The Japanese nuclear weapons program

[williamjpellas]

I see that the hand waving is being kept to a minimum here. The British Target Force or T-Force had a number of predetermined targets as it entered formerly German held countries and into Germany itself. This included "Japanese intelligence targets." (T-Force by Sean Longden, pg. 47). "For these early operations it was highlighted that Japanese intelligence targets were of 'vital importance.' All follow-up investigations were to be handled by staff appointed by SHAEF. It was also stated that all Japanese persons were to be detained, with officers being told to test anyone with a request to say 'Hullo' as it was noted that the Japanese are physically incapable of of pronouncing the letter 'I' and will therefore say "Hurro". The footnote given cites National Archives WO171/3865.

Did the Germans do any work related to atomic fusion? It appears some work was done.
Kernfusion und Kernwaffenentwicklung: Fusionsforschung in Deutschland bis 1945 von Rolf-Günter Hauk

The hand waving is, indeed, being kept to a minimum, at least from me. I always cite my sources.

Interesting tidbit there regarding the British T-Force. I had no idea they might be going after Japanese attache officers, spies, and other personnel in Nazi Germany as it crumbled. I know that at least one prominent Japanese official, Imperial Japanese Navy Commander Yoshiro Fujimura, escaped to Switzerland as the Allies closed in on Berlin. There is at least one MAGIC intercept of a Japanese radio signal sent from neutral Stockholm, Sweden, in which a Japanese attache officer or officers claims that some kind of German nuclear weapons were used against the Russians on the Eastern Front in 1943. Did the Brits also get wind of this, and is that why they sent the T-Force looking for Japanese nationals in Germany during the last days of the Third Reich? Given that the British were regularly reading top secret German radio traffic with ULTRA, why would they attach such importance to hunting down the relative handful of Japanese who were still in Germany in the spring of 1945? What did they think the Japanese might know that the British were not already aware of through ULTRA?

Yes, German atomic R&D during WWII was most often pursuing concepts, experiments, and prototypes which we would term "thermonuclear weapons" in the present day. This tendency to favor fusion was evident in the postwar work of both Ronald Richter in Argentina and Friedwardt Winterberg, late of the University of Nevada-Reno and formerly the PhD student of Werner Heisenberg.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Friedwardt_Winterberg

https://www.quora.com/How-close-did-Naz ... iam-Pellas

Perhaps the biggest benefit of the German approach was the significantly smaller size of most of their bombs or warheads. (A notable exception being the Rugen Island event in October, 1944---though I have reason to believe that the weapon tested at that time and place utilized a very different technology.) Along with this, particularly if they went with an immediate ancestor of Winterberg's "Third Way / Mini-Nuke" ideas, was the fact that such weapons would need dramatically smaller amounts of fissile material and possibly none at all (meaning that even U-238 can in theory be detonated with this method). The explosive yield of this type of bomb would be very small as such things go, but they would nevertheless be a kind of thermonuclear explosive device. Winterberg was brought to the US as part of Operation Paperclip in 1955---I didn't know until just now that that effort continued post-WWII. The possibility that Nazi Germany was pursuing weaponry related to Winterberg's concepts is one reason I don't discount the various stories and eyewitness accounts of test detonations of Nazi nukes---nor the possibility that the transfer of this technology to Japan might have enabled them to build a similar weapon at war's end.

Along these lines is a statement given to Wilcox by Tony Toluba, a former CIA analyst and expert on North Korea. This was in 2005, when the "Six Party Talks" designed to rein in North Korea's nuclear weapons were underway. Toluba told Wilcox he had a document in his possession which stated that 3,000 German troops had been sent to Korea (the Hungnam-Chongjin area) in late 1944. Given how hard-pressed and short of troops Nazi Germany was by that point in the war, this was quite an extraordinary transfer of personnel. Unfortunately Toluba did not provide a copy of the document to Wilcox while he was doing the research and writing for the Third Edition of Japan's Secret War. But that's what he claimed. (It's on page 232.) If true, this is one of the strongest indicators that has yet come to light of cross-pollination between the nuclear weapons programs of Nazi Germany and Imperial Japan.

That said, the majority of the fragmentary documentation which has emerged to this point seems to indicate with a fair amount of consistency that the main thrust of Japanese nuclear weapon R&D was---irony of ironies---very much along the same lines as the basic but powerful atomic fission bombs being pursued in the US in the Manhattan Project. In other words, Japan was hit by very much the same kind of weapon she was attempting to build and use against the United States.

[OpanaPointer]

Buddha save me from people who have only read one book.

[AllenM]

More from the book T-Force. A reference to various technologies that T-Force knew or thought might have been passed to the Japanese. "One of the targets in Bremen was a factory producing Focke-Wulf aircraft engines that was known to have been in contact with Japan. More importantly, they were given the task of securing the Japanese consulate in Bremen and ensuring any secrets were made safe from destruction."

As far as captured German scientists involved in the atomic program, they did not want the Russians, or the French, to get them. "Such was the value of these scientists that General Groves was convinced they were 'superior in all-around ability to the group which had started the New Mexico laboratory'.

"The British suggested that Harteck should be 'shadowed' to prevent him from being kidnapped by the Russians and in November 1945 the British informed General Groves 'special arrangements" were to be put into place to look after Harteck."

[Genro]

The need to read more widely.
Though out this thread much has been blithely written about the development of an atomic bomb as though this is something that can be built in a shed in the back garden, though I no doubt some have tried.
The following of 77 pages, gives in some detail the tremendous problems that had to be overcome to achieve a successful device.

https://fas.org/sgp/othergov/doe/lanl/00795708.pdf

Even after reading a few pages, the truly enormous nature of the undertaking is apparent. The British after a few initial studies at Rhydymwyn in Wales realised this as did Werner Heisenberg and Albert Speer as well as Yoshio Nishina.
Unlike America, to attempt such an enormous project under aerial bombardment as experienced in Germany, Japan and Britain (civilian deaths 45000) was clearly not sustainable.

[OpanaPointer]

I've been reading on WWII since 1965 and I'm still not willing to claim a comprehensive knowledge of the events.

[AllenM]

The complaints by a few that it could not be done ignores the historical record and other posts here. The complexity of the undertaking is now known. The refusal to look at period documents, including those declassified and released, shows a desire to not learn and just deny. In the meantime, Robert Wilcox, among others, is clarifying the situation.

[OpanaPointer]

Chortle. You have read the one book and say WE are weak on scholarship? Have you read Richard Rhodes's book, to name just one reality based work?

[AllenM]

I have read many books. A few questions about the atomic programs during World War II.

Germany invades Belgium and confiscates their uranium. Where did the uranium come from? I have the answer but do you?

Germany invades France and takes over the facilities of Frédéric Joliot-Curie and his cyclotron.

Or perhaps you have seen the CIOS Report of June 1945 about the cyclotron in Heidelberg.
CIOS Item No. 21 & 24
File No. XXIX-47
Cyclotron Investigation Heidelberg

Although related documents had been destroyed, investigators were able to locate Professor Walter Bothe of the Kaiser Wilhelm Institute.

[williamjpellas]

Allen, I have a copy of that CIOS document in my possession. I am guessing that you do, as well, but if not just let me know and I will send it to you.

Mark Walker suggests that one of Harteck's centrifuge designs was given to Japan during the war years. IIRC that reference was in Walker's book, National Socialism and the Quest for Nuclear Power, 1939-49. I don't own a copy of the book but it was cited in connection with Harteck in one of Dwight Rider's published papers. I once spoke with Walker, briefly, regarding the "Schumann-Trinks Device", evidently a shaped / hollow charge, fusion-fission hybrid bomb concept which may or may not have been built by the Nazis in prototype form. I asked him if it was, as it appeared to be, an early boosted fission design, and he said yes. He was busy with finals week at Union College at that time, so I asked if I could email him. I did, twice, and also left two voicemails, but he did not return any of my messages.

I have also come across information to the effect that the 3,000 or so German soldiers in Hungnam were not Wehrmacht but SS. This is entirely consistent with what we know of the late war German superbomb efforts. Most if not all of them appear to have had participation by SS scientists and/or were taken over by them---read, by SS General Ing Hans Kammler---around the time of the July 1944 attempt on Hitler's life. I know for a fact that the SS was running all of Project Hexenkessel and that it had considerable input into the HWA (heereswaffenamt) - Kurt Diebner - Walter Gerlach bomb, two prototypes of which were tested near Ohrdurf, Germany, in March 1945. I am not aware at this time of SS oversight, participation, or takeover of the Reichspost-Ohnesorge-von Ardenne end of the German nuclear effort.

SS participation in the Japanese project at Hungnam is most interesting and, I would think, probably indicates that the Germans were attempting to find a secure location to complete, and then manufacture, their own nuclear weapons. Why not ship as much as possible to Korea, and then perhaps bring the finished product back to the Reich by submarine? It is known that the SS operated a handful of its own u-boats, at least some of which were salvaged kriegsmarine wrecks.

[AllenM]

Various groups in Germany sought the return of historical documents from the Americans. This stretched across decades until the fall of the Soviet Union. Finally, the Deutsches Museum received an unknown number of documents related to the German atomic programs. There was an exhibit of select documents in 2001 and the museum released a limited edition CD-ROM. The IG Farben Buna Werke at Oswieciem ran into numerous delays and appears to have been a joint Luftwaffe-Army-SS operation. It produced no synthetic rubber. A book has been released in Polish about the heavy antiaircraft batteries defending this installation. https://www.amazon.com/Niemieckie-ci%C3 ... =1-1-fkmr0

Carter Hydrick in his book Critical Mass confirms that this was not a buna plant.

[williamjpellas]

A quick correction and a quick reference while I work through the extraordinarily thorough information and citations in the Third Edition of Japan's Secret War:

Upthread, I originally wrote that the main primary source in US archives for the WWII Japanese atomic bomb R&D in Manchuria was a series of OSS files known as "Project Verona". This was already confusing enough because of the similarly-named "Project VeNona"---the US Army's anti-Soviet counterintelligence SIGINT operation---but I then found the OSS files named as "Project RAMONA" in Secret War. I had originally encountered "Verona" in a paper by Dwight Rider (who posts here and on Quora) and so I emailed him a few days ago to check on this. He informs me that while there are OSS files named "VeRona", the files having to do with Japanese nuclear work are in fact named "RAMONA", as Wilcox says. So, this was a mistaken citation by Rider in his paper, which I am sure he will correct if and when he writes a revision or does a re-issue. This mistake was also in my article "Is It True That Japan Developed an Atom Bomb at the End of WWII?" on Quora dot com. I have corrected the citation so it reads RAMONA in both places. It is possible I may have duplicated the wrong code name in other writing; if so, and if anyone spots this, please let me know and I will edit wherever possible to get the correct name of RAMONA in place.

The reference is the 27 December, 2019 Asia Times article "Japan's Secret War and the Atomic Bomb", by Stephen Breyer:

https://www.asiatimes.com/2019/12/artic ... omic-bomb/

Breyer believes that the Soviet spy, Richard Sorge, was hanged by the Japanese in November, 1944 because he had managed to penetrate Japan's nuclear weapons projects and to send crucial details to the Soviet Union. If Breyer is correct, it may be that this disclosure was part of what led to Stalin's eager acceptance of Roosevelt's request that the Russians jump into the Pacific War after the Germans had been disposed of.

Along with this is further public source corroboration of Simon Gunson's assertion that at least parts of both the German and Japanese nuclear weapons programs were working with uranium-233, which is produced via particle bombardment from thorium-232. Breyer, citing a 1996 Paul Frame article based in part on Samuel Goudsmit's 1947 book about the European ALSOS investigations, states that the German company Auer Gesselschaft set up shop in occupied France following the German victory in 1940 and swiftly absorbed a broadly similar French firm, Terres Rares. Auer then shipped railroad cars loaded with thorium captured from the French company (whether thorium-bearing ores of processed thorium metal is unclear) back to Germany. At least some of this appears to have taken place in the midst of a general German panic following the Normandy landings and subsequent breakout by the Allies. The explanation offered for this by Goudsmit was that the Germans were trying to ensure a profitable postwar business future by using the thorium in toothpaste and cosmetics products. Given Japan's documented work with thorium in Korea, as well as possible indication of German research and development with U-233, color me highly skeptical.

[Genro]

The idea that Germany and Japan were producing U-233 in the early 1940 is a ‘little far-fetched’.

The problem with this material is the presents of U-232 which is created simultaneously and with a short half-life, high energy gamma makes the U-233 intensely dangerous to process. Mass for mass U-232 is some 60 million times more radioactive than U=238. To reduce this to acceptable levels ( 5 – 10 ppm ) the thorium is irradiated in a neutron flux relatively free of neutrons above 6 Mev and requires a specially moderated reactor. Irradiation of the thorium is halted while it still holds protactinium-233 ( 27-day half-life ) that can be separated from U-232 before it decayed to U-232.

Between 1954 to 1970 weapons grade U-233 ( 5 ppm U-232 ) was produced in the Savannah River reactor. Due to the decay sequence of U-232 ( U-232> Rn-220>Tl-208>Pb-208 ) the gamma ray intensity increases enormously to a peak at 10 years and then decays over the next 1000 years.
I have been informed that American has an unwanted stock pile of about 950 Kg which is now posing a storage hazard.

[Simon Gunson]

Allen, I have a copy of that CIOS document in my possession. I am guessing that you do, as well, but if not just let me know and I will send it to you.

Mark Walker suggests that one of Harteck's centrifuge designs was given to Japan during the war years. IIRC that reference was in Walker's book, National Socialism and the Quest for Nuclear Power, 1939-49. I don't own a copy of the book but it was cited in connection with Harteck in one of Dwight Rider's published papers. I once spoke with Walker, briefly, regarding the "Schumann-Trinks Device", evidently a shaped / hollow charge, fusion-fission hybrid bomb concept which may or may not have been built by the Nazis in prototype form. I asked him if it was, as it appeared to be, an early boosted fission design, and he said yes. He was busy with finals week at Union College at that time, so I asked if I could email him. I did, twice, and also left two voicemails, but he did not return any of my messages.

I have also come across information to the effect that the 3,000 or so German soldiers in Hungnam were not Wehrmacht but SS. This is entirely consistent with what we know of the late war German superbomb efforts. Most if not all of them appear to have had participation by SS scientists and/or were taken over by them---read, by SS General Ing Hans Kammler---around the time of the July 1944 attempt on Hitler's life. I know for a fact that the SS was running all of Project Hexenkessel and that it had considerable input into the HWA (heereswaffenamt) - Kurt Diebner - Walter Gerlach bomb, two prototypes of which were tested near Ohrdurf, Germany, in March 1945. I am not aware at this time of SS oversight, participation, or takeover of the Reichspost-Ohnesorge-von Ardenne end of the German nuclear effort.

SS participation in the Japanese project at Hungnam is most interesting and, I would think, probably indicates that the Germans were attempting to find a secure location to complete, and then manufacture, their own nuclear weapons. Why not ship as much as possible to Korea, and then perhaps bring the finished product back to the Reich by submarine? It is known that the SS operated a handful of its own u-boats, at least some of which were salvaged kriegsmarine wrecks.

Will FROM a series of MAGIC interceptions from July -Nov 1943 Kawashima requesting Uranium from Germany, It is clear the Nazis were surprised to discover Japan's interest in Uranium as they quizzed Kawashima on the issue. Nazi co-operation with Japan therefore was impossible before 1944.

National Military Branch, US National Archives: SRA 01576 "Tokyo to Berlin 7 July 1943" (General Kawashima requests Uranium oxide from Germany via Japanese embassy in Berlin);...."Tokyo to Berlin 24 August 1943"; ....SRA 04221 "Berlin to Tokyo, 1 September 1943"(relays Germany quizzing why Japan needs Uranium?); ....SRA 06420 "Tokyo to Berlin 15 November 1943" (after earlier attempting to mislead Germany, Kawashima finally admited that Japan had an Atomic weapons project)

Efforts in Japan both by individuals and groups of scientists to develop an Atomic Bomb began in 1937. Interested Scientists formed a colloquium to press both the Army and Navy for funding to develop such weapons long before Pearl Harbour in 1941.


During much of World War 2 there were two Japanese teams working in isolation from each other and in complete isolation from German scientists to create an Atomic Bomb. By 1944 these teams were amalgamated to rationalize, or hasten their efforts. This gave rise to many postwar claims that the Japanese Army's project under Yoshio Nishina was abandoned. The Imperial Japanese Navy (IJN) and the Imperial Japanese Army (IJA) were fierce rivals who viewed each other with contempt and suspicion. Co-operation was non-existent between these two armed forces. They duplicated everything in their nuclear projects

The Nishina project wasn't abandoned, it was just amalgamated and relocated in Korea. Fast forward, modern day DPRK, or North Korea acquired expertise in nuclear weapons from Korean scientists/engineers who trained under the Japanese in WW2. Fathers of North Korea’s Atomic weapons program were Professor Do Sang Rok. (centre) North Korea’s nuclear scientists Han In-seok (left), Do Sang-rok and Lee Seung-gi (right) began their work in 1950Atomic-Bomb efforts were resumed at Konan( modern Hamnung)

A project called F-NZ succeeded IJA & IJN projects. Scientists working for F-NZ captured by the Soviets IN 1945, included Oishi Takeo, Wakabayashi Tadashiro, Takahashi Rikizo, Sato Sei, Fukuda Koken and Tsuchida Meiro, none were physicists and all were under the command of Admiral Hasegawa Hideo when captured. source Report Interrogation of Otogoro Natsume by Dr H Kelly, October 31 1946, NA, RG 224, Box 3.

BELOW earliest North Korean nuclear scientists trained in WW2 BY Japanese.


Professor Do Sang Rok, as a nuclear physics student in Japan during WW2 fled to Pyongyang in May 1946 after a falling out with the caretaker U.S. government in Seoul sometime between national liberation and foundation of the South Korean state "ROK". By year’s end 1948, he helped establish Kim Il-sung University, where he built his own particle accelerator and conducted North Korea’s first experiments in nuclear physics.

the IJA Nishina project (Ni-Go), was mostly focused on Uranium enrichment using inferior methods [ie thermal diffusion] The IJN F-Go project however did develop viable Uranium centrifuges. the Imperial Japanese Navy’s F-Go project under Professor Arikatsu Bunsaku & Dr. Seishi Kikuchi. Others in the Kyoto Group included Y. Uemura, M. Sonoda, S. Simizu and K. Muraoka.


IJN’s centrifuges were developed by a company specialised in precision ship gyros, Hokushine Electric Company with assistance from Tokyo Keiki Electric Co. These were built under contract by heavy engineering firm Sumitomo. Centrifuges were constructed from Rare earth metal alloys and spun at between 100,000 to 150,000 rpm.
source: Wilcox, Robert K. Japan's Secret War: Japan's Race Against Time to Build Its Own Atomic Bomb, Morrow Publishing, NY 1985


https://www.amazon.com/German-Technical ... 1288584679

it appears from a US Navy INTELLIGENCE REPORT: German Technical aid to Japan Survey JUNE 15, 1945, Section 14 -"miscellaneous" Page 177 In

MISCELLANEOUS
INTELLIGENCE:1. -ATOM SMASHING
In November 1944 PW heard from his Platoon,Leader, a
a 1st-. Lt..Military Academy graduate that~some time during1944,
the Japs exchanged the blueprints for the V-12 diesel tank engine .
in the 97~Med. Tanks (HAKE) for the-formula of the German, Atom bomb... etc, etc

[williamjpellas]

Simon, hello!

I would agree that German cooperation with Japan on nuclear weapons was probably out of the question until later in the war, though given the near hermetic security in the SS nuclear effort, earlier-than-1944 cross pollination between the two nations cannot be ruled out just yet. I don't know if you saw this in some of my other writing or not, but there was in fact a joint Japanese-German industrial entity called "Bund Eine" (Alliance One) which was formed in the immediate aftermath of Werner Heisenberg's visit to the Riken Institute north of Tokyo in 1929. This concern prospected for uranium-bearing ores in mainland Japan for some time afterward.

Harold Kelly's postwar intelligence work is a very important piece of the puzzle where WWII Axis nuclear weapons development is concerned. Kelly succeeded Robert Furman, who came to Japan directly from the Manhattan Project's foreign intelligence division in order to assess Japanese progress toward their own atomic bombs. Philip Morrison, who worked on the Fat Man bomb and was one of the most important American scientists in the Allied atomic program, also served as an intelligence analyst and was involved in assessing both the German and Japanese nuclear programs. In this part of his job, he personally interviewed Yoshio Nishina at the Riken just a few weeks after Japan surrendered. His report of that meeting describes Nishina's very accurate reverse engineering of the Hiroshima bomb (based on Nishina's personal observations in the immediate aftermath of the blast) and therefore is a strong indicator of the competency of wartime Japanese nuclear physicists.

[Genro]

Wartime Japanese nuclear physicists.

In April 1943 two meetings on opposite sides of the pacific regarding the atomic bomb occurred. One in Los Alamos America and the other at Riken in Tokyo Japan.
Robert Serber lectured to a group of young physics PhD students, while Yoshio Nishina explained the physics to Lt. Gen. Ryokichi Nobu-uji.who had been in charge of the Tadanoumi Chemical Weapons factory, Okhunoshima.

In reading Nishina’s and Serber’s assessments on the atomic bomb it is surprising given the language differences, just how similar they are in so many respects.
Both estimate a critical mass with a reflector (tamper) for uranium 235 of between 10 and 15 kg and that this alone will not make a bomb but that extra uranium 235 was necessary.

The time that the fission reaction had to take place was estimated by Nishina to be between 1/30 to 1/20 micro sec. while Serber quotes 1/20 micro sec. Both emphasise the importance of the tamper to hold the devise together long enough.

The low efficiency of the explosion is realised by both. As Nishina says, ‘ only a portion of the uranium will undergo fission ‘ while Serber thinks just 1%.
Nishina talks of the expansion during fission and the reduction in density resulting in the termination of the fission reaction. Serber likewise, and even quotes a value of 2 cm for the radial expansion.

Both realise the necessity of measuring the nuclear parameters. As Serber acknowledges the need to know neutron scatter angles. While Nishina says ‘ At the moment we are using estimates, until we measure the nuclear parameter with the cyclotron we don’t know if we need 10, 20 or 50 Kg of U 235. There is not much difference between 0.7% and 10 % but is considerable difference at 50 % and 100% is impossible’.