THE ARCHERS OF THE SKY — History of Aircraft Fléchettes

This work pays tribute to the poilus. It recounts the terrible history of the first anti-personnel projectile of military aviation: the aircraft fléchette.
These formidable projectiles, whose cruelty was quietly passed over in silence, first appeared in French aviation during the opening days of the Great War. Effective and inexpensive, they were never subsequently abandoned. All the belligerent nations made unceasing use of them and even sought to improve them.
Dropped by the thousand on battlefields (50,000 fléchettes per day at Verdun) or on towns, they recalled the arrow storms of the Middle Ages. Designed to wound rather than kill, the fléchettes nonetheless had the sinister reputation of being able to pass clean through a man. They were the terror of infantrymen and civilian populations on virtually every front — European fronts, but also, after the signing of the armistice, in the colonies and protectorates: in Morocco, Egypt, and Syria.
The American air force called on a new generation of fléchettes during the Vietnam War, dropping them by the hundreds of thousands over the jungle.
To this day, fléchette bombs remain an integral part of the arsenal of military aviation worldwide.
Fortunately, a number of fields are dedicated to the peaceful and scientific use of aerial fléchettes.