#2
Post
by Sewer King » 14 Feb 2006, 06:11
A well-researched book on American incendiary warfare, and good for its size, listing many technical primary sources:
Mountcastle, John W. Flame On! US Incendiary Weapons, 1918-1945. Shippensburg, Pennsylvania: White Mane Books, 1999. 193 pgs.
Naturally the author also covers British, German, and Japanese flame weapons in both World Wars, whether waged from the air or on the ground. He cites the following examples of Japanese flame attacks after 1942:
"...there had been no documented reports of (Japanese flamethrower use) against Americans (in the Solomons campaign).
"(But) in December 1943, the Japanese again attempted to kill American troops with flame throwers. Fighting fire with fire, the Japanese attacked a patrol of Americans armed with M1A1 flamethrowers. The leader of the American group was the CWS officer, Captain (James F.) Olds. He recorded this experience in an article which appeared in the CWS Bulletin. In his words:
'Suddenly, two Jap flamegunners appeared out of the underbrush ... Standing upright and with no hesitation, the Japs fired from their flanking position before we had a chance to move. A stream of oil covered my head and right shoulder and doused Kearns' left side. Fortunately, the Jap flame fuel failed to ignite. Before the Japs could get in a second burst they were cut down.'
"The unreliability of the Japanese weapons and their increasing difficulty in resupplying isolated garrisons probably helped prevent any extensive use of flamethrowers by the Japanese."
Mountcastle cites Olds as an aggressive Chemical Warfare Service officer who had promoted the flamethrower among US infantrymen on New Georgia. Besides the action described above, Olds himself led a flame assault against a fortified Japanese position on 26 Jul 43. Some troops had distrusted the M1 series flamethrower as unreliable until improved through this time.
What seems especially interesting is that Olds describes US and Japanese flame troops in the same action, although the latter failed and the former did not engage.
In the footnotes are two sources for the above, unclear where on file but possibly those of US National Archives, Record Group 175, Records of the Chief, Chemical Warfare Service:
1st MarDiv Operations Report Guadalcanal, concerning ten Japanese portable flamethrowers captured after the battle on the Tenaru River, Aug 21, 1942. CWS 314.7 File. Reports on Japanese flamethrowers used on Wake Island in December 1941 did not surface until after the war.
James F. Olds Jr., "Early Bougainville Experiments", Chemical Warfare Bulletin vol 30 no 4 (Aug-Sep-Oct 44). On a few occasions, Japanese troops were able to use flame successfully against US positions as was the case on 19 Jan 45 in the Philippines. Japanese infiltrators attacked Battery A, 147th FA on Luzon and burned five American troops with flamethrowers; see Chemical Intelligence Report, HQ 158th Reg'tl Combat Team, 19 Jan 45, 6th Army Cml. Records. Copy in CWS 314.7 File HC-EA APG. [note: Aberdeen Proving Ground?]
Modern flame weapons on the ground have kept the "fearfulness" that the Germans meant for them in WW1. But they have largely been used by assault troops on the offensive, and I can't think of any times where they were used in defensive positions. The nearest cases might be improvised ones like an American flame barrier at the Ardennes in 1944. Also one supposedly planned by the Japanese on the beach of Chichi Jima in the Bonin Islands, had the Americans landed there after Iwo Jima.
Mountcastle points out how unreliable early versions were of both Japanese and US flamethrowers, which only the Americans were able to fix. But he also points out how their German use also declined as they went to the defensive.
From his bibliography and notes, the author documents a wealth of technical and operational detail of this kind of ordnance which may be less covered than others.
