Re: NAPALM

[<DGill11331@aol.com>]

In a message dated 3/8/2002 4:48:23 PM Eastern Standard Time, AMPSOne@aol.com writes:


> general who served in Korea and said that napalm and "Blue Airplanes" caused most of his casualites. 


       Since navy and Marine planes are blue I assume the "Blue Airplanes" the general is talking about were navy or Marine planes. My experience with "close ground support" was that the Marine planes were the most effective because they came in the closest (lowest) to the target, the navy second and the air force third. While the navy and Marines flew the same types and color planes you could often tell if they were navy or Marines by the altitude at which they fired or dropped their weapons (machine-gun, rockets, bombs or napalm) on the target. The air force's P-51s were easy to distinguish by their design and silver color.  I always assumed the B-26s were air force, but now I understand that the navy (Marine Corps ?) also may have had some B-26s. The only place I saw B-26s in ground support was in Seoul (Sept 50) and it was the only time I saw a plane (B-26) go down from enemy fire.
       A couple of years ago I visited the National Achieves in Maryland to do a little research on the Korean War. While I was there I read a declassified report on the use of napalm. To my surprise the report stated that high explosive bombs were more effective against a well dug-in force on a hill (mountain) than napalm. The report stated the rationale behind it, but I don't remember what it was.  D Gill