napalm

An incendiary compound, developed because WW I experience showed that petrol often burned too quickly, when used in flame-throwers, to ignite enemy equipment. In 1942 US scientists mixed napthaline and palmitate (hence napalm) with petrol to produce a brownish sticky syrup. This was mixed in various proportions to produce fuel for American and British flame-throwers and to fill some incendiary bombs. A later version, napalm-B, used 46 parts of polystyrene and 21 parts of benzene to 33 of petrol, producing a more stable mixture which burns at 1, 000°C rather than the 675°C of petrol.

Napalm's employment in the Vietnam war attracted particular obloquy. It was delivered by aircraft, often in the BLU-32 500 lb bomb, and its horrifying effects on Vietnamese villages and civilians were widely reported. A character in the film Apocalypse Now memorably philosophized: ‘I love the smell of napalm in the morning—it smells of … victory.’

— Richard Holmes