Atomic Bombs and Bombers

[LoBaron]

Actually this has developed in a massively interesting read guys!

Has not changed my initial assumption on the matter a whiff, but there is so much valuable detail accumulated here (which is
-at least- difficult to find for somebody not routinely involved in such matters of research).

Thank you!

[danlongman]

This is more fun than the last six movies i have seen.... all for free and no stupid 3D glasses or Adam Sandler.
Vitrified stone forts in Scotland!!! Thats up there with the unexplained cache of Bushmills bottles in my Great Grandfather's shed!!!!
He said "the little people" put them there. I thought they were used to smuggle heavy water from Ireland to Canada for the IRA's
atomic bomb project in the 1920's..... but I was only a kid and easily duped. Somebody should write a book!

[sandman455]

I must agree that this is an epic thread and certainly worth the effort reading through all of it.

El Cid - I think you would be well served to use more paragraphs in your writing and stick to a subject that is supported by 3-4 more sentences. And of course minimize the personal input unless you are using that as your paragraph topic.

YankeeAirRat - Your falsehoods are all sound but I'm not sure why you bother. If he wants laser beams in his mod, then why can't he post up his rational for a laser beam? I don't play AE to recreate a war that can't be recreated. The biggest fantasy of all is a universal leader with total C&C over the entire theater. I mean it's fine and dandy in a RTS game, but when you look at all the hard work that went into recreating historical accuracy in these games and then throw in the god-like supreme leader, well it is out there in the twilight zone. We the players love it, but we shouldn't fool ourselves into thinking we have a foot in reality when we play our games. We aren't walking in any leader's shoes.

Treespider, your post was awesome. [&o]

[YankeeAirRat]

Sandman,

You make a valid point that we really are playing an ahistorical game. That said, when information comes up and someone tries to present something of questionable references as historical fact then I get the hair risen on the back of my head. Think about it like this, would you fly with a Pilot or NFO who failed all his NATOPS exams (both open and closed), NATOPS check sims and his actual flight; but Mauler 1 said such Pilot/NFO was a good stick and safe to fly with because he was top notch coming out of TraCom? That is how I view some tin foil history stuff presented, hell I don't even watch the UFO channel any more...I mean the History Channel, because half the time they are having sensationalistic stories that either have been known about for years and just not given a bigger deal (like one I saw recently on my local University Public Access station presenting Exercise Tiger Fiasco as a grand cover-up to even this day; even though it was reported just not given the weight it would have because of the larger picture going on) or attempt to make some very circumstantial historical connection such as the Yamashita Gold or Elridge/Philly Experiement as the truth just that "the man in black" is suppresing it all.

[treespider]

H-JAPAN
May 21, 2005


The book (Japan's Secret War) cites US National Archive sources, but simply as "NARA," as I
recall, with no identifying file numbers, making the notes completely
useless. Shortly after the hardcover edition came out I asked the
legendary John Taylor, chief of Modern Military at the Archives, and one
of the great resources in the field, what he knew of this. He said that if
I came across any material like it in my own research ( I was looking at
OSS X-2 (counterintelligence) in China and Japanese Intelligence at the
time), would I please bring it to his attention, as "nobody's been able to
find any of his sources." That was in 1990; and so far as I know, that is
still the situation. You can contact John Taylor at NARA for an update,
but I don't think anything has changed.

If you have access to JSTOR, the absence of any review would be revealing. My
own campus' connection is down at the moment; as soon as it's restored I'll
check it.

Henry Sirotin
Hunter College/C.W. Post

H-JAPAN
May 25, 2005

(1) From: "wgrund@bgnet.bgsu.edu" <wgrund@bgnet.bgsu.edu>

Here we go again.

I recall about ten years ago when Wilcox's book was reprinted that a
round of similar inquiries was floated on H-Japan. I had just returned
from a trip to DC where I was doing research for my dissertation on
this subject. This is a story that just won't die.

The bibliography in Wilcox's second edition provides a pretty good map
for primary and secondary sources in English on the subject. I was able
to find just about all the sources he used, with only a few exceptions.
To the best of my recollection, Wilcox never actually states that Japan
succeeded in building and testing a nuclear weapon, but he strongly
implies that they did.

After considerable research on the subject, both in the US and Japan, I
am firmly convinced that the Japanese did NOT succeed in testing (or
even building) a nuclear weapon. The Hungnam story likely began when
David Snell, a reporter for the Atlanta Constitution, wrote of his
encounter with a Japanese COUNTER-INTELLIGENCE officer after the war,
who alleged that Japanese scientists had tested a nuclear weapon off
the eastern coast of Korea. Wilcox rediscovered this article many years
ago when researching this subject. Apparently, however, he did not see
Snell's follow up article, where he all but retracted this story.

Nonetheless, Wilcox otherwise got a lot of the story correct, that
Japanese scientists were involved in nuclear research during the war.
Both the army and navy had comparatively small projects. But Wilcox
also neglected to include or account for much of the evidence that
would suggest that Japan DID NOT develop a nuclear weapon. This is
where his book, as work of professional scholarship and history, flies
off the rails. (And not because he isn't tenured somewhere.)

Furthermore, he introduces material referring to the atrocities of Unit
731, and the postwar cover-up, and by inference, suggests that facts
about Japan's nuclear research were similarly suppressed. This is
clearly not the case. Japanese scientists and others began to publish
articles about their wartime nuclear research activity as soon as the
US occupation ended. (The Japanese media had been prevented from
publishing anything about nuclear weapons and research, both US and
Japanese, by US occupation officials.) If you care to do the research,
you can find references to wartime nuclear research in Japan by
scientists, military officials, and historians (in Japanese) from as
early as 1946. But because Wilcox, and others, did not know of these
sources, it was as good as a conspiracy of silence.

I suspect we are seeing another round of interest in this subject
because we will be commemorating the 60th anniversary of the nuclear
attacks on Hiroshima and Nagasaki this year. We are certain to see
interest in this story emerge again in another ten years, fifteen, and
I suspect, in 2045. And so it goes…

As for Derek Price, he passed away several years ago. On the other
hand, I am happy to report that Eri Yagi is still very much alive and
enjoying her retirement teaching ballroom dancing (to the disabled no
less!)

For reviews of the Wilcox book, I recommend the following: John Dower's
Review of Robert Wilcox, Japan's Secret War, in Bulletin of Atomic
Scientists 43 (Aug.-Sept. 1986), 61-62; and Morris F. Low's, Japan's
Secret War? 'Instant' Scientific Manpower and Japan's World War II
Atomic Bomb Project, Annals of Science 47 (1990), 347-360.

On the Hungnam story, see Walter E. Grunden, Hungnam and the Japanese
Atomic Bomb: Recent Historiography of a Postwar Myth,”Intelligence and
National Security 13 (1998), 32-60.

For a brief, but accurate and scholarly account of Japan's wartime
nuclear research, John Dower's NI and F: Japan’s Wartime Atomic
Bomb Research, in Japan in War and Peace: Selected Essays (New York:
New Press, 1993), 55-100, is a good place to start.

For a more detailed account, see the chapters on science mobilization
and nuclear research in Walter E. Grunden, Secret Weapons & World War
II: Japan in the Shadow of Big Science (Lawrence: University Press of
Kansas, 2005), now available. Also, watch for a follow-up article in
Historia Scientiarum, co-authored by Masakatsu Yamazaki, Keiko-Nagase
Reimer, and Walter E. Grunden on this subject.

For a direct comparison of German and Japanese wartime nuclear research
efforts, see the article by Mark Walker, Masakatsu Yamazaki, and Walter
Grunden in the forthcoming issue of OSIRIS, available in July 2005.

Japanese scholars, such as Masakatsu Yamazaki and Yutaka Kawamura, have
been even busier researching and publishing on this subject, especially
from a more internalist perspective. For selected publications, see the
bibliography in my aforementioned monograph.

A documentary on Japan's wartime nuclear research is under production
by the History Channel and is scheduled for broadcast this summer.

I hope this overly long missive helps to clear up some confusion.

Most Sincerely,

Walter E. Grunden
Department of History
Bowling Green State University

[mdiehl]

El Cid - I have heard this claim about the Japanese having an operational weapon in many public forums and even seen it trotted out on History Channel. And yet, I have never seen a single credible piece of evidence to support the claim. It always seems to come down to something like "John's uncle's brother-in-law's first cousin served in a logisitical capacity in 1946 and HE heard from a supply sergeant that an E4 found a document in G2's wastebasket referring to plutonium devices in a Korean nuclear facility that no one has had any time, yet, to inspect."

So, I can only say, in keeping with the principles of Ales Hrdlcka or Carl Sagan, that 'extraordinary claims require extraordinary substantiation.' That may be why people are, errm, scoffing at your question.

There was a book written by the head of the Japanese naval reactor research program in the 1970s about their WW2 research. In his words, they never even got a functioning cyclotron running. Without that experimental data, I don't know how they'd have figured out that Heisenberg's generally published estimations on the amount or quality of critical mass required for an uncontrolled chain reaction were wrong.

If I can recall the name of the book I will post it here. My friend, an 82 y.o. foreign service retiree who served in postwar Japan, has the book.

In mentioning this I don't seek to arouse others passions. Just offering an opinion about extraordinary claims, and I will try to get you the source.

Later all.

[JWE]

I am simply overwhelmed by all the convincing evidence provided by all the liddle kiddles in reference to the Japanese Atomic Bomb. I am especially indebted to mdiehl for taking his valuable time away from lecturing us on the truths of naval aviation to illuminating we lesser humans on the truths of Atom Bomb historical scholarship.

Damn !!, I love this forum.

[oldman45]

ORIGINAL: JWE

I am simply overwhelmed by all the convincing evidence provided by all the liddle kiddles in reference to the Japanese Atomic Bomb. I am especially indebted to mdiehl for taking his valuable time away from lecturing us on the truths of naval aviation to illuminating we lesser humans on the truths of Atom Bomb historical scholarship.

Damn !!, I love this forum.

Now I am confused....

[witpqs]

ORIGINAL: treespider

The Shock of Hiroshima
Tristan Grunow
University of Oregon

One critic who has spoken out against the Japanese atomic scientists
is Yamamoto Yo\ichi, of the 8th Army Research Division associated with
the “Ni-go\” project. Yamamoto has argued that the blame for the tragedies
of Hiroshima and Nagasaki rests solely on the scientists, because
they did not “fear” the bomb, and did not believe that the United States
could produce one.212 Yamamoto argues:
If the Japanese scientists’ thinking that production of atomic bombs was
not presently possible had not led them to deny as a rumor the American
announcement [the Potsdam Declaration] that the United States had
completed the bomb, Hiroshima and Nagasaki would not have been
bombed. The regrettable thing is, we then have no excuses for the victims
of Hiroshima and Nagasaki. If the scientists knew the dreadfulness
of the atomic bomb, simply because of the completion of the atomic
bomb, would there not have been an effort to take a step toward ending
the war?213

The bold/underlined part seems to indicate that the speaker, Yamamoto Yo\ichi, believes that the US announced the completion of the atomic bomb in the Potsdam Declaration. That is not true, though. The declaration mentioned "prompt and utter destruction" but that is hardly announcing the completion of a super-secret project, security leaks notwithstanding.

[witpqs]

ORIGINAL: oldman45

ORIGINAL: JWE

I am simply overwhelmed by all the convincing evidence provided by all the liddle kiddles in reference to the Japanese Atomic Bomb. I am especially indebted to mdiehl for taking his valuable time away from lecturing us on the truths of naval aviation to illuminating we lesser humans on the truths of Atom Bomb historical scholarship.

Damn !!, I love this forum.

Now I am confused....

You need to drink more!

[Nikademus]

ORIGINAL: oldman45

ORIGINAL: JWE

I am simply overwhelmed by all the convincing evidence provided by all the liddle kiddles in reference to the Japanese Atomic Bomb. I am especially indebted to mdiehl for taking his valuable time away from lecturing us on the truths of naval aviation to illuminating we lesser humans on the truths of Atom Bomb historical scholarship.

Damn !!, I love this forum.

Now I am confused....

about?

[treespider]

ORIGINAL: witpqs

ORIGINAL: treespider

The Shock of Hiroshima
Tristan Grunow
University of Oregon

One critic who has spoken out against the Japanese atomic scientists
is Yamamoto Yo\ichi, of the 8th Army Research Division associated with
the “Ni-go\” project. Yamamoto has argued that the blame for the tragedies
of Hiroshima and Nagasaki rests solely on the scientists, because
they did not “fear” the bomb, and did not believe that the United States
could produce one.212 Yamamoto argues:
If the Japanese scientists’ thinking that production of atomic bombs was
not presently possible had not led them to deny as a rumor the American
announcement [the Potsdam Declaration] that the United States had
completed the bomb, Hiroshima and Nagasaki would not have been
bombed. The regrettable thing is, we then have no excuses for the victims
of Hiroshima and Nagasaki. If the scientists knew the dreadfulness
of the atomic bomb, simply because of the completion of the atomic
bomb, would there not have been an effort to take a step toward ending
the war?213

The bold/underlined part seems to indicate that the speaker, Yamamoto Yo\ichi, believes that the US announced the completion of the atomic bomb in the Potsdam Declaration. That is not true, though. The declaration mentioned "prompt and utter destruction" but that is hardly announcing the completion of a super-secret project, security leaks notwithstanding.

Perhaps Yamamoto Yo\ichi convoluted the Potsdam Declaration with Truman's announcement of the bomb later in the day following the bombing of Hiroshima...in which Truman tied the atomic bomb to the Potsdam Declaration by stating:

Sixteen hours ago an American airplane dropped one bomb on Hiroshima and destroyed its usefulness to the enemy. That bomb had more power than 20,000 tons of TNT. It had more than two thousand times the blast power of the British "Grand Slam" which is the largest bomb ever yet used in the history of warfare.

...

It is an atomic bomb. It is a harnessing of the basic power of the universe. The force from which the sun draws its power has been loosed against those who brought war to the Far East.

...

We are now prepared to obliterate more rapidly and completely every productive enterprise the Japanese have above ground in any city. We shall destroy their docks, their factories, and their communications. Let there be no mistake; we shall completely destroy Japan's power to make war. I

It was to spare the Japanese people from utter destruction that the ultimatum of July 26 was issued at Potsdam. Their leaders promptly rejected that ultimatum. If they do not now accept our terms they may expect a rain of ruin from the air, the like of which has never been seen on this earth ...

[oldman45]

ORIGINAL: witpqs

ORIGINAL: oldman45

ORIGINAL: JWE

I am simply overwhelmed by all the convincing evidence provided by all the liddle kiddles in reference to the Japanese Atomic Bomb. I am especially indebted to mdiehl for taking his valuable time away from lecturing us on the truths of naval aviation to illuminating we lesser humans on the truths of Atom Bomb historical scholarship.

Damn !!, I love this forum.

Now I am confused....

You need to drink more!

I will fix that now [;)]

[Commander Stormwolf]

japanese could have delivered a radiological or biological strike, but a fission device was beyond their capability

[YankeeAirRat]

ORIGINAL: Commander Stormwolf



japanese could have delivered a radiological or biological strike, but a fission device was beyond their capability

Biological yes, Radiological NO. Simply put they did not have ready access to Uranium. Of the six know deposits of Uranium at the time of WW2 all but two sat in Allied control, the two that didn't were in Occupied Europe. There is conflicting and circumstantial evidence that the Germans tried to ship processed Uranium to Japan but the submarines disappeared or as in the case that most of the Tin-Foil Historians tie thier beliefs to the U-boat left before the processed material was loaded and then surrendered to Allied Forces a few days after V-E Day.

[mdiehl]

The Germans tried to send Uranium Oxide ore to Japan via submarine. There is no evidence that they succeeded. In 1945, U-234 surrendered to the US with a cargo of UO2. Not enough, however, to make a fission bomb or even a compelling radiological device.

[witpqs]

ORIGINAL: treespider

ORIGINAL: witpqs

ORIGINAL: treespider

The Shock of Hiroshima
Tristan Grunow
University of Oregon

One critic who has spoken out against the Japanese atomic scientists
is Yamamoto Yo\ichi, of the 8th Army Research Division associated with
the “Ni-go\” project. Yamamoto has argued that the blame for the tragedies
of Hiroshima and Nagasaki rests solely on the scientists, because
they did not “fear” the bomb, and did not believe that the United States
could produce one.212 Yamamoto argues:
If the Japanese scientists’ thinking that production of atomic bombs was
not presently possible had not led them to deny as a rumor the American
announcement [the Potsdam Declaration] that the United States had
completed the bomb, Hiroshima and Nagasaki would not have been
bombed. The regrettable thing is, we then have no excuses for the victims
of Hiroshima and Nagasaki. If the scientists knew the dreadfulness
of the atomic bomb, simply because of the completion of the atomic
bomb, would there not have been an effort to take a step toward ending
the war?213

The bold/underlined part seems to indicate that the speaker, Yamamoto Yo\ichi, believes that the US announced the completion of the atomic bomb in the Potsdam Declaration. That is not true, though. The declaration mentioned "prompt and utter destruction" but that is hardly announcing the completion of a super-secret project, security leaks notwithstanding.

Perhaps Yamamoto Yo\ichi convoluted the Potsdam Declaration with Truman's announcement of the bomb later in the day following the bombing of Hiroshima...in which Truman tied the atomic bomb to the Potsdam Declaration by stating:

Sixteen hours ago an American airplane dropped one bomb on Hiroshima and destroyed its usefulness to the enemy. That bomb had more power than 20,000 tons of TNT. It had more than two thousand times the blast power of the British "Grand Slam" which is the largest bomb ever yet used in the history of warfare.

...

It is an atomic bomb. It is a harnessing of the basic power of the universe. The force from which the sun draws its power has been loosed against those who brought war to the Far East.

...

We are now prepared to obliterate more rapidly and completely every productive enterprise the Japanese have above ground in any city. We shall destroy their docks, their factories, and their communications. Let there be no mistake; we shall completely destroy Japan's power to make war. I

It was to spare the Japanese people from utter destruction that the ultimatum of July 26 was issued at Potsdam. Their leaders promptly rejected that ultimatum. If they do not now accept our terms they may expect a rain of ruin from the air, the like of which has never been seen on this earth ...

Conflating those two makes sense, yes.

BTW thanks for posting that stuff. Much better reading than secret sources you can't post but maintain a copy of at hand in case a black helicopter lands and demands to see them. [;)] [:D]

[mike scholl 1]

ORIGINAL: witpqs
Conflating those two makes sense, yes.

BTW thanks for posting that stuff. Much better reading than secret sources you can't post but maintain a copy of at hand in case a black helicopter lands and demands to see them. [;)] [:D]

Still a rather dubious arguement that it would have prevented Hiroshima/Nagasaki given the attitude of the Military running the Government. Even AFTER the two bombs had been dropped they wanted to continue the war..., so the notion that they would have agreed to surrender based on a warning from scientists about a weapon that no-one really understood is pretty "Pie-in-the-Sky".

[treespider]

ORIGINAL: mike scholl 1

ORIGINAL: witpqs
Conflating those two makes sense, yes.

BTW thanks for posting that stuff. Much better reading than secret sources you can't post but maintain a copy of at hand in case a black helicopter lands and demands to see them. [;)] [:D]

Still a rather dubious arguement that it would have prevented Hiroshima/Nagasaki given the attitude of the Military running the Government. Even AFTER the two bombs had been dropped they wanted to continue the war..., so the notion that they would have agreed to surrender based on a warning from scientists about a weapon that no-one really understood is pretty "Pie-in-the-Sky".

Not everyone within the government Mike...you need to refer to the final paragraph of the paper...

Obviously, there was no initial consensus among Japanese scientists
that the Hiroshima bomb was atomic. Moreover, had the scientists immediately
acknowledged that the Hiroshima bomb was atomic, the Army
could possibly still have opted for a decisive homeland battle. As the
Army Military Affairs Bureau’s report to the National Diet suggests, the
atomic bombs would not have caused a change in Ketsu-Go\ plans. Yet,
since the scientists exacerbated the entrenched obstinacy of Japan’s
myopic leadership by assuring that atomic weapons would not, and
could not, be developed during the war, their dilatory influence should
certainly be factored into any discussion of the delayed Japanese surrender.
Had the military not been falsely led to believe that atomic weapons
were not a genuine threat during the war, they would have responded
much differently to the bombing of Hiroshima. If, in the wake of
Hiroshima, the military had immediately perceived that the bomb was
atomic, they could have sooner utilized the “face-saving” possibility of
the atomic bomb, and acquiesced to Foreign Minister To\go\’s entreaty for
peace on 7 August. In this case, the hundreds of thousands of casualties
and lives lost in the disaster of Nagasaki and the Russian invasion of
Manchuria would have been preventable. In the end, the real “shock of
Hiroshima,” then, was not from the destruction of the city or the introduction
of a “new and most cruel bomb,” but from the realization that
U.S. science had succeeded where Japanese science had failed. It was
this realization that made possible the emperor’s final decision to surrender.
If only it had come sooner.

[mike scholl 1]

ORIGINAL: treespider

ORIGINAL: mike scholl 1


Still a rather dubious arguement that it would have prevented Hiroshima/Nagasaki given the attitude of the Military running the Government. Even AFTER the two bombs had been dropped they wanted to continue the war..., so the notion that they would have agreed to surrender based on a warning from scientists about a weapon that no-one really understood is pretty "Pie-in-the-Sky".

Not everyone within the government Mike...you need to refer to the final paragraph of the paper...

No..., I read it. But remember it still took the direct intervention of the Emperor to break the tie in the Cabinate even after BOTH bombs and the Soviet intervention occurred. And even after the Emperor decided, the Military still tried to stage a "coup" to prevent it. So I still believe the statement to be more on the order of after-the-fact "wishfull thinking".