Factual Question: Watching MASH for the 100th time, the question hit me: If white phosphorous was really used in the Korean War, wasn’t this considered chemical warfare? And, wouldn’t its use be against the Geneva Convention? Was this ever brought up in political, diplomatic, or UN arenas? (My Dad was a young man from that era, but he and his contemporaries have passed on. I have no one close to ask.)
AIUI, white phosphorous wasn’t used as a weapon per se. It was primarily used to light up the battlefield at night and to create a smokescreen during the day. Yes, it is toxic to humans, but it wasn’t used like mustard gas in WWI.
WP is valued as a battlefield weapon for two reasons: rapid and mass-efficient creation of very effective smoke screens, and powerful incendiary effect against materiel and personnel.
The latter use is the most controversial, but no current law of war or treaty prohibits incendiary weapons, only strives to restrict their use to legitimate military need.
It’s not classed as a chemical weapon because the primary effect is optical (as smoke) or thermal, not chemical. The fact that a chemical reaction is involved doesn’t make it a chemical weapon; otherwise, conventional explosives would also qualify.
From what I understand, it’s used as a smoke producing compound and as an incendiary weapon. But in the second case, it’s because it burns very hot, and will continue to burn until totally starved of oxygen, or consumed entirely. And it’s pyrophoric, so it’ll reignite when oxygen is present.
The fact that the smoke is irritating is kind of a ‘bonus’ effect, but not the primary reason it’s used.
I have read several books about aerial warfare in the Pacific. I have always been interested in our war in the Pacific as I lost and uncle on a B-24 over there in 1944, and my father served (and survived) in the army air corps as a mechanic in the 58th fighter group. In the last months of the war the Japanese used W-P anti-aircraft rounds and also ( I think) some sort of bomb dropped into bomber formations that detonated a white phosphorus round in the hopes of bringing down B-29 bomber. I know I have seen photos of that.
My father flew Forward Air Control missions during the Korean War. His main job was to fly low and slow over the front lines; until spotting an enemy position, then to mark it with white phosphorous rockets for the fighters to then attack. I suspect the WP was nasty in its own right, but that was not the stated purpose.
Here is a thread from 2005 on the same topic
Like @Sooner’s Dad, I was a Forward Air Controller, though post-Viet Nam. Post 15 of that thread contains my 2 cents.
It was considered an incendiary and used as such as a weapon in WW1, WW2, Korea and Vietnam amongst other wars. It was also used for generating smoke and to mark targets; but this being it’s ‘primary’ or exclusive intended use is a modern convention.
Wiki:
The British Army introduced the first factory-built white phosphorus grenades in late 1916 during the First World War. During the war, white phosphorus mortar bombs, shells, rockets, and grenades were used extensively by American, Commonwealth, and, to a lesser extent, Japanese forces, in both smoke-generating and antipersonnel roles. The Royal Air Force based in Iraq also used white phosphorus bombs in Anbar Province during the Iraqi revolt of 1920.
At the start of the Normandy campaign, 20% of American 81 mm mortar ammunition consisted of M57 point-detonating bursting smoke rounds using WP filler. At least five American Medal of Honor citations mention their recipients using M15 white phosphorus hand grenades to clear enemy positions, and in the 1944 liberation of Cherbourg alone, a single US mortar battalion, the 87th, fired 11,899 white phosphorus rounds into the city. The US Army and Marines used M2 and M328 WP shells in 107 millimetres (4.2 in) mortars. White phosphorus was widely used by Allied soldiers for breaking up German attacks and creating havoc among enemy troop concentrations during the latter part of the war.
White phosphorus munitions were used extensively by US forces in Vietnam and by Russian forces in the First Chechen War and Second Chechen War. White phosphorus grenades were used by the US in Vietnam to destroy Viet Cong tunnel complexes as they would burn up all oxygen and suffocate the enemy soldiers sheltering inside.[8][9] British soldiers also made extensive use of white phosphorus grenades during the Falklands War to clear out Argentine positions as the peaty soil they were constructed on tended to lessen the impact of fragmentation grenades.[10][11] According to GlobalSecurity.org, during the Battle of Grozny during the First Chechen War in Chechnya, every fourth or fifth Russian artillery or mortar shell fired was a smoke or white phosphorus shell.[12]
It occurred to me after posting that one of the most famous pieces of video footage from the Vietnam War is rear camera footage of a plane dropping WP and napalm on a village. The spidery white smoke is the WP, the ‘Hollywood/gasoline’ looking explosions are napalm. The WP is clearly being used as an incendiary along with the napalm, not to either mark anything or provide obscurement with smoke.
My uncle was in artillery in WWII in Europe, and while he didn’t talk much about the war, I remember he told about using WP.
He said that they would fire WP rounds at the Germans, and the burns would be so bad that the enemy would jump out of their foxholes and then they would hit them with HE rounds.
War isn’t pretty.