Why The Flamethrower Was Not A Cool Weapon

Why The Flamethrower Was Dangerous To Both Its Target and Its Operator

USMC Flamethrower operator Private First Class Wilfred Voegeli takes a break from the action on Iwo Jima in February 1945 and lights his pipe (Wikimedia Commons)

“The very existence of flamethrowers proves that sometime, somewhere, someone said to themselves, ‘You know, I want to set those people over there on fire, but I’m just not close enough to get the job done.’” — George Carlin

Employing the use of fire in combat is almost as ancient as war itself. The Greeks are recorded to be the first to develop and make use of the flamethrower principle dating all the way back to the fifth century BC during the Peloponnesian War.

However, it would not be until World War I that flamethrowers would become what we recognize them as today, that being a portable incendiary weapon to take out well-fortified enemy positions such as bunkers, pill boxes, enclaves, and trench systems.

Originally invented in 1901 by German inventor Richard Fiedler, the German army was the first to employ the flamethrower as a strategic instrument.

Dubbed as the “Flammenwerfer”, there were two distinct models which classified the German flamethrower system.