German Japanese Villages Dugway Distance

Japanese Village was the nickname for a range of houses constructed in 1943 by the U.S. Army in the

Dugway Proving Ground Dugway Proving Ground (DPG) is a United States Army facility established in 1942 to test biological and chemical weapons, located about southwest of Salt Lake City, Utah and south of the Utah Test and Training Range. Location Dugway Provin ...

in Utah, roughly southwest of

Salt Lake City Salt Lake City, often shortened to Salt Lake or SLC, is the capital and most populous city of the U.S. state of Utah. It is the county seat of Salt Lake County, the most populous county in the state. The city is the core of the Salt Lake Ci ...

History

Dugway was a high-security testing facility for chemical and biological weapons. The purpose of the replicas of Japanese homes, which were repeatedly rebuilt after being intentionally burned down, was to perfect the use of incendiary bombing tactics, the fire bombing of Japanese cities during

World War II World War II or the Second World War (1 September 1939 – 2 September 1945) was a World war, global conflict between two coalitions: the Allies of World War II, Allies and the Axis powers. World War II by country, Nearly all of the wo ...

. Testing on the Japanese Village at Dugway Proving Ground coincided with the erosion of precision bombing practice in the U.S. Army Air Force and validated civilians as targets of air warfare during World War II. As such, the interiors of Japanese Village contained furnishing (including tables, futon, radios, chests, hibachi stoves, etc.) as found in contemporaneous Japanese housing. The principal architect for Japanese village was Antonin Raymond who had spent many years building in Japan. Boris Laiming, who had studied fires in Japan, writing a report on the 1923 Tokyo fire, also contributed. The most successful bomb to come out of the May–September 1943 tests against the mock-up Japanese homes was the

napalm Napalm is an incendiary mixture of a gelling agent and a volatile petrochemical (usually gasoline or diesel fuel). The name is a portmanteau of two of the constituents of the original thickening and gelling agents: coprecipitated aluminium ...

-filled M-69 Incendiary cluster bomb. Contenders had been the M-47 (containing coconut oil, rubber, and gasoline) and the M-50 (a blend of magnesium and powdered aluminum and iron oxide). Also tested was the " Bat bomb" a lightweight "bat incendiary" that was attached to live bats. For the tests B-17 and B-24 bombers were used operating at normal bombing altitude, and the effects on the villages were meticulously recorded.

Popular culture

The novel '' The Gods of Heavenly Punishment'' by Jennifer Cody Epstein contains a fictionalized account of the building and destruction of the Japanese Village.

References

External links

Aerial view of German and Japanese villages, May 27 1943

Assault on German village

US Army Bases

Dugway MIL site on the village
(With images of the village)

Time Magazine on M-69 {{Coord, 40.139062, -113.006425, dim:250_region:US-UT_type:landmark, display=title Aerial bombing Aerial warfare strategy Incendiary weapons Chemical warfare facilities Japan in World War II World War II strategic bombing of Japan 1940s in Japan 1940s conflicts 1943 establishments in Utah Buildings and structures completed in 1943 Buildings and structures in Tooele County, Utah

History

Popular culture

See also

Further reading

References

External links