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Japanese Village was the nickname for a range of houses constructed in 1943 by the U.S. Army in the
The Japanese Village at Dugway Proving Ground: An Unexamined Context to the Firebombing of Japan
" ''Asia-Pacific Journal: Japan Focus,'' Volume 16, Issue 8, No. 3, April 15, 2018. *Stewart Halsey Ross, "Strategic bombing by the United States in World War II"
Aerial view of German and Japanese villages, May 27 1943
Assault on German village
US Army Bases
Dugway MIL site on the village
(With images of the village)
Time Magazine on M-69 Aerial bombing Aerial warfare strategy Incendiary weapons Firebombings Chemical warfare facilities Japan in World War II World War II strategic bombing of Japan 1940s in Japan 1940s conflicts Firebombings in Japan 1943 establishments in Utah Buildings and structures completed in 1943 Buildings and structures in Tooele County, Utah {{WWII-stub
Japanese Village was the nickname for a range of houses constructed in 1943 by the U.S. Army in the Dugway Proving Ground
Dugway Proving Ground (DPG) is a U.S. Army facility established in 1942 to test biological and chemical weapons, located about southwest of Salt Lake City, Utah, United States, and south of the Utah Test and Training Range.
Location
Dugway P ...
in Utah, roughly southwest of Salt Lake City
Salt Lake City (often shortened to Salt Lake and abbreviated as SLC) is the capital and most populous city of Utah, United States. It is the seat of Salt Lake County, the most populous county in Utah. With a population of 200,133 in 2020, th ...
.
History
Dugway was a high-security testing facility for chemical and biological weapons. The purpose of the replicas of Japanese homes, which were repeatedly rebuilt after being intentionally burned down, was to perfect the use of incendiary bombing tactics, thefire bombing
Firebombing is a bombing technique designed to damage a target, generally an urban area, through the use of fire, caused by incendiary devices, rather than from the blast effect of large bombs.
In popular usage, any act in which an incendiary d ...
of Japanese cities during World War II
World War II or the Second World War, often abbreviated as WWII or WW2, was a world war that lasted from 1939 to 1945. It involved the vast majority of the world's countries—including all of the great powers—forming two opposing ...
.
Testing on the Japanese Village at Dugway Proving Ground coincided with the erosion of precision bombing practice in the U.S. Army Air Force and validated civilians as targets of air warfare during World War II. As such, the interiors of Japanese Village contained furnishing (including tables, futon, radios, chests, hibachi stoves, etc.) as found in contemporaneous Japanese housing.
The principal architect for Japanese village was Antonin Raymond
Antonin Raymond (or cs, Antonín Raymond), born as Antonín Reimann (10 May 1888 – 25 October 1976)"Deaths Elsewhere", ''Miami Herald'', 30 October 1976, p. 10 was a Czech American architect. Raymond was born and studied in Bohemia (now part ...
who had spent many years building in Japan. Boris Laiming, who had studied fires in Japan, writing a report on the 1923 Tokyo fire, also contributed.
The most successful bomb to come out of the May–September 1943 tests against the mock-up Japanese homes was the napalm
Napalm is an incendiary mixture of a gelling agent and a volatile petrochemical (usually gasoline (petrol) or diesel fuel). The name is a portmanteau of two of the constituents of the original thickening and gelling agents: coprecipitated alu ...
-filled M-69 Incendiary cluster bomb. Contenders had been the M-47 (containing coconut oil, rubber, and gasoline) and the M-50 (a blend of magnesium and powdered aluminum and iron oxide). Also tested was the "Bat bomb
Bat bombs were an experimental World War II weapon developed by the United States. The bomb consisted of a bomb-shaped casing with over a thousand compartments, each containing a hibernating Mexican free-tailed bat with a small, timed incendi ...
" a lightweight "bat incendiary" that was attached to live bats.
For the tests B-17 and B-24 bombers were used operating at normal bombing altitude, and the effects on the villages were meticulously recorded.
Popular culture
The novel '' The Gods of Heavenly Punishment'' byJennifer Cody Epstein
Jennifer Cody Epstein is the author of the novels ''The Painter from Shanghai'', '' The Gods of Heavenly Punishment'', '' Wunderland'' and '' The Madwomen of Paris.''
Life
Epstein resides in New York City with her husband and daughters. She has a ...
contains a fictionalized account of the building and destruction of the Japanese Village.
See also
*German Village
German Village is a historic neighborhood in Columbus, Ohio, just south of the city's downtown. It was settled in the early-to-mid-19th century by a large number of German immigrants, who at one time comprised as much as a third of the city's ...
* Strategic bombing during World War II
Further reading
*Dylan J. Plung,The Japanese Village at Dugway Proving Ground: An Unexamined Context to the Firebombing of Japan
" ''Asia-Pacific Journal: Japan Focus,'' Volume 16, Issue 8, No. 3, April 15, 2018. *Stewart Halsey Ross, "Strategic bombing by the United States in World War II"
References
External links
Aerial view of German and Japanese villages, May 27 1943
Assault on German village
US Army Bases
Dugway MIL site on the village
(With images of the village)
Time Magazine on M-69 Aerial bombing Aerial warfare strategy Incendiary weapons Firebombings Chemical warfare facilities Japan in World War II World War II strategic bombing of Japan 1940s in Japan 1940s conflicts Firebombings in Japan 1943 establishments in Utah Buildings and structures completed in 1943 Buildings and structures in Tooele County, Utah {{WWII-stub