Military History Book Review Steven J Zaloga US Flamethrower Tanks Of World War Two

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Osprey Books 2013 Osprey are one of the best military history publishers in the UK, providing short histories of major battles, as well as works on vehicles, uniforms, hand-weapons, insignia, etc. Their hundreds of books range runs from coverage of the Scythian Empire of 700 to 300 BCE to Operation Desert Storm. I have quite a few Osprey books on my shelves, mostly relating to the English Civil War period. I was delighted to see some of their titles in the local library today and quickly picked some out to read. The first, which I finished even before leaving the library, deals with US Flamethrower Tanks used in the Second World War. The thought of being burnt alive is terrifying, and many soldiers on all sides have come into danger from flamethrower use in their fields of engagement. The fire-spraying tanks are also deadly to the men carrying portable flamethrowers and tank crews wielding them as the containers of liquid petroleum fuel, often mixed with napalm, can be a priority target for the enemy and if it goes off the men wielding it have little hope of escaping the explosion and spray of burning fuel alive especially from the very confined interior of a tank cockpit. The flamethrower tank first appeared late in World War One, and with America entering World War Two after three years of Europe fighting already the Americans were late developing new tank designs, and they had virtually no flamethrower tanks of their own ready for the Normandy Landings in June 1944. It would be the Japanese who faced the most severe use of flamethrower tanks. In the Philippines, and on islands like Iwo Jima the Japanese used natural caves and tunnels carved in coral as pillboxes, fox-holes, bolt-holes and sniper points. Flamethrower tanks proved more efficient at clearing them out than infantry charges. Even if the Japanese troops retreated clear of reach of the initial jet of fire coming into the small caverns the air would be turned into carbon monoxide and the men would often suffocate. Their best defense was magnetic mines which could turn the tanks into death traps for the crews. A genuinely scary read about some of war’s most terrifying weapons. Somehow, a bullet seems so much more merciful a way to go. Arthur Chappell