Firebombing is a bombing technique designed to damage a target, generally an urban area, through the use of fire, caused by incendiary devices, rather than from the blast effect of large bombs.
A firestorm is a conflagration which attains such intensity that it creates and sustains its own wind system. It is most commonly a natural phenomenon, created during some of the largest bushfires and wildfires. Although the term has been used to describe certain large fires, the phenomenon's determining characteristic is a fire with its own storm-force winds from every point of the compass. The Black Saturday bushfires and the Great Peshtigo Fire are possible examples of forest fires with some portion of combustion due to a firestorm, as is the Great Hinckley Fire. Firestorms have also occurred in cities, usually as a deliberate effect of targeted explosives, such as occurred as a result of the aerial firebombings of Hamburg, Dresden, firebombing of Tokyo and the atomic bombing of Hiroshima.
Bat bombs were an experimental World War II weapon developed by the United States. The bomb consisted of a bomb-shaped casing with over a thousand compartments, each containing a hibernating Mexican free-tailed bat with a small, timed incendiary bomb attached. Dropped from a bomber at dawn, the casings would deploy a parachute in mid-flight and open to release the bats, which would then disperse and roost in eaves and attics in a 20–40-mile radius (32–64 km). The incendiaries, which were set on timers, would then ignite and start fires in inaccessible places in the largely wood and paper constructions of the Japanese cities that were the weapon's intended target.
The Mark 77 bomb (MK-77) is a United States 750-pound (340 kg) air-dropped incendiary bomb carrying 110 U.S. gallons of a fuel gel mix which is the direct successor to napalm.
White phosphorus is a material made from a common allotrope of the chemical element phosphorus that is used in smoke, tracer illumination, and incendiary munitions. Other common names include WP and the slang term "Willie Pete" or "Willie Peter" derived from William Peter, the World War II phonetic alphabet for "WP", which is still sometimes used in military jargon. As an incendiary weapon, white phosphorus is pyrophoric (self-igniting), burns fiercely and can ignite cloth, skin, fuel, ammunition, and other combustibles.
Louis Frederick Fieser was an American organic chemist, professor, and in 1968, professor emeritus at Harvard University. He is renowned as the inventor of military effective napalm whilst he worked at Harvard in 1943. His award-winning research included work on blood-clotting agents including the first synthesis of vitamin K, synthesis and screening of quinones as antimalarial drugs, work with steroids leading to the synthesis of cortisone, and study of the nature of polycyclic aromatic hydrocarbons.
Permanente Metals Corporation (PMC) is best known for having managed the Richmond Shipyards in Richmond, California, owned by one of industrialist Henry J. Kaiser's many corporations, and also engaged in related corporate activities. These four of the seven west coast Kaiser Shipyards were known for their construction of Liberty ships.
The La Mon restaurant bombing was an incendiary bomb attack by the Provisional Irish Republican Army (IRA) on 17 February 1978 that is widely considered to have been one of the worst atrocities of the Troubles. It took place at the La Mon House hotel and restaurant near Belfast.
A carcass was an early form of incendiary bomb or shell, intended to set targets on fire. It comprised an external casing, usually of cast iron, filled with a highly flammable mixture, and having three to five holes through which the burning filling could blaze outward. Carcasses were shot from howitzers, mortars, and other cannons to set fire to buildings and defences; on impact, the shell shattered, spreading its incendiary filling around the target. Congreve rockets were also sometimes fitted with carcass heads.
M4 flame fuel thickening compound is a nonhygroscopic thickener, adi-acid aluminum soap of isooctanoic acids derived from isooctyl alcohol or isooctyl aldehyd, which are obtained from the oxidization of petroleum. M4 is used in fire bombs and incendiary weapons.
The M202 FLASH is an American rocket launcher, designed to replace the World War II–vintage flamethrowers that remained the military's standard incendiary devices well into the 1960s. The XM202 prototype launcher was tested in Vietnam, as part of the XM191 system.
Japanese Village was the nickname for a range of residential houses constructed in 1943 by the U.S. Army in the Dugway Proving Ground in Utah, roughly 100 kilometers (62 mi) southwest of Salt Lake City.
The M69 incendiary bomblet was used in air raids on Japan and China during World War II. They were nicknamed "Tokyo calling cards". The M69 was a plain steel pipe with a hexagonal cross section 3 inches (7.6 cm) in diameter and 20 inches (51 cm) long. It weighed about 6 pounds (2.7 kg).
The Bombing of Aomori in World War II on July 28, 1945, was part of the strategic bombing campaign waged by the United States against military and civilian targets and population centers during the Japan home islands campaign in the closing stages of World War II.
The Bombing of Kōfu in World War II was part of the strategic bombing campaign waged by the United States against military and civilian targets and population centers of the Empire of Japan during the Japan home islands campaign in the closing states of World War II.
Saving Syria's Children is a BBC Panorama documentary film created by reporter Ian Pannell. The film's director, camera operator and producer was Darren Conway; the editor was Tom Giles. The documentary tells the story of two doctors working in Syria, Rola Hallam, an intensive care doctor and Saleyha Ahsan, an emergency doctor from London, working for the Hand in Hand for Syria charity.
On the night of 9/10 March 1945 the United States Army Air Forces (USAAF) conducted a devastating firebombing raid on Tokyo, the Japanese capital city. This attack was code-named Operation Meetinghouse by the USAAF and is known as the Great Tokyo Air Raid in Japan. During the raid, bombs dropped from 279 Boeing B-29 Superfortress heavy bombers burned out much of eastern Tokyo. More than 88,000 and possibly over 100,000 Japanese, mostly civilians, were killed and one million left homeless, making it the single most destructive air attack of World War II. The Japanese air and civil defenses proved inadequate, and only 14 American aircraft and 96 airmen were lost.
An incendiary balloon is a balloon inflated with a lighter than air gas such as hot air, hydrogen, or helium, that has a bomb, incendiary device, or Molotov cocktail attached. The balloon is carried by the prevailing winds to the target area, where it falls or releases its payload.
