[Spruce]

The Germans were VERY close to the bomb. They had "New York capable" aircraft on the drawing boards. If not for the Norwegian heavy water sabotage efforts, the US would have been the recipient of the first Atomic Attack in history.

The Japanese had access to the exact same science as everyone else on the planet. They were front-runners in the Atomic bomb race, as well.

[pepsionice]

It’s all a question of timing. If Hitler had delayed the invasion of Poland by two years....science, technology development, industrial growth....would have tipped to Japan and Germany by the early 1940s.

[OldNewYork]

Interesting. I’d heard of the sabotage of the Norwegian heavy water, and had vague knowledge of the German atomic program. This is the first I’ve heard of a Japanese one though.

I’d also heard, and I don’t think there’s as much emphasis on this as there should be when moralizing follows mention of Hiroshima and Nagasaki, that our atomic bombs were being rushed forward to use on the Germans, but they surrendered before the bombs were ready. So... Japan.

[fred2008]

Actually, not that close:

http://alsos.wlu.edu/mission.aspx

http://www.mphpa.org/classic/HISTORY/H-06f.htm

The remains of the German effort can be viewed in Haigerloch:

http://www.haigerloch.de/stadt/atomkeller.html

[UCANSEE2]

The Japanese had access to the exact same science as everyone else on the planet.

I has been proven, time after time, that a new invention is not something that one human figures out. People all over the globe conceive of these new inventions at the same time, and it is only a very, very few who pursue that dream and make it a reality.

It is my silly *ss opinion that enlargement of knowledge/new inventions/new ideas are due to gamma ray radiation from space.

Of course the gamma rays could be having just the opposite effect, for all I know.

[peeps36]

We can thank the heroes of Tel mark for risking their lives to stop the Germans from transporting the heavy water. I always wondered how factual that movie was.