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Why was rubber a military priority?

By Chelsie Vandaveer

October 1, 2002

The machinery of the early Twentieth Century--trucks, motorcycles, tanks, airplanes--changed how the world went to war. Engines and machines were possible because of rubber, the modified latex of Hevea brasiliensis (Willdenow ex A. Jussieu) Müller Aargau. The military would find another wartime use for latex.


Fire has been a tactical weapon since some outraged tribe first lobbed a torch into another tribe's village. World War I introduced the German flammenwerfer, a portable flamethrower operated by a single man. For a few seconds, the flammenwerfer shot a stream of burning oil at opposing troops, just long enough to create panic and break lines of defense before an assault.

Militarily, the flamethrower was not considered that important; the single operator needed defending and the flames had to directly injure troops or divert them to fighting fires instead of defending their positions. But inventors continued working on flamethrower improvements.

After World War I, the rubber plantations of India, Ceylon (Sri Lanka), and Malaysia became vitally important to the industrial world. Rubber made transportation of goods and services possible. Wild-tapped latex from South America became negligible in the intervening years.

At the start of World War II, U.S. Army chemists discovered a better incendiary than simple burning oil: gasoline mixed with latex. The jelled gasoline shot greater distances and burned longer after hitting its target. Whether fired from a flamethrower or dropped from an airplane, it burned away covering vegetation, created suffocating fumes, and destroyed an enemy's supplies.

The attack on Pearl Harbor (December 1941) fully involved the U.S. in the war and placed Japan in control of the Pacific. North America found itself in the same position as Germany 25 years earlier, cut off from a steady supply of latex. Chemistry became a national priority. All major universities and chemical companies sought a useful synthetic rubber and a substitute for jelled gasoline.


Steve Schoenherr with the Department of History at the University of San Diego has posted an excellent timeline of the World Wars. To learn more, click on the link:

http://history.acusd.edu/gen/WW2Timeline/start.html

 

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