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Maggie’s Military Jeopardy

The fire bombing of Tokyo
You are Correct. Operation Meetinghouse consisted of 279 B-29s dropping over 1,500 tons of ordinance on the city of Tokyo. More casualties than Nagaski and Hiroshima combined. Est. 100,000 civilian dead and over 1 million displaced as homeless.
 
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Just discovered this thread yesterday evening... Read about half last night, finished this morning... BEST THREAD ON THE INTERWEBS... The knowledge here is amazing, and y'alls memories are astounding... PLEASE don't let this thread die...
 
The fire bombing of Tokyo
The removed all the guns from the bombers to save weight, then flew in low where they could be accurate and the Japs were not expecting the planes to be. First were pathfinder planes, that marked where to go, and the bombers dropped their incendiary devices in a larger and larger pattern. Lots of people got sucked into the fire, due to the thermal updraft and winds that fed it.
 
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Asking a question I don't know the answer to but fits here.

I'm rewatching Stargate SG-1 with the wife. In S1 e14 Singularity they come upon a situation where they call out to put on MOPP 4. Puts on mask. Then sees opening a sealed packet and does his hands with a brown clump of I don't know before he puts on gloves. What would that stuff supposed to be? I know it's a TV show but likely based on something real.
 
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My first thought on this question was actually Operation Gomorrah resulting in the Hamburg firestorm. However the destruction in square miles and lives lost was only about half that of the Tokyo raid. Nevertheless, the intensity of the firestorm at Hamburg is hard to imagine: A tornadic fire funnel rising up 1500 ft. above the city, with updraft winds exceeding 150 mph (Cat 5 Hurricane-level), literally sucking people off the streets and into the vortex. I've always thought of this as the most "intense" firestorm, vs. Tokyo which was twice as large, but I never considered that it was possibly as intense. Casualty estimates at Hamburg were largely just guesses, based upon the amount of ash found on the floors of subterranean bomb shelters, since individual bodies were completely consumed in so many cases. Interesting discussion, since I always thought (right or wrong) of Tokyo as being more widespread, but less intense on a per-square mile comparison.
 
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Firebombing is a heavy subject - my question is a little less weighty, but still related to bombing. Everyone loves a B-17. So, what post-production substance coated the outer surface of many Sperry ball turrets, and why?