6TH BRITISH DESTROYER SUNK, 157 LOST; FINNS CRUSH LADOGA SOVIET DIVISION (2/20/40)

Microfiche-New York Times archives, McHenry Library, U.C. Santa Cruz | 2/20/40 | Raymond Daniell, Harold Denny, James B. “Scotty” Reston

[Homer_J_Simpson]

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EDITORIALS

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[Jacquerie]

The appeasement went on. England and France were treaty bound to attack Germany when it invaded Poland.

Germany’s western border was virtually undefended. Hitler had the measure of the western powers and was confident they would not attack.

He was right. WWII was the most preventable major war in history.

[abb]

http://lincolnparishnewsonline.wordpress.com/2009/06/13/3/
Mission Statement – Lincoln Parish News Online

In Louisiana, “parishes” are what you in the rest of the USA call “counties”. And a “police jury” is the same as a “county commission.”

I’ve always been a frustrated news reporter. I got tired of begging to the newspapers for letter to the editor space. So now I’m competing directly with them.

[CougarGA7]

I was doing some prep work for a post I will be making on the 28th of February and ran across this. I figure it was important enough to add onto the end of this day's thread.

Many know that in Germany's work towards the first atomic bomb they were more inclined towards the use of heavy water, also known as deuterium at a moderator over the use of graphite which is what the American program used. Part of the reason was that graphite was needed elsewhere for the German war effort. Norway was the only country that had a facility capable of making deuterium and sometimes I wonder if that also influenced the move to invade Norway along with the goal of protecting Swedish ore shipments through Narvik. What I didn't know at least was that the French atomic program also wanted to use deuterium. Here is a excerpt from Richard Rhodes' The Making of the Atomic Bomb on just that.

Heavy water also impressed the French team, a fact Joliot passed on to the French Minister of Armament, Raoul Dautry. When Dautry heard about the German bid for Norsk Hydro's supply he decided to win the water for France. A French bank, the Banque de Paris et des Pays Bas, controlled a majority interest in the Norwegian company and a former bank officer, Jacques Allier, was now a lieutenant in Dautry's ministry. Dautry briefed the balding, bespectacled Allier with Joliot on hand on February 20: the minister wanted the lieutenant to lead a team of French secret-service agents to Norway to acquire the heavy water.

Allier slipped into Oslo under an assumed name and met with the general manager of Norsk Hydro at the beginning of March. the French officer was prepared to pay up to 1.5 million kroner for the water and even to leave half for the Germans, but once the Norwegian heard what military purpose the substance might serve he volunteered his entire stock and refused payment. The water, divided among twenty-six cans, left Vemork by car soon afterward on a dark midnight. From Oslo Allier's team flew it to Edinburgh in two loads - German fighters forced down for inspection a decoy plane Allier had pretented to board at the time of the first loading - and the transported it by rail and Channel ferry to Paris, where Joliot prepared through the winter and spring of the phony war to use it in both homogeneous and heterogeneous uranium-oxide experiments. (p.327)

I wonder how much of this heavy water ended up in Nazi hands after the fall of France or if Joliot had the good sense to destroy it. At any rate, the Norsk facility gave up its entire stock right before the Nazis took over the country which I'm sure set back any plans they had for the supply there.