Jungle Fire

Along the coast of New Britain, U.S. Marines have been proving that old ways can still be effective ways. Fire is one of the handiest of all weapons for getting the Jap out of his carefully revetted bunkers or sealing him in forever. The fire is thrown from the Army's improved portable flamethrower, which is superior to anything the Jap is known to have, more easily maintained, simpler, unaffected by tropic damp.

Resembling an outsized insecticide spray gun, the Army's weapon can project a 60-yard-long, rodlike flame or a 25-yard-long, billowing blaze to cover a wider area.

The flame-throwing infantryman presses a push-button switch to get the spark that ignites hydrogen near the nozzle. This acts as a pilot light, ignites the fuel oil emerging under pressure from nitrogen. Back of him are three tanks: a small one for gas pressure, a pair of larger ones for fuel.

A single-purpose weapon, designed to rout troops from trenches, pillboxes, dugouts, similar fortifications, the flamethrower's use is peculiarly fitted to Pacific theaters of operation, where dense foliage permits its use at short range.

One effect of the flamethrower, which the Chemical Warfare Service is training troops to use, is psychological; the impulse to run from its searing fire is powerful.

But the U.S. flamethrower is more than psychologically effective. Its heat is flesh-withering, lung-bursting. Its flame sucks up oxygen from confined space (such as an apertured pillbox), leaves those inside gasping or collapsed. Against a dug-in enemy whose field of fire is blocked by good cover, it is an awesome and handy weapon to have around.

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