US used German Uranium to make first Nukes

Hydrick's book asserts for the first time that the surrender of submarine U-234 (shown in file photo above) and its cargo of enriched uranium and infrared fuses allowed the Manhattan Project to complete and drop its bombs on Japan in time to meet an important mid-August 1945 deadline for war planners.

"An author that challenges the traditional history of how the United States developed the nuclear weapons used to end World War II invites the face-to-face scrutiny of some of the nation's most respected scientists and historians.
Carter Hydrick's book has raised eyebrows since it was published nearly two years ago, arguing that enriched uranium found in a surrendered German submarine in 1945 was used in the bombs dropped on Hiroshima and Nagasaki in Japan.

The uranium found aboard submarine U-234 off the East Coast of the United States at the end of the war in Europe was used in the atomic bomb dropped on Hiroshima, and infrared fuses also from the vessel were used to develop the plutonium bomb dropped on Nagasaki, his book asserts.

Hydrick has presented his case to audiences at both the Los Alamos National Laboratory in New Mexico and the Oak Ridge Nat ional Laboratory in Tennessee, both of which were involved in the development of the atomic bomb 60 years ago. He has a return engagement scheduled Tuesday in Los Alamos.

Hydrick said he was nervous the first time he appeared before the audiences, made up mostly of scientists, because he is not a scientist or an historian. Some scientists initially refused to take his book seriously because he was butting up against long-accepted history.

"My answer to them was that's why I'm here - to get the critical review," he said in a recent interview. "If they can shoot it down, I will be sad because I put a lot of my life into it. If that's what it is, that's what it is."

Historians were some of his most severe critics in the beginning because he lacked credentials as an historian, but the climate has changed after the appearances at the laboratories and in academic settings around the nation.

Anthony Stranges, an associate professor at Texas A&M University who specializes in the history of science, knows Hydrick's work and he says the author has appeared twice on the campus to address the history honors society.

www.spacedaily.com...

This is a really interesting theory and book. Has some serious impact on how "history" can be rewritten................

INtersting, but I'm pretty sure the Uranium from the German U-boat was Yellow Cake enriched to about 10% ( weapons grade uranium needs to be 90% ). To enrich Uranium for the Manhattan Project they used cyclotrons which was a very time consuming process. They would not have been able to enrich the German uranium enough in time to use Little Boy, nor converting it to plutonium in a reactor.
From what I've read the uranium was used for the weapons program but after WWII when the US stockpile if uranium was small.

AS for infra red fuses, I've got no idea why these would be used in nuclear weapons, they definately aren't used today. More likely these infrared fuses were a development for missiles and the like then under development in Germany, for use against Allied bomber formations.

I have heard of this story also, the U-boat was also carring plans for germany's other 'miracle' weapons like the V-1/2 and radar equipment. They sent all this over to aid japan when they realised their game was over, germany surrendered before it arrived so it surrendered also, (the two japenese officers aboard committed suicide, as was the custom of the time).
In the program i saw, the U-B supposedly carried a small amount of enriched uranium that was used to help create the two WW2 blasts.

Dunno what the IR sensors are for as the A-Bombs as far as i know were triggered by the same proximity tech the US invented for AAA shells to ensure it exploded at the right height above the city.

He's not the only person to make this claim.
John Lansdale Jr., the head of security for the Manhattan Project, has also said that the German Uranium was used in the bombs.

channel4
Wilcox cites the story of the U-234 as evidence that the Japanese may have been close to developing their own atomic bomb and would not have hesitated to use it. Major John Lansdale and others argue persuasively that U-234's uranium shipment, intended by Germany for its Japanese ally, was ultimately delivered by the US ... in the bombs that were dropped on Hiroshima and Nagasaki.

mindfully.org
In 1995, Mr. Lansdale added a surprising twist to the surrender of the Nazi submarine U-234 to American forces in May 1945. Bound for Tokyo, the submarine was carrying 10 containers filled with uranium oxide. For years, historians had wondered what the American military did with it.

In an interview with The New York Times in 1995, Mr. Lansdale said the material, originally intended for Japan's atomic program, instead ended up in the bombs dropped on Hiroshima and Nagasaki.

"It went to the Manhattan District," he said. "It certainly went into the Manhattan District supply of uranium."

It appears it was just added to the existing supply of Uranium being used for the Manhattan project.

AceofBase, the voyage of U-234 was not the only such evidence, nor was it the only corroboration Wilcox wrote about in his book.

I have personally corresponded with Robert Wilcox. He has done excellent research on the Japanese Atomic bomb, but I found that he was quite unaware of the extent of submarine cargo voyages between Germany and Japan.

For a start Wilcox also refers to a string of messages in 1943 between General Touransoke Kawashima and Admiral Oshima in Berlin, which began on 7 July 1943. Kawashima was requesting that Germany be asked to export uranium oxide from Czechoslovakia.

The Nazi regime was skeptical and demanded explanation of what it was needed for. It was not until November 1943 that Germany agreed to ship Uranium oxide (aka Yellow cake).

Japan dispatched a number of I-class submarines to France to retrieve the Uranium oxide. These were I-29, I-30, I-34, and I-52. Before the request for Uranium oxide, I-8 had already made a successful round trip to France. We know from Japanese records that it was mixed in an amalgam with mercury and packed in cylinders stored inside the keel boxes.

We know from Ultra decrypts of the German enigma machines that 560kg of Uranium oxide awaited I-52 at Lorient, but that I-52 was sunk inbound in the Atlantic.

The Germans took over some italian transport subs and called them UIT-boats. Following the request for Uranium oxide UIT-22 sailed in January 1944, but was sunk off South Africa.

A variety of normal U-boats made the journey too and some may have carried Uranium oxide in their keels. Good reason exists to suspect U-859 and U-852 had Uranium oxide cargoes.

U-859's wreck was recovered from the straits of Malacca in 1972 to remove a hazardous chemical cargo claimed to be mercury. When the Boxing Day tsunami swept across the Indian Ocean up against the Somali shore where U-852 had been driven into coral shoals in 1944, local Somalis contracted radiation sickness from the radioactive sands driven ashore by the tsunami.

Other cargo u-boats likely to have sailed with Uranium oxide cargoes in 1944 included U-1062, U195, U-180, U-195, U-219. U-219 and U-195 arrived at Djakarta in November 1944 with 12 broken down V-2 rockets various other radar systems, cypher machines, optical equipment, jet engines, Me-163 rocket planes, Me-262 etc.

Japan also sourced Uranium oxides from China, northern Korea, Thailand and Burma.

In relation to U-234's cargo, it left Kiel in March 1945 with 240 tons of cargo in it's German manifest. the US Navy slipped her at Portsmouth, New Haven and drew up a manifest that showed only 170 tons. It is speculated that there was far more than just 560 kg of Uranium oxide aboard U-234 after her surrender and some of this missing tonnage may indeed have gone to the Manhatten project.

Originally posted by sy.gunson
U-859's wreck was recovered from the straits of Malacca in 1972 to remove a hazardous chemical cargo claimed to be mercury. When the Boxing Day tsunami swept across the Indian Ocean up against the Somali shore where U-852 had been driven into coral shoals in 1944, local Somalis contracted radiation sickness from the radioactive sands driven ashore by the tsunami.

I have not heard of this, do you have a link ? Are you suggedting that this boat was carrying HEU or plutonium

No online link sorry. You can learn more by reading John Bessant's book "Stalin's Silver" about recovery cargo from the Liberty Ship SS John Barry. U-859 torpedoed the John Barry.

Also on a totally different tangent the book "Major Jordan's Diary" seems to suggest John Barry was part of a group of ships transporting Canadian uranium oxide to the Soviet Union under lend lease contrary to Britain's wishes or interests.

A number of other Liberty ships were also leased to the Soviets for discreetly carrying uranium to Russia.

Mary Cassatt hull# 1553 delivered Soviets 13 May 1943, renamed Odessa (Odecce) M-11950 with code 430071, trips between Akutan, Alaska to Petrpavlosk.

John Minto hull# 2021 delivered Soviets late May 1943, renamed Vitebsk (Bumebck) M-11949 with code .

Joseph Watt hull# 2042 delivered to Soviets July 1943, renamed Erevan (Epean)

Robert S Abbott hull# 2042 delivered to Soviets July 1943, renamed Kamenets Podolsk

Roosevelt was seeking to arm Russia with the bomb during WW2 as an extension of an agreement with Stalin during the Tehran Conference that Post War, USA and USSR would rule the world in two power blocs and dismantle European colonialism.

The Japanese submarine I-52 was sunk in the Atlantic whilst en route to Lorient to collect Uranium oxide. Her cargo of gold bullion was in part to pay for the Uranium. We know this from declassified Enigma decrypts archived at NARA.

We know about other Japanese I-boats that Uranium oxide was mixed into an amalgam with mercury for storage in the keels of Japanese I-boats. It is a reasonable assumption that because Germany and Japan jointly planned the Yanagi scheme that they used the same methods for transport of Uranium in amalgam with Mercury.


[edit on 14-11-2008 by sy.gunson]