# What DOES burning Napalm smell like?
**URL:** https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-does-burning-napalm-smell-like/387002
**Category:** Miscellaneous and Personal Stuff I Must Share
**Created:** [January 7, 2007, 12:59am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-does-burning-napalm-smell-like/387002 "2007-01-07T00:59:42Z")
**Posts on this page:** 19
**Page:** 1
### Author:  [@Ranchoth](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Ranchoth)
#### Post date: [January 7, 2007, 12:59am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-does-burning-napalm-smell-like/387002/1 "2007-01-07T00:59:42Z")
Okay, considering the “I love the smell of Napalm in the morning…it smells like victory” quote from the greatest American film of all time—Frank Capra’s _It’s a Wonderful Life_, of course—I was just wondering: what DOES burning napalm smell like? Buring gas? Camphor? What?
That’s…it, I think.
---
### Author:  [@Bobotheoptimist](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Bobotheoptimist)
#### Post date: [January 7, 2007, 1:14am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-does-burning-napalm-smell-like/387002/2 "2007-01-07T01:14:57Z")
What does burning napalm smell like? Why, it smells like freedom of course.
---
### Author:  [@susan](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/susan)
#### Post date: [January 7, 2007, 1:15am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-does-burning-napalm-smell-like/387002/3 "2007-01-07T01:15:42Z")
I believe it smells like teen spirit.
---
### Author:  [@Siam\_Sam](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Siam_Sam)
#### Post date: [January 7, 2007, 1:19am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-does-burning-napalm-smell-like/387002/4 "2007-01-07T01:19:00Z")
“It smells like … Victory.” Thus spake Robert Duvall, and he should know.
---
### Author:  [@Don26](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Don26)
#### Post date: [January 7, 2007, 1:19am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-does-burning-napalm-smell-like/387002/5 "2007-01-07T01:19:21Z")
I asked my, Vietnam vet uncle, he laughed.
Then he said it had a chemical odor, but, mostly, he thought it smelled like shit.
---
### Author:  [@Bobotheoptimist](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Bobotheoptimist)
#### Post date: [January 7, 2007, 1:20am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-does-burning-napalm-smell-like/387002/6 "2007-01-07T01:20:16Z")
:smack: “Victory”, it smells like victory.
I always assumed it smelled like gasoline, but I don’t really know. Sorry.
---
### Author:  [@astro](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/astro)
#### Post date: [January 7, 2007, 1:23am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-does-burning-napalm-smell-like/387002/7 "2007-01-07T01:23:24Z")
[Like gasoline apparently](http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/entertainment/3362603.stm)
> [@](#):
>
> Robert Duvall, Apocalypse Now (1979):
>
> You smell that? Do you smell that? Napalm, son. Nothing else in the world smells like that. I love the smell of napalm in the morning. You know, one time we had a hill bombed, for twelve hours. When it was all over I walked up. We didn’t find one of ‘em, not one stinkin’ dink body. The smell, you know that gasoline smell, the whole hill. Smelled like… victory. Someday this war’s gonna end
---
### Author:  [@A.R.Cane](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/A.R.Cane)
#### Post date: [January 7, 2007, 1:37am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-does-burning-napalm-smell-like/387002/8 "2007-01-07T01:37:42Z")
I don’t recall smelling it, but we used to climb on top of a small water tower, about 25ft., and watch air strikes. Napalm is a spectactular sight, a black cloud , building and rolling across the landscape w/ flames expoding up inside the cloud. If your watch high explosive drops through binoculars, you can actually see the air compress in waves. We often had a commercial, SW radio and we could search the dial until we found the right freq, where we could hear half the tranmission between the bird dog and the attack aircraft. Entertainment in a combat zone.
This was in a place called Dong Ha, very near the DMZ.
---
### Author:  [@SandyHook](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/SandyHook)
#### Post date: [January 7, 2007, 6:23am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-does-burning-napalm-smell-like/387002/9 "2007-01-07T06:23:12Z")
It smells like oil burning. It also leaves a greasy feel in the air.
Napalm, at least in my experience of the late 60s, is made by taking gasoline and adding a geling agent. The agent looked a lot like oatmeal. You just poured it in a bucket and stired it all up until it got to looking like thin pudding and then poured it into a flamethrower tank.
---
### Author:  [@elmwood](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/elmwood)
#### Post date: [January 7, 2007, 4:48pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-does-burning-napalm-smell-like/387002/10 "2007-01-07T16:48:32Z")
Years ago, my friends and I made homemade napalm by mixing gasoline and rubber cement.
It smelled like sweet liberty itself, the essence of these great United States of America.
Seriously, it smelled like gasoline and rubber cement.
---
### Author:  [@Jurph](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Jurph)
#### Post date: [January 7, 2007, 6:29pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-does-burning-napalm-smell-like/387002/11 "2007-01-07T18:29:49Z")
Napalm[sup]TM[/sup] is a compound (formerly) made by Dow Chemical formed of aluminum **na** phthenate and aluminum **palm** itate, and the slurry of those two chemicals was the jelling ingredient that you added to gasoline to create the jellied incendiary known as napalm. Now the word “napalm” is used informally to talk about any liquid incendiary, whether Napalm was used to thicken it or not. The smell depends on what you’ve added to the gasoline or fuel, but it probably smells a lot like gasoline.
---
### Author:  [@Johnny\_L.A](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Johnny_L.A)
#### Post date: [January 7, 2007, 7:00pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-does-burning-napalm-smell-like/387002/12 "2007-01-07T19:00:25Z")
[QUOTE=Jurph]
Napalm[sup]TM[/sup] is a compound (formerly) made by Dow Chemical …
[/QUOTE]
I thought it was made by the people who made Band Aids. Remember the jingle?
_I am stuck on Napalm
'Cause Napalm sticks to me!_
---
### Author:  [@Operation\_Ripper](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Operation_Ripper)
#### Post date: [January 7, 2007, 7:30pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-does-burning-napalm-smell-like/387002/13 "2007-01-07T19:30:20Z")
It smells like “I should not be here, I should get the fuck out of here ASAP,” but some guys can disregard.
---
### Author:  [@samclem](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/samclem)
#### Post date: [January 7, 2007, 7:47pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-does-burning-napalm-smell-like/387002/14 "2007-01-07T19:47:49Z")
Thanks to the few who answered the question when it was still a General Question.
MOved to MPSIMS.
**samclem** GQ moderator
---
### Author:  [@A.R.Cane](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/A.R.Cane)
#### Post date: [January 7, 2007, 10:27pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-does-burning-napalm-smell-like/387002/15 "2007-01-07T22:27:44Z")
I apologize for adding to the hijack. The subject reminded me of that memory and I thought it might be an interesting side note.
---
### Author:  [@NurseCarmen](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/NurseCarmen)
#### Post date: [January 7, 2007, 10:38pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-does-burning-napalm-smell-like/387002/16 "2007-01-07T22:38:51Z")
Well, everyone knows that napalm sticks to kids. And as any parent knows, the stickies thing ever is gum in a kid’s hair. SO I deduce that napalm smells like juicy fruit. QED.
---
### Author:  [@mr.jp](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/mr.jp)
#### Post date: [January 7, 2007, 10:54pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-does-burning-napalm-smell-like/387002/17 "2007-01-07T22:54:59Z")
It smells like chicken.
(Ok, I’m not sure if that works as a joke at all.)
---
### Author:  [@Philster](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Philster)
#### Post date: [January 7, 2007, 11:27pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-does-burning-napalm-smell-like/387002/18 "2007-01-07T23:27:12Z")
Napalm hasn’t been used since the Korean conflict. Other compounds that do a much better job were developed and used after the Korean conflict.
But rumor has it, a smell of victory does linger after its use.
---
### Author:  [@msmith537](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/msmith537)
#### Post date: [January 8, 2007, 6:25am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-does-burning-napalm-smell-like/387002/19 "2007-01-08T06:25:45Z")
[QUOTE=Philster]
Napalm hasn’t been used since the Korean conflict. Other compounds that do a much better job were developed and used after the Korean conflict.
But rumor has it, a smell of victory does linger after its use.
[/QUOTE]
Wikipedia seems to disagree with you, unless you are referring to Napalm-B
> **[Napalm](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/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 salts of naphthenic acid and palmitic acid. A team led by chemist Louis Fieser originally developed napalm for the US Chemical Warfare Service in 1942 in a secret laboratory at Harvard University. Of immediate first interest was its viability as an incend Nap...