Napalm
 Napalm  (Chemical weapon)   | |
|---|---|
| Chemical weapon that leaves horrendous skin burn damages |
Usage
Napalm was widely used during the Korean War and the Vietnam War.
Weapons testing at Royan
By 1945, the area around the town of Royan in Western France was a German pocket, left far behind the front lines. Air attacks in April 1945, just a few weeks before the German capitulation left Royan, as well as the surrounding forests, on fire. The air attacks, which had no military purpose by then, was in reality an experiment to test a new substance, known today under the name of napalm.
On April 14, 1945, B17s and B24s of the 8th Air Force dropped 3,200 tons of high explosives on the town and surrounds. The next day, the aerial bombardment resumed with an armada of 1,350 aircraft. In addition to the explosives, they dumped 725,000 liters of napalm, a new flammable product composed of gelled gasoline. This weapon, which would be used massively in future conflicts, had already been tested in August 1944 during the recapture of Saint-Malo (the bombing of the small island of Cézembre).[1] An air raid in January 1945 had killed 500 French civilians and wounded 1000[2]. The number of dead from the napalm raids in April, presumably much larger, are not readily available.
In April 1945, Howard Zinn, who was a member of the 490th bombardment squadron of the American Air Force was sent to Royan. For the presentation of the mission, it was explained to them "that each plane was loaded with 30 bombs of 45 kg containing gelled gasoline, a new substance known today under the name of napalm". Zinn remembered "having seen, from the top of the sky, the bombs exploding in the city, burning up like matches in the fog." He was totally unaware of the human tragedy that was taking place below.[3]
Legal status
Use of napalm against civilian populations was banned by the United Nations Convention on Certain Conventional Weapons (CCW) in 1980.[4]
Related Quotation
| Page | Quote | Author | Date |
|---|---|---|---|
| Vladimir Putin | “Western countries have been saying for centuries that they bring freedom and democracy to other nations. Nothing could be further from the truth. Instead of bringing democracy they suppressed and exploited, and instead of giving freedom they enslaved and oppressed. The unipolar world is inherently anti-democratic and unfree; it is false and hypocritical through and through.
The United States is the only country in the world that has used nuclear weapons twice, destroying the cities of Hiroshima and Nagasaki in Japan. And they created a precedent. Recall that during WWII the United States and Britain reduced Dresden, Hamburg, Cologne and many other German cities to rubble, without the least military necessity. It was done ostentatiously and, to repeat, without any military necessity. They had only one goal, as with the nuclear bombing of Japanese cities: to intimidate our country and the rest of the world. The United States left a deep scar in the memory of the people of Korea and Vietnam with their carpet bombings and use of napalm and chemical weapons. It actually continues to occupy Germany, Japan, the Republic of Korea and other countries, which they cynically refer to as equals and allies. Look now, what kind of alliance is that? The whole world knows that the top officials in these countries are being spied on and that their offices and homes are bugged. It is a disgrace, a disgrace for those who do this and for those who, like slaves, silently and meekly swallow this arrogant behaviour. They call the orders and threats they make to their vassals Euro-Atlantic solidarity, and the creation of biological weapons and the use of human test subjects, including in Ukraine, noble medical research. It is their destructive policies, wars and plunder that have unleashed today’s massive wave of migrants. Millions of people endure hardships and humiliation or die by the thousands trying to reach Europe.” | Vladimir Putin | 2022 |
References
- ↑ https://www.royanatlantique.fr/explorer/patrimoine-et-culture/au-coeur-de-notre-histoire/bombardements-de-royan/
- ↑ Pierre Montagnon, Dictionnaire de la Seconde Guerre mondiale, 2011.
- ↑ https://www.c-royan.com/arts-culture/litterature/livres-et-auteurs/1365-la-bombe.html
- ↑ http://www.worldinbalance.net/intagreements/1980-certainconventionalweapons.php
