Posted on 08/20/2015 5:17:01 AM PDT by WhiskeyX
In August 1945, during the final stage of the Second World War, the United States dropped atomic bombs on the Japanese cities of Hiroshima and Nagasaki. The two bombings, which killed at least 129,000 people, remain the only use of nuclear weapons for warfare in human history.
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I don’t know about the relevance of “no Jews in Japan”...
It was an obscure “Dr. Strangelove” reference. I say “obscure” because the actual phrase was “our Germans are better than their Germans”. And at that time, those “Germans” were Jews.
BTW, I’m not Jewish...
“The Manhattan Project took a skilled workforce of over 500,000 to achieve success. It was impossible for Japan to gather together enough skilled labor and resources to make it physically capable of producing an a-bomb.”
You are erroneously assuming the Japanese undertook a project which necessitated a scope of work equivalent to the MANHATTAN PROJECT, when they did not. The MANHATTAN PROJECT chose to evaluate all possible methods of producing fissile material and enriching Uranium to weapons grade material. The Japanese knew they did not have the resources to undertake such a vast number of approaches and limited themselves to only a very few or perhaps only two. The Ni-Go Project of the Army used the thermal diffusion approach to enriching the Uranium, and they had just achieved satisfactory results when a B-29 bombing raid wiped out the Riken Institute in Tokyo along with their enriched Uranium system. The F-Go Project I’m not as familiar with, but it is alleged they produced enough enriched Uranium to build a test device detonated on 12 August 1945 on an island anchorage offshore from the Korean peninsula.
The supposed lack of scientific knowhow is a gross and inaccurate view of the Japanese experience and capabilities. Dr. Nishina and others were themselves the discoverers of some of the nuclear physics also used by the Germans and by the MANHATTAN PROJECT to develop the American atomic bombs.
“Japan also didn’t have enough scientific know-how to solve all of the problems of splitting the atom.”
That is utter nonsense. Dr. Nishina worked with Niels Bohr on such projects, was associated with nuclear research at UC, Berkeley, and arranged his Riken Institute’s purchase of a cyclotron from UC, Berkeley for splitting atoms.
“Even with all of the physicists in American universities, we still had to acquire essential scientists from other countries to make it happen.”
The American project beat the Japanese to the production of multiple types of usable atomic bombs because of the many different and concurrent projects used by the U.S. project. using that approach required far more people and a broader range of talent. The Japanese development projects were of course far smaller, but they had the advantage of concentrating their efforts on a much narrower thermal diffusion enrichment for one example. Building and detonating a test Uranium bomb test device is much simpler than designing an air portable and deliverable plutonium implosion bomb. The drawback for the Japanese is that it is highly unlikely they could have enriched enough Uranium to build more than one or a few Uranium weapons before the invasion of Japan occurred. Uranium gun type bombs are far easier to design, build, and deploy; but they have the drawback of requiring something on the order of four times as much fissile Uranium. So, the Japanese detonation of a single gun type test device in August 1945 required only a small fraction of the resources the MANHATTAN PROJECT needed to try its multiple nuclear reactor designs, uranium and plutonium production methods, and multiple air deliverable atomic bombs. all of which makes the Japanese approach far more feasible for them than most knee jerk reactions contemplate.
Where would Japan get the hundreds of physicists needed for such a project? It couldn’t.”
Many of the qualified European physicists had fled to the US or UK prior to the, the ones that remained largely worked with von Braun on rockets and their main concern in the final months of the war was to make sure they surrendered to the Americans.
The atom bomb we dropped on Hiroshima weighed almost 10,000lbs - the warhead on a V-2 weighed about 2,000lbs. I’m sure you’ve seen pictures of the first atomic bomb. No way that would have fit a V-2 let alone launch it - the V-2’s weren’t all that reliable and many blew up on the launch pad.
“I ran an internet search and came up with many articles debunking the story re: Japan explodes atom bomb off Korea on Aug. 12, 1945. Also, a bibliography of books (recent) on what the state of Germany and Japan’s atom bomb research was at near the end of the war. Neither country had the manufacturing ability to produce one or a delivery system to drop one.”
Your first mistake is to take someone else’s opinion as fact without examining the evidence they never considered or evidence they incorrectly dismissed.
Your second mistake was to wrongly assume the Japanese were going to deliver an atomic bomb by aircraft. That was not the method they had in mind for the first project. Their planned approach was to use one of four of the world’s largest submarines to transport an atomic bomb to where it could be launched on the water to destroy a port city or fleet anchorage. New York Harbor was one such proposed target. Ulithi, IIRC, was another proposed target to strike the Pacific Fleet.
“Japan had a long ways to go to produce a bomb.”
The Japanese were not collaborating with the Germans to build the atomic bomb. Even when Dr. Nishina ordered the Uranium Oxide from the Germans, he used a cover story to avoid openly revealing its use to build an atomic bomb. The Germans of course immediately knew the Uranium oxide was going to be used to build an atomic bomb, but they went along with the Japanese cover story nonetheless. In the end, the Japanese projects were far more successful than the German atomic bomb project. The Japanese Navy’s F-Go project had the necessary hydroelectric power to enrich uranium mined from nearby Korean deposits of Uranium. he nuclear physics experts were available and known to have worked on the project. The labor was available in Korea. The thermal diffusion enrichment process was feasible. The gun type bomb design is simple enough to accomplish, albeit with or without a high degree of efficiency in the fission of the weapon’s fissile core. Air portability of the weapon was not necessary. The difficult chemistry had been solved. The basic resources and skills were present, so it begs the question of why not?
I personally knew and was trained by some of the physicists from the Manhattan Project, and if they were still around today they would tell you that you are full of baloney.
Maybe the Krauts could have strapped 5 V-2’s together like the first stage of the Saturn V?
Agreed.
WhiskeyX, I've got to ask, do you think the Moon landing was faked too?
What are the NAMES of these supposed Japanese physicists? What was their fate?
Where are the Japanese documents of this program?
You do realize that on August 12, 1945 the war was effectively over and the Japanese military was totally crippled don't you?
I'm sure that you probably think that the Soviets covered it up. However, this theory is debunked by the fact that it took the Soviets another four years to build their first bomb and they did it all from information stolen from the Manhattan Project.
Your second mistake was to wrongly assume the Japanese were going to deliver an atomic bomb by aircraft. That was not the method they had in mind for the first project. Their planned approach was to use one of four of the world’s largest submarines to transport an atomic bomb to where it could be launched on the water to destroy a port city or fleet anchorage. New York Harbor was one such proposed target. Ulithi, IIRC, was another proposed target to strike the Pacific Fleet.
Really? You really think that the Japanese believed that it would even be remotely possible to take a submarine and a tender from Japan to New York City undetected? ANY fantasies about that were over after the Battle of Midway.
Many of the accepted factoids related to the war were placed by the War Department and State Department. My dad was stationed in Japan with the Army in the early 50s and could separate the fabrications from the real stuff.
One of the big lies was Japan’s alleged nuclear program which was trotted out to justify our use the the bombs.
Well, conspiracy people need their reason to exist. TNX bye have a nice day.
This is most likely based on the book “Japans Secret War” or at least the material used by it.
The book is interesting, and cites a lot of good original source material. However it’s conclusion that Japan constructed and tested a nuclear device is only reached through speculation and various leaps of faith.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nakajima_Kikka
Axis Cooperation Unlike the Anglo-American relationship, there sees to have been relatively limited scientific cooperation between Germsany and Japan. What did occur was primarily German technology delivered to Japan. The Germans wanted to be paid. And they were concerned about the future relationship between the two countries. As the War went against Germany, the Germans were more willing to transfer technology. The problem was how to transfer it. The Germans converted mine laying submarines to carry cargos. We know that shipments took place, because one of the submarines, the U-234, surrended to the U.S. Navy after the NAZIs surrenderd and it contained 560 kg enriched uranium oxide. U-234 was a XB type mine layer, but converted as a Japan-transporter. It departed Kiel headed for Kristiansand, Norway (March 25, 1945). The ship departed Norway for Japan (April 16, 1945). The cargo included drawings, a Me-262 jet fighter in crates, and 560kg of uranium oxide. There were also several high ranking German experts on various weapons technologies as well as two Japanese officers. Cpt. Fehler received cease-fire orders (May 4). He decided to surrender to the Americans. The two Japanese officers onboard either commited suiside or were killed by the Germans. The Captain claimed to know nothing bout the uranium. Just what cargos and scientific research papers got through to Japan is not known. Nor do we know if the Japanese just asked for the enriched U-235 on their own or if there were discussions about nuclear weapons. There could not have been technical discussions because as far as we know, Japanese phyicists never traveled to Germany or German pysicists to Japan. We only know that uranium must have been very high on the list of Japanese priorities to have been included on the last U-boat out of Germany to Japan. Some authors believe there was uranium on earlier outgoing U-boats. Col. Kawashima claims a U-boat with 2 tons of uranium oxide was sunk. [Kawashima] Kawashima did not specify the U-boat or where it was sunk, but he was probably referring to the U-864 sunk off Norway. The remains of the U-864 are known, but there is no confirmation that uranium was aboard. Researchers addressing this question are interested in several individual submarines (U234, 871, 874, and 876) as well as three Italian submarines. [Bybee]
Look at the stats on the I400 class submarines. Range was 37,500 nautical miles.
Thats nautical miles. Not kilometers.
Then consider that the third of the class, the I402, was converted into a tanker sub (what the Gemans called a Milch Cow). Ocean’s a really big place, especially for a submarine that isn’t operating offensively and doesn’t want to be found.
Getting I400s into range (and thats Seiran range, not into the harbor itself) of New York wouldn’t have been that hard, the real risk being that they’d stumble by chance across an Allied DD/DE/SC or patrol aircraft during transit and not have time to submerge and hide before being seen.
However we also know that at the end of the war the first two I400s were on their way to Ulithi to launch their Seirans in kamikaze attacks on the US fleet assembled there. And that there was never any sort of serious plan to attack New York, using the Seirans. Let alone into NY harbor with a hypothetical atomic bomb that the Japanese certainly didn’t have.
Japan was a feudal society until Commodore Perry sailed into Tokyo Bay in 1853. He reopened Japan to the West. The Japanese were very worried about the technology gap between them and the West. They had a crash program to modernize. By the turn of the century, they had a modern military. They kick the crap out of the Russians, land and sea. In the early twentieth century, they had their youth attending western universities to keep up with technology. Don't forget, they surprised our "modern" navy and sank a lot of it. They were anything but primitive during WWII. Their shortcoming was biting off more than they could chew. The demographics and industrial capacity were not on their side against America. I'm sure the ghosts of many dead British sailors would give you the finger in saying they lost to the Japanese navy, "a primitive society."
I agree that the Japanese had a submarine that could do it IN THEORY, but the likelihood of them doing so was nearly impossible. They certainly couldn't make it through the Panama Canal or Suez Canal and the alternatives were extremely difficult.
The bottom line is that any genuine hope the Japanese had of attacking the US mainland was long gone by 1945.
I lived in Japan 1951-1961.
It was still primitive then.
With three subs, each with a 37,000nm range and one of which was configured as a dedicated tanker/replenishment ship, going around the Horn or Cape of Good Hope takes a little bit longer, but is eminently do-able.
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