Summary
Napalm. One of the most controversial weapons of the 20th century, it's an incendiary substance that if it comes into contact with your skin, it will burn directly to the bone. Used in the Second World War, and later the Korean and Vietnam war, what are the origins of this devastating weapon?
In today's Warfare, James Patton Rogers is joined by Robert Neer, author of Napalm: An American Biography. Together, they delve deep into the history and consequences of this infamous substance, from its origins through to its military applications and ethical dilemmas.
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Transcript
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| 0:00.0 | Napalm, it's incendiary gel that sticks to the skin and burns to the bone. |
| 0:06.0 | It came into the world on Valentine's Day, 1942, at a secret Harvard War research laboratory. |
| 0:13.4 | On March 9th, 1945, it created an inferno that killed over |
| 0:18.7 | 87,500 people in Tokyo. |
| 0:22.0 | That's more than died in the atomic explosions on Hiroshima or Nagasaki. |
| 0:27.2 | It went on to incinerate 64 of Japan's largest cities. It's the bomb that got the press, but Napalm did the work. |
| 0:35.0 | After the Second World War, there was a taboo around the use of nuclear weapons, |
| 0:39.0 | yet Napalm's use skyrocketed with infamous scenes of death and destruction in the Korean War, Vietnam, and beyond. |
| 0:48.0 | So who actually invented Napalm? Is it still in use today? |
| 0:52.0 | And what does its deployment in conflict tell us about |
| 0:54.6 | the depths that human beings are willing to go to in war. I'm your host James |
| 0:59.6 | Patton Rogers this is warfare and to find answers to these questions, I've invited expert |
| 1:05.0 | historian Bob Nere from Columbia University onto the podcast. Bob's book on Napalm |
| 1:10.4 | has greatly inspired my own work on the history of weaponry and war, so it was a true |
| 1:15.1 | honor to welcome him onto the podcast to hear about one of the most destructive and indiscriminate |
| 1:20.8 | weapons in history. Hi Bob, welcome to warfare. |
| 1:28.4 | How are you doing today? |
| 1:31.9 | I'm doing great. It's lovely to be here. |
| 1:33.4 | Well it's great to have you on the podcast. Where in the world are you? |
| 1:36.0 | Right now I'm in Cambridge, Massachusetts, as a matter of fact, where NAPOM was first created. |
| 1:40.8 | Oh my goodness, yes, it was on the playing fields of Harvard and we will get to that point very, very soon because that's exactly what we're talking about today. We're talking about that rather incendiary topic, if you will, of Napalm. |
| 1:54.0 | It's not often that we talk about just one specific weapon on this |
... |
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