[21twelve]

Interesting conversation. Shows how they thought it might go with the tenacious Japs. Of course, looking back, it amazes me that they didn't surrender after the first one. Thank God for men like that back then, and a country that could do something like the Manhattan Project - during war time with shortages, etc.

In building the first large reactor they needed something like 16 tons of copper. But none available. They went to the treasury department and got 16.5 tons of silver to use instead! (Or some-such numbers).

[DuncanWaring]

There were some in Japan who didn’t want to surrender even after the second bomb.

Also, regarding the silver from the Treasury - it was 14700 tons - 429 million troy ounces. Apparently the Keeper of the Silver like to crapped his pants when he got the request.

[YHAOS]

"Thank God for men like that back then, and a country that could do something like the Manhattan Project"

If we had today's leaders back then, the war would have been lost.

[M1903A1]

There were many Japanese before August 1945 that were pushing the surrender issue...which, for reasons that basically boiled down to pride, remained unthinkable at the top levels of leadership. Encountering a super-weapon that could eliminate an entire city in one shot was the beyond-comprehension-or defense reason the surrender advocates were able to use as an “acceptable” reason for surrender...even though it took the second bomb to nudge some of them over the edge.

And yes, there were those—particularly high-ranking military officers—who still regarded surrender as unthinkable, and chose to commit suicide or (in the case of Admiral Ugaki) lead a final kamikaze mission rather than give themselves up.

[Nik Naym]

“In building the first large reactor they needed something like 16 tons of copper. But none available. They went to the treasury department and got 16.5 tons of silver to use instead! (Or some-such numbers). “

If I remember correctly from reading the report on the Manhattan project, they needed the copper to make the huge electromagnets for the magnetic separators at Oak Ridge.

That much copper just could not be spared so they did indeed get pure silver from the treasury and they made 100% silver conductor electromagnets for the project.

After they were done, the silver wire was recovered and remelted and returned to the treasury. It was worth a mind boggling amount of money compared to the cost of using copper, had copper been available.

[Thunder90]

The Russians were sweeping through Manchuria like a hot knife through butter, and would likely been on Hokkaido by the end of September of 1945.