Napalm bombs, a type of firebomb, became a prominent part of aerial campaigns later in the war. In , Allied forces dropped the first napalm bombs on Tinian Island in , which is part of the Northern Mariana Islands in the northern Pacific Ocean.

Napalm devastated Japanese cities, especially since many houses were made of wood. A napalm bombing campaign against Tokyo on March 9, , killed an estimated , people and burned 15 square miles 39 square kilometers of the city [source: Laney ]. Allied forces also used napalm in European fighting, with around 3.

The bombing, immortalized in Kurt Vonnegut's "Slaughterhouse-Five," was part of a controversial campaign in which between 35, and , German civilians died [source: Encyclopaedia Britannica ]. 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. Precision bombing with napalm proved to be very difficult. The solution turned out to be bombing large areas including the target.

The author describes the sustained, ten-day napalm bombing of Tokyo and other large cities. Napalm was used into the Korean War. The burning gel often wiped out hundreds of enemy troops at a time. Once again, to the troops on the front lines, napalm was often a lifesaver. On the other hand, due to area bombing, thousands of civilians also burned to death. Napalm was used extensively in Vietnam.

The author says that , tons of it rained down on Indochina from Neer describes in detail how napalm runs took place in the Vietnam War. Oftentimes, after a napalm run, a pilot was given a cold beer while his armaments were replenished, and the plane was back in the air within twenty minutes. Thanks to television and front-line reporting, Americans saw first hand a lot of the battlefield horror of the war in Vietnam, including the effects of napalm.

Napalm-B was first used by American and South Vietnamese Army soldiers to clear out bunkers, foxholes, and trenches. Napalm fires rapidly deoxygenate the air around them and increase the amount of carbon monoxide and carbon dioxide in the air, so even if its flames were unable to penetrate deeply enough into an enemy bunker, trench or foxhole, it would suffocate those inside. One of the principal uses of Napalm-B in the Vietnam War was to destroy forest cover and food supplies. It was also used for close air support during search-and-destroy operations and against North Vietnamese troops and material marshaling areas.

American bombers dropped Napalm-B bombs in large canisters which exploded on impact, engulfing the surrounding area in flames. In , a demonstration at the University of Wisconsin was the first violent campus protest of the antiwar movement.

Support Provided by: Learn More. Now Streaming The Codebreaker Discover the fascinating story of Elizebeth Smith Friedman, the groundbreaking cryptanalyst who helped bring down gangsters and break up a Nazi spy ring in South America. Sign Me Up Dismiss.