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Napalm

Flesh burns brightly.Flames dashed across the length of a young girl’s left arm, leaving a roaring fire in its wake. She tried to wipe off the oily residue with her right hand, only to find that she had spread the fireto the other half of her body. Black smoke coalesced into a curtain that surrounded her family. She tore off her clothes and ran, naked and panicked, in streets scorched with liquid fire. The girl, Phan Thi Kim Phuc, was nine years old. The most terrifying moment in her life was captured on camera and seared into the American psyche. The photograph, called “The Terror of War,” showed her running naked on a road after being severely burned on her back by a South Vietnamese attack, also stands as the most recognized portrait of napalm. Kim Phuc was not expected to survive after the severe burns. After a 14-month hospital stay and 17 surgical procedures, however, she was able to return home. (I just added a little bit more information as to describe the girl in the picture).

Since its introduction in 1942, napalm has undergone numerous revisions. Louis Fieser, a Harvard chemistry professor and researcher, was drafted to design a powerful explosive to subdue the Axis during World War II. His original formula contained naphthenic acid and palmitic acid; lauric acid and oleic acid were added later. By the time napalm was used in Vietnam and Southeast Asia, the formula contained polystyrene, benzene, and gasoline. Despite the alterations, the chemical constituents all served the same function: to burn brighter, hotter, and longer. This picture below shows how powerful napalm can explode:

Naphthenic acid, palmitic acid, lauric acid, and oleic acid all contain long hydrocarbon chains. Styrene, which is composed of an ethenyl constituent bonded to benzene, can be reacted with other styrene molecules to produce chains of polystyrene. And benzene, of course, is an aromatic hydrocarbon composed of six carbon atoms. The combined effect of these mixtures is a viscous, highly hydrophobic, and lipophilic gel that can burn up to 2000°F for up to ten minutes. To deploy the bombs, pilots dropped canisters of napalm from their planes, followed by thermite or phosphorus grenades to provide the spark. What followed was a prolonged combustion reaction, facilitated by the high hydrocarbon content of the constituents.

The idea was to burn. An explosive might blow the doors of an enemy’s garrison off the hinges, shatter the windows as flames billow out of every available cavity, and demolish wooden scaffolds and sturdy walls into splinters and sawdust. But buildings can be rebuilt. The idea was to burn, to purge German and Japanese holdouts until they become nothing more than modern day versions of Sodom and Gomorrah.

Eradication was what the United States government aimed for during the optimization phase. Once Fieser and his cohorts discovered a combination of fuels that could “be distributed over a target area in the form of burning, adherent masses,”[1] they optimized the method of delivery. Feiser redesigned the steel cylinder to facilitate the expulsion of globs of napalm over greater surface areas and readjusted the ratios of each chemical constituent to ensure maximum efficiency. Although napalm was conceived as a weapon of war against enemy soldiers, civilian homes were also targeted. The American government commissioned researchers at Standard Oil and Factory Mutual to set fire to replicas of civilian homes furnished with rugs and furniture to evaluate the potential damage. In addition, the government also commissioned researchers to optimize and enhance damages to human skin by setting fire to pig skin coated with different ratios of naphtenic, palmitic, and lauric acid. [2]

Once satisfied with their results, the bombings began on Japanese troops in Okinawa, Iwo Jima, Saipan, and the Philippines. However, for all the care devoted to ensuring the efficiency of the napalm bombs, little attention was given to the accuracy of the targets. It was reported that 70-80% of bombing missions in 1944 utilized “blind bombing” rather than “precision bombing” devices. As a result, “Only slightly more than one-third of all bombs […] fell within 1,00 feet of their target”[2](Which source are you using here? You quote page number 2 but I am not quite sure which one of the three sources).Not only that, friendly forces were also mistakenly bombed. Eager to drive the Germans out of France, American troops unleashed “460,000 gallons of liquid fire”over Royan. Unfortunately, fire burns indiscriminately; friendly forces and German strong points alike were scorched. A French observer noted, “Royan has gone down with the civilized world, by the error, the bestiality, the folly of man” [3](same source for here as well)

What was conceived as a weapon against German and Japanese forces quickly became an indiscriminate blood bath. The American air force continued to drop napalm bombs on civilian land, leaving a trail of ashes in their wake. Of the many nations that suffered from napalm bombings, Japan was a major target. Several accounts named the innocent dead. Sumiko Morikawa was a mother of three when the air raid dropped napalm over her city. She carried her twin girls, Atsuko and Ryoko, and her son Kiichi to shelter. The twins, only 8 months old, died along the way. Kiichi, only four years old, died in her arms. Katsubo Higashikawa was one year and seven months old. He died on his older sister’s back as she tried to carry him to safety.[2]

Despite innocent civilian deaths, the world hailed napalm as a miracle invention. And as it turns out, destruction is an ill-kept secret. Soon after its first use in Germany and Japan, other nations began manufacturing napalm. In fact, the US supplied napalm to Asia, Latin America, and the Middle East. Israel used napalm against Egypt, Syria, and Lebanon between 1956 and 1973. The French used napalm in Vietnam and Tunisia and the British in Kenya. Little mention was made of the civilian bodies that burned, coated by mixtures of carboxylic acids or benzene. Death became sport. After each bombing, a trophy was issued in the form of a Budweiser. As one journalist notes, “Normally the entire operation takes only 20 minutes. The beer never gets warm before the pilot climbs back […] to take off on another sortie” [2].

American adoration of napalm and its destructive powers waned during the Vietnam War. Highly publicized photographs of the bombings, such as the one depicting Kim Phuc, circulated amongst the American public. Protests and boycotts were staged against the Dow Chemical Company, napalm’s main producer during the Vietnam and Korean Wars. University students led demonstrations against indiscriminate bombings of civilian land. Pamphlets depicting Vietnamese children maimed by napalm circulated amongst Americans. Public opinion of napalm came to a complete turning point once Americans conceded defeat in Vietnam in 1973. The American government continued its use of incendiary devices such as napalm, though with less public support. Finally, on President Barack Obama’s first day in office, the United States agreed to the United Nation’s Certain Conventional Weapons ban of incendiary devices and discontinued its use of napalm.

The napalm that rained over Germany and Japan in the 1940s was a mixture of carboxylic acids: naphthenic, palmitic, lauric, and oleic. The mixture that flooded the villages of Vietnam and Laos with flames contained polystyrene, benzene, and gasoline. The individual constituents suffer from no historical association with burning flesh and maimed babies. Napthenic acid, oleic acid, palmitic acid, and lauric acid are used in production of detergents, soaps, or cosmetics. Benzene, though toxic, is used to produce of drugs and pesticides. Polystyrene is found in packing peanuts. Gasoline powers automobiles. But together, these constituents make up napalm, a sticky, hydrophobic gel that burns brightly. Still, even with its insidious history, napalm shows constructive potential. As Fieser, the father of napalm states:

“According to an officer who inspected some of the Japanese areas devastated by the B-29 raids […], a few of the more enterprising civilians salvaged a dud or two and made good use of recovered napalm for cooking and heating. Certain other uses of a more novel and scientific character are being investigated with promising results. It is too early as yet to know whether napalm will find significant application in times of peace.”[1]

Molecules and chemicals hold no inherent morality, no sense of intentionality. But when they are implicated in the sport of destruction,they share the guilt of their creator, at least in the eyes of the public. The Harvard scientists never found a use for napalm in times of peace. Neither did the Dow Chemical Company. The public wanted nothing to do with it. What was hailed as the weapon that defeated morally corrupt nations was later considered an act of excessive force and folly, a war crime so terrible that not even fire can purge its stain.

Sources

  1. Fieser, Louis F., George C. Harris, E. B. Hershberg, Morley Morgana, Frederick C. Novello, and Stearns T. Putnam. "Napalm." Industrial & Engineering Chemistry 38.8 (1946): 768-73. Print.
  1. Neer, Robert M. Napalm: An American Biography. Cambridge, MA: Belknap of Harvard UP, 2013. Print.
  1. Zinn, Howard. The Zinn Reader: Writings on Disobedience and Democracy. New York: Seven Stories, 1997. Print.

Comments: This essay is very well-written, it contains valuable and sufficient information. The wordings and how the writer described and connected sources in this essay are spectacular. I have nothing much to comment on this essay because I think it is an excellent one. I just added two more pictures and corrected some quoting citation.