T he thickening agent employed by the Chemical Warfa re Service, U. S. Army, for the prcpara lion of gelled gasoline fuels used as filling for incendiary bombs and in flame throwers is an aluminum soap derived from a combination of acids of the types exemplified by lauric aeid and by naphthenic or oleic acid. A description is given of early work on the problem conducted under the National Defense Research Committee in cooperation with Edgewood Arsenal.~~Photo above shows operation of a portable flame thrower utilizing Napalm fuel (reproduced through courtesy of Standard Oil Development Company).
INMILITARY idiom the name Napalm has been used to designate either a special aluminum soap employed by Chemical Warfare Service as a thickening agent, a gasoline gel produced with this agent and used as a flame thrower fuel and for filling the M-69 and M-47 bombs and other incendiary munitions, or even a Napalm gel-filled incendiary itself: "One Napalm (fire bomb) on target. . . In this paper an account will be given of early work conducted at the Gibbs Laboratory in cooperation with the Chemical Warfare Service group at Edgewood Arsenal, Md., on the development of Napalm-type gelling agents. The subsequent work on the manufacture, standardization, and stabilization of the eventual product was carried to a successful conclusion through the combined efforts of Chemical Warfare Service laboratories, manufacturers, and NDRC groups other than our own; this report will describe merely the initial research conducted in 1941-42.The background for the research was provided by an interesting series of circumstances starting, in the summer of 1941, with
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