Flaming onion

The American "balloon-buster" ace, Frank Luke, was a prominent victim of later versions of this device,[dubious – discuss] and it was mentioned in Eddie Rickenbacker's book Fighting the Flying Circus[1] and in many "Biggles" stories.

Later in the war the term was also applied to any sort of anti-aircraft fire that used a visible tracer, appearing in reports of combat from the Battle of Taranto, for instance.

[2] The first "flaming onion" weapon was a 37mm Hotchkiss type, smooth bore, short barreled Gatling-type revolving cannon called a "lichtspucker" (light spitter) that was designed to fire flares at low velocity in rapid sequence across a battle area.

Because the early Hotchkiss weapon was not designed for anti-aircraft use, it did not have purpose-designed ammunition, but the flares were thought to be dangerous to doped-fabric covered aircraft.

It also included a napalm rocket used by the RAAF[4] during the Korean War,[5] It is also the nickname of a military insigne that depicts an old-fashioned grenade with a lit fuse.