The Only Weapon That Emptied Guam's Caves - and the Marines Landed Just Twelve of Them

#ColdWar #militaryhistory #worldwar2 The Only Weapon That Emptied Guam's Caves - and the Marines Landed Just Twelve of Them It is just after eight in the morning on the twenty-first of July, nineteen forty-four, and you are sitting in the bow of a tracked landing vehicle running for a strip of sand on the west coast of Guam called Asan. In this video: Why 28,764 naval shells and 1,131 tons of bombs over 13 days left about half of Guam's cave-emplaced guns still in action at H-Hour The full flame inventory III Amphibious Corps landed: six M3A1 Satan flame tanks and six Shermans with the E4-5 bow flamethrower, twelve vehicles for a 21-day campaign The Satan's arithmetic: about 170 gallons, an estimated 81 seconds of burn per load, and 40 to 80 yards of reach against caves cut into coral The Marine Corps' own verdict on half that force, that the E4-5 was only a marginal improvement whose short range hardly offset the loss of the machine gun The decision chain that decides the case: 24 flamethrower tanks requested before Saipan, nothing written from Guam, and 54 mechanized flamethrowers requested in November 1944 for Iwo Jima Get the M3A1 Satan flame tank at Guam, 1944 Quick Facts PDF: [link to site] Explore more Underdog Arsenal — The Weapon On Trial: [playlist link] Like and subscribe for more history. Tell us what to cover next below.