During World War 2, the giant DuPont company in America had developed a new house paint. The problem for DuPont was that the paint would spontaneously burst into flames.

The flaming culprit in the paint was a substance which was a left over residue once all of the oil had been extracted – a chemical called divinylacetelyne. Perfect. Normally for many products the left overs are what you throw away, dispose of, but one of the great things about oil is that from its leftovers we get so many amazingly usable products – like plastic that saved whales from extinction in the 1800s. Back then the bone from whales, called baleen, had many of the properties of plastic. Plastic made from oil extracts was far better all round than the baleen from whales. Since the baleen wasn’t need any longer, vast

amounts of plastic could be produced from oil residue. With the population of the world growing, all of the whales would have been hunted to extinction and

there would never have been enough baleen anyway. Plastic was cheaper and available in whatever quantities you needed.

The DuPont company’s chemical, divinylacetelne was good for burning but the scientists found that they could improve dramatically on that. They came up with something better. They found that if you mixed gasoline with aluminium naphthalene plus aluminium palmitate you got a really killer inflammable, weaponizable, substance. That name was way too big to use everyday though, something shorter was needed. So they took the na from naphthalene and the palm from palmitate and you’ve got – ta da napalm.

And the new commander of the XXIst Bomber Group was going to be able to put this to good use.

Like Lt-Col Bill Kilgore says in Apocalypse Now - he loved the smell of napalm in the morning.

Admiral Isoroku Yamamto, the brilliant Japanese admiral, who had planned the attack on Pearl Harbour but warned the Japanese leaders who ordered him to plan that attack, that after launching that attack, which he reluctantly planned, "I fear all we have done is to awaken a sleeping giant and fill him with a terrible resolve."

He had lived for many years in the United States and knew what the Americans were capable of. He knew what he was talking about.

Even before the war began, while the planning and practice for the attack at Pearl Harbour was under way, he made another comment: “Tokyo will probably be burnt to the ground.” These were prophetic words.

Tag words: tatami; Dugway Proving Ground; Antonin Raymond; thermite incendiary; General Hansell; Twenty First Bomber Group; Curtis Le May; B-29; Operation Meetinghouse; Hosea 8:7; General Stonewall Jackson; Tokyo; napalm; United States Strategic Bombing Survey; General Lauris Norstad; Henry

Stimson; Conrad Crane; General Douglas MacArthur;