Made during WWII, this silent German film shows how to deal with British incendiary bombs, the type that were dropped on many European cities during the course of the war including Dresden. The film was probably made as a training aid for the Feuerschutzpolizei (lit. ’Fire Protection Police’), a firefighter unit in Nazi Germany and a branch of Nazi Germany’s Ordnungspolizei, formed in 1938 when the German municipal professional fire brigades were transferred to the national police. It could have also been made for or shown to members of the Reichsluftschutzbund (RLB) (National Air Raid Protection League), which was in charge of air raid precautions in residential areas and among smaller businesses. Britain’s Area Bombing Directive of February, 1942 ordered RAF bombers to attack the German industrial workforce and the morale of the German populace through bombing, including incendiary bombing, of German cities and their civilian inhabitants. (The directive was and is contradictory to Article 25 of the Hague Conventions of 1899 and 1907.)
The film shows a 30LB British bomb at :43, and explains how it is very difficult to extinguish due to the presence of phosphorus. At 2:00 the internal workings of the bomb are shown, comprising of a detonator that ignites the phosphorus, along with a casing that burns at high temperature. At 7:05 the effects of a bomb are shown outdoors, emitting a jet of flame. Various scenarios are shown with the bomb indoors, producing absolute chaos. At 10:00, an ineffective means of suffocating this type of fire is seen using water. It’s only through a great deal of deluge work that the flame is minimized (but not extinguished). The film then shows how sand can be used to smother a fire like this (12:00). A fire patrol makes quick work of the device using sandbags. At 13:40 a burning building is shown, with fire crews fighting the fire with hand pumped water extinguishers.
The bomb shown in the film appears to be the 30 lb (14 kg) incendiary bomb, whose fall was retarded by a small parachute and on impact sent out an extremely hot flame for 15 ft (4.6 m). It was called the Incendiary Bomb, 30-lb., Type J, Mk I, and burned for approximately two minutes. Articles in late 1944 when it was put into service claimed that the flame was so hot it could crumble a brick wall. For propaganda purposes the RAF dubbed the new incendiary bomb the “Superflamer”. Around fifty-five million incendiary bombs were dropped on Germany by Avro Lancasters alone.
This film was retrieved and conserved courtesy of Mr. Clint Daniels, who runs the danielsww2.com website and the C.E. Daniels Collection.
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