How much were flame throwers used during WWII and other conflicts? In Saving Private Ryan they used at least one and I recently saw footage of Okinawa fighting with Americans using them. So can anybdy tell me anything about these weapons at all? Are they used at all today?
Modern flamethrowers (as opposed to greek fire) were first employed on July 30th, 1915 by the Germans in the battle of the Hooge. They were used extinsevly during WWII, by all combatant powers, notably in the urban combat of Europe (Stalingrad and the Warsaw Ghetto come to mind first) and, as noted in the OP, aa bunker/fortified cave busting weapon in the Pacific (especially Io Jima and Okinawa). AFAIK flamethrowers are still in use with most armies.
Check this book review: http://www.wood.army.mil/ENGRMAG/PB5002/bookrev.htm. It gives alot of information, and seems to be accurate. It also corrects a few mistakes I made above. 