Ποτέ δεν θα μάθουμε όμως ποιος ήταν ο πεφωτισμένος, που σκέφτηκε να γίνει στην Ελλάδα κατά τον Εμφύλιο η παγκόσμια πρεμιέρα των Napalm...
Μάλλον εισήγηση αυτού του τύπου ήταν: William A. Matheny. In early 1948 he assumed command of the U.S. Air Force Advisory Group in Greece.
Βέβαια, ως επιτελική απόφαση των Αμερικανών (ευθύνης του Van Fleet) με ενθουσιώδη υποστήριξη των Ελλήνων επιτελικών. Αυτά προκύπτουν από τα λίγα που έψαξα και βρήκα για να λυθεί μέχρι σε ένα βαθμό η απορία σου.
“In early June two American Air Force officers and four enlisted men from the Military Advisory and Planning Group prepared to train the Greeks in [napalm] use. By the middle of the month the Americans made arrangements for moving the napalm equipment and crews from Eleusis Airfield to Kozani. Van Fleet agreed with Matheny that it was time to seek the American aid mission’s approval for napalm attacks. Orders went out for over 5,000 pounds of napalm from the United States and 200 drop tanks from Germany which could hold 75 gallons of liquid each. On June 20, ten Spitfires launched their first napalm raid on targets chosen by the army.” — Howard Jones, “A New Kind of War”- America’s
Global Strategy and the Truman Doctrine in Greece (Oxford: Oxford Univ. Press, 1997), 293.
According to The Greek Civil War: Essays on a Conflict of Exceptionalism and Silences by Philip. Carabott, Thanasis D. Sfikas, the Greek General Staff "refused to recognise the communists as Greeks..demanding more napalm bombs to throw at them, while its request for anaesthetic or asphyxiating gases and chemical warfare materials was cut short by the Americans.."pg.94
----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Napalm was first used as fuel for flamethrowers and went on to be used more prevalently in firebombs.
In 1942 after research at Harvard University scientist found that a jelly gasoline like substance burnt more slowly and thus was far more effective. They found that mixing an aluminum soap powder of naphthene and palmitate (hence na-palm), also known as napthenic and palmitic acids, with gasoline produced a brownish sticky syrup that burned more slowly than raw gasoline. This new mixture of chemicals was widely used in the Second World War in flame throwers and fire bombs. Napalm bombs burned out 40% of the area of Japanese target cities in the World War. Popular weapons continue to be developed, and napalm was no exception. With many more compounds available after World War II, a safer and just as effective napalm compound was developed.
On July 17, 1944, napalm incendiary bombs were dropped for the first time by 14 American P-38 Lightning aircraft of the 402nd Fighter Squadron / 370th Fighter Group on a fuel depot at Coutances, near St. Lô, France.[9] Further use by the Allied forces occurred in the Pacific theater (warfare) against Japanese cities.[10] In the Western theatre, the Royal Air Force and US Army Air Forces dropped several hundred thousand firebombs on the city of Dresden, destroying over 90% of the city center.[11] Napalm was used in the siege of La Rochelle in April 1945 against German soldiers (and inadvertently French civilians) - about two weeks before the end of the war.
Napalm was also used in the Greek civil war between the Greek governmental army and US against the communist rebels. At the last year of the civil war US increased their aid by suggesting a new weapon to finish the war. It was in 1949 when the first napalm test took place in the mountain Grammos, which was the communist stronghold.
Napalm was also used by UN forces in the Korean War
Το ερώτημα είναι: το Grexit προς το παρόν αποκλείστηκε;
