Uranium shipments to Japan in 1945

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Simon Gunson
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Uranium shipments to Japan in 1945

#1

Post by Simon Gunson » 29 Mar 2004, 06:15

I am researching for a book on Axis co-operation to build a nuclear weapon during 1944/45.

General Kawashima requested uranium from Germany in a series of signals from July 1943 to 1944. The Americans decrypted these signals and knew all about their A-bomb project.

In fact Stalin knew about the Manhatten Project from August 1940. The Japanese had Spanish spies in the Manhatten Project from 1943 and Hitler even had transcipts of secret phone calls between Gen Groves and Roosevelt throughout the war. Roosevelt was even shipping Canadian uranium to Russia via Persia to assist Stalin's nuclear project.

The were in fact two rival projects in Japan. The Nishina project sponsored by the Army and the Navy project with Professor Bunsuku Arakatsu. eventually these were assimilated into one joint services project and apparently successfully test blasted a bomb near Hungnam in Korea two days after Hiroshima.

Robert K Wilcox, a Los Angeles journalist wrote a very useful book on this called "Japan's Secret War"
Bob tells me he's working on an update of it presently. His website is
http://www.RobertKWilcox.com

The IJN naval project may have made use of the Tadami Armaments factory at Okuno Island in Hiroshima harbour which may explain why the city was bombed.

I know that I-29, U-862 (which voyaged to New Zealand) U-234 and
U-1224 were involved with shipping uranium to Japan. Also that I-52 intended to collect uranium from Lorient for Japan, but was sunk in the Atlantic before reaching France.

Has anybody got further information please about U-boats, Italian subs or
I-boats involved with uranium shipments.

If one assumes all U-boats in 1944 bound for the far east carried some uranium then U-852's wreck in shallow Somalian waters in Al Qaeda's back yard may have enough uranium for a terrorist bomb.

Interestingly the west German government which normally refused permission to disturb war grave wrecks used a CIA connected deep sea recovery ship in 1967 and 1972 to recover U-859 from the seabed in the straits of Malacca near Penang Island. Fear over her toxic cargo were given as the motive for her recovery.

A photo of U-234's sisterships U-233 and below U-188 under air attack
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U-233 sistership.jpg
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Last edited by Simon Gunson on 04 May 2004, 09:21, edited 3 times in total.

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Kurt_Steiner
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Uranium to Japan

#2

Post by Kurt_Steiner » 10 Apr 2004, 14:07

Perhaps you would like to take a look on

http://forum.axishistory.com/viewtopic.php?t=1467

It deals with your topic and it contains some very interesting links about the uranium issue.

I hope it helps.

Best regards.


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Uranium shipments to Japan in 1945

#3

Post by Simon Gunson » 13 Apr 2004, 12:46

Thanks Kurt

I posted there myself. A friend in Spain tells me that Joseph Scallia's book lists uranium carrying U-boats but I don't have access to a copy.

I've identified several Japanese I-boats carrying uranium, but not the U-boats except U-234 of course. I know U-862 carried uranium in an amalgam with mercury and listed in he manifest as mercury. U-859 was another and she was salvaged from 1967 to 1972 in the strait of Malacca.

Has anybody read Scalia's book please ?

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Uranium shipments to Japan in 1945

#4

Post by Simon Gunson » 03 May 2004, 13:25

At:

http://www.sharkhunters.com/hirschfeld.htm

You can find this reference to Japan successfully test blasting a nuclear weapon before USA did in July 1945.
Wolfgang Hirschfeld was radioman on U-109 under Korvettenkapitän Hans-Georg Fischer and then under Kapitänleutnant Heinrich Bleichrodt when they hunted in American waters during the late phases of Operation Paukenschlag, or Drumbeat. At the end of the war, he was Oberfunkmeister (Master Chief - Radio) aboard U-234, the converted Type X-B mine-layer on her way to Tokyo, and in her belly was a vast array of highly secret people and materiel.

Personnel aboard included a General der Luftwaffe (General Ulrich Kessler), who was to take over the Luftwaffe liaison duties in Tokyo, a Naval Fleet Judge Advocate to try cases of German traitors in Japan, Dr. Heinz Schlicke (renowned German scientist later grabbed up by the USA in Operation Paperclip) and two Japanese technical officers, who committed suicide during the voyage.

Technical material on board included the newest torpedoes, two Me-262 jet fighters (crated) and all the technological data necessary for the Japanese to begin building these very fast fighters - and there were 560 kilos of uranium oxide consigned to the Imperial Japanese Army for use in the Japanese atomic bomb. Unknown to most, Japan test fired their first nuclear device a week before the Americans test fired theirs. Japan merely lacked the fissionable material to make the bomb - and U-234 was bringing it to the Empire.

Wolfgang Hirschfeld was the Master Chief Radioman on U-234.
At:

http://www.combinedfleet.com/I-29.htm

...one can find at "Sensukan" section about the sub I-29 carrying uranium and or radium from Europe

16 April 1944:
The I-29 departs Lorient, escorted by seven M-class minesweepers. She carries drawings of the Isotta-Fraschini torpedo boat engine, a V-1 "buzz bomb" fuselage, TMC acoustic mines, bauxite and mercury-radium amalgam.*****. It is possible that the I-29 also carried a quantity of U-235 uranium oxide ("yellow cake) that, after refining, can be used to manufacture an atomic bomb.
Also about the I-52 which was sunk in the Atlantic en-route to France Combinedfleet had this to say:
The I-52's planned arrival date passes. A German ship stands by in vain waiting to escort the I-52. Diplomats are scheduled to return to Japan aboard the I-52. At dockside, 35 to 40-tons of secret documents, blueprints, drawings and strategic cargo await loading for the I-52's return trip to Japan: V-2 rocket, T-5 acoustic torpedoes, radars, vacuum tubes, ball bearings, bombsights, chemicals, alloy steel, optical glass and 1,000-lbs of uranium oxide. The Germans also intend to equip the I-52 with a snorkel.****
See the October 1999 issue of the National Geographic Magazine for photographs and coverage of this remarkable expedition to recover the
I-52's gold.

CombinedFleet reports about I-30
22 August 1942:
The I-30 departs Lorient. She carries one Japanese engineer as a passenger. Her cargo includes blueprints of the Würzburg air defense ground radar and one complete set, five German G7a aerial torpedoes and three G7e electric torpedoes, five Torpedovorhalterechner (torpedo data computers), 240 Bolde sonar countermeasure rounds, rocket and glider bombs, antitank guns, Zeiss anti-aircraft artillery director (fire control system), 200 20-mm AA guns, industrial diamonds valued at one million yen and fifty top secret "T-Enigma" coding machines.
Sources – Bob Hackett and Sander Kingsepp

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Kurt_Steiner
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#5

Post by Kurt_Steiner » 10 May 2004, 19:32

Simon Gunson wrote:

The were in fact two rival projects in Japan. The Nishina project sponsored by the Army and the Navy project with Professor Bunsuku Arakatsu. eventually these were assimilated into one joint services project and apparently successfully test blasted a bomb near Hungnam in Korea two days after Hiroshima.
I must admit I've never heard about this issue. Can you tell me where I can more information about it, please? I've already tried the links given by you.

Best regards

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Japanese WWII Atomic Bomb Programs

#6

Post by williamjpellas » 10 May 2004, 21:18

There is a great discussion ongoing at present on the thread, "Atomic Plans Returned to Japan". At some point or another, every significant article or book on the subject of which I am aware has either been posted or mentioned by one person or another! :D

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#7

Post by ckleisch » 21 May 2004, 00:06

http://forum.axishistory.com/viewtopic. ... highlight=

Please note my article with photo on this subject it may be of interest

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#8

Post by ohrdruf » 25 Jun 2004, 17:32

CKleisch et al

The secret transcripts of conversations between interned German physicists at Farm Hall in England postwar include a comment by Professor Harteck that more than 10,000 cyclotrons would have been required to separate sufficient U-235 for a uranium bomb. Germany had four cyclotrons and Japan five. The only warlike use for a cyclotron ever uncovered by the Allied research mission ALSOS was Professor Bothe's work on the Paris cyclotron where he was engaged in producing microscopic quantities of radioactive material for spicing up conventional explosives. However, item (1) below might be borne in mind in this regard.

On the subject of this alleged Japanese A-bomb, a U-235 bomb would not have required a test. Accordingly the suggestion is therefore that the test would have had to have been a plutonium device. The researcher can forget uranium separation plants and methods and look for breeder reactors as the source of the material which personally I believe never existed.

It is amazing that the significance of the mercury amalgam in all the German shipments to Japan has not been remarked upon. Furthermore, the mystery surrounding the cargo aboard the submarine U-234 revolves around the so-called "ten crates of uranium oxide" which everybody assumes "was for the Japanese atomic bomb".

(1) Uranium oxide does not emit gamma radiation and needs no biological shielding for the handlers. In Belgium, tons of uranium oxide were stored in 500-kilo stout paper bags. But the alleged "uranium oxide" aboard U-234 was shipped not only in ten lead cylinders, but these were also lined with gold, an extraordinary proceeding. There was not 560 kilos of uranium oxide: the total weight of the ten cylinders PLUS contents was 560 kilos. Each cylinder was lead with a gold lining. Gold has a very good cross-section for stopping the fragments of fission as, for example, in a reactor, but would otherwise have no application in shipping radioactive materials. Although we do not have the dimensions of the cylinders, there was precious little weight for contents once the weight of the containers is taken into account.

(2) Scalia uncovered a secret document at USN Dockyard Portsmouth dated May 1945 which stated that the ten cylinders in question "could be handled like crude TNT", indicating that they contained an explosive, but if the cylinders were opened "they would become unstable and dangerous" indicating that the contents might have been likely to explode in reaction with air. How many explosives do you know which fit this description?

(3) The strong possibility is that German scientists had been working on some kind of device which reacted in such a manner that observers might believe they were seeing a nuclear explosion when it was detonated. Two well verified explosive tests at Ohrdruf in March 1945 support this theory.

(4) German crew members, including Kplt Fehler, all stated postwar that an Me 262 jet aircraft, dismantled in component parts, had been placed aboard U-234 at Kiel before sailing. This aircraft does not feature in the USN Unloading Manifest nor is it mentioned in any US declassified document whatsoever. What was this Me 262? Was it a bomber? And what was its purpose that remains a top secret even today?

So we have a mystery explosive, and there is certainly a great mystery, but until all questions surrounding the cargo aboard U-234 are elucidated it would be my opinion that considerably more thought and reflection on the matter is needed before turning out another book which supplies no concrete answers.

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Re: Uranium shipments to Japan in 1945

#9

Post by panzertruppe2001 » 29 Jun 2004, 20:01

[quote="Simon Gunson"]
. Also that I-52 intended to collect uranium from Lorient for Japan, but was sunk in the Atlantic before reaching France.


The next information is from http://www.uboat.net and from the meeting between U 530 and I 52:

On 22 May, 1944 the boat left Lorient, France for operations in the Trinidad area. Outbound she was to rendezvous with the incoming Japanese submarine I-52 (huge boat, 356 feet and roughly 2600 tons) and supply the larger boat with a Naxos radar detector, Naxos operator and a German navigator to help navigate the end-leg of the journey.
The three German men, Pilot Lieutenant Schafer and Radiomen Petty Officers Schulze and Behrendt, all perished with the boat along with its Japanese crew.

The boats met on 23 June in the middle of the Atlantic, some 850 miles west of the Cape Verde Islands, and the exchange went well except the Naxos radar detector fell into the Atlantic, being retrieved by a Japanese who jumped in after it. U-530 immediately headed for Trinidad, finally returning to base after 133 days at sea. The Allies knew of the encounter and had the escort carrier USS Bogue at the scene and its aircraft managed to sink the I-52 with Fido torpedoes with the help of sonobuoys.

The I-52 seems to have been found in 3,2 mile deep water in 1995, I have seen photos of the wreck which are amazing. The interest in this boat, especially at this depth, is simple: She contains 2 tons of gold in 146 bars plus an assortment of other valuable industrial metals. Recovery was planned but according to an article in National Geographic (Oct 99) it was not possible to reach the gold and further attempts have been called off.

Note from Panzertruppe2001: The U-530 is one of the mysterious submarines that surrendered in Mar del Plata, Argentina on 10 July, 1945

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#10

Post by ohrdruf » 30 Jun 2004, 01:03

Regarding U-530: the Argentine Naval Archive has recently released the transcript of the interrogation interview of Oblt Wermuth on 11 July 1945. There are a number of variations from the U-530 crew interrogations declassified several decades ago. The variations suggest that U-530 was to test a new munition against shipping off the United States using the deck gun. When the two sets of interogation papers are examined jointly, it can be seen that Wermuth is attempting to conceal the importance of the deck gun and to confuse the situation surrounding the torpedoes.

Wermuth decided at the beginning of May 1945 to make for Argentina. For some reason unknown, he also decided to scrub the entire boat with a powerful corrosive and to make the voyage with the hatch shut for the entire distance. When he docked at Mar del Plata, it was found that the corrosive had virtually eaten away the structure of the conning tower and the decks looked as though they had been burnt. The deck gun and all munitions of every description bar one dud torpedo had been jettisoned, together with 42 code books plus all ship's logs and charts. A determined attempt had been made to sabotage the diesels. The interior of the boat was so mildewed that Argentine surveyors drew the impression that it had not been aired for three months.

The conclusion one may justifiably reach about this whole incident is that the "new munition" must have been a very interesting development. Researchers who think there is "nothing in it" are invited to search the Allied archives for Wermuth's statement. 59 years after it was made, the probability is it will not be found.

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#11

Post by Simon Gunson » 03 Feb 2008, 03:16

Sorry Kurt I have not revisited this site in ages. Will try and respond your request soon.

Re Ohdruf's comment:
The secret transcripts of conversations between interned German physicists at Farm Hall in England postwar include a comment by Professor Harteck that more than 10,000 cyclotrons would have been required to separate sufficient U-235 for a uranium bomb.
Well the quote you've given Ohdruf is selective and ignores other intercepted conversations. Diebner and Harteck guessed that they were being listened to and thus decided not to co-operate. Diebner in particular was an ardent Nazi and keen to spread dis-information downplaying Axis advances in nuclear weaponry.

All the Farm Hall transcripts did was quote either disinformation by Nazi scientists smart enough to know they were being bugged, or quote from Heisenberg who was too witless to know much and besides was desperate to disassociate himself from the Nazi cause.

A few gems emerged unwittingly from Farm Hall, but not much was reliable because the scientists had guessed they were being listened to and were manipulating this fact.

The Cyclotron comments were throw away lines for disinformation. Cyclotrons used electron beams to throw different isotopes in different directions. Cyclotrons were the favoured method of Navy nuclear physicist Prof Bunsuku Arakatsu. Not Nishina, who toiled with thermal diffusion.

The real breakthrough was when Japan began requesting German uranium and then in September 1944 Hitler ordered co-operation by the Nazi project with Germany's ally Japan.

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#12

Post by LWD » 03 Feb 2008, 14:25

Kiwikid wrote:... Cyclotrons used electron beams to throw different isotopes in different directions. ....
No they don't.
Here's a fairly easy to understand description of how they work.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cyclotron

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#13

Post by a white rabbit » 04 Feb 2008, 05:48

..all new to me..

..so, the Japanese have a bomb, where was it to used, what delivery system ?

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#14

Post by Karl » 04 Feb 2008, 11:56

What was the question again.

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Re: Uranium shipments to Japan in 1945

#15

Post by Cheap Jeep » 19 Sep 2009, 15:55

CKl,

>>
It is amazing that the significance of the mercury amalgam in all the German shipments to Japan has not been remarked upon. Furthermore, the mystery surrounding the cargo aboard the submarine U-234 revolves around the so-called "ten crates of uranium oxide" which everybody assumes "was for the Japanese atomic bomb".
>>

I have. I think it is either a moderator for what is already a very high gamma emitter. Or some kind of booster element ala 'Red Mercury'-

>
Another theory popular in the mid-1990s was that red mercury facilitated the enrichment of uranium to weapons-grade purity. Conventionally, such enrichment is usually done with precision centrifuges, and takes several years. Red mercury was speculated to eliminate this costly and time-consuming step. Although this would not eliminate the possibility of detecting the material, it could escape detection during enrichment as the centrifuges normally used in this process are very large and require equipment that can be fairly easily tracked internationally. Eliminating such equipment would greatly ease the construction of a clandestine nuclear weapon.
>

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Red_mercury

>
A Ballotechnic Mercury Compound
Presumably red in color. Ballotechnics are substances which react very energetically in response to high-pressure shock compression. Google's Sci.Chem group has had a lively ongoing discussion about the possiblity of a an explosive form of mercury antimony oxide. According to some reports, red mercury is a cherry red semi-liquid which is produced by irradiating elemental mercury with mercury antimony oxide in a Russian nuclear reactor. Some people think that red mercury is so explosive that it can be used to trigger a fusion reaction in tritium or deuterium-tritium mixture. Pure fusion devices don't require fissionable material, so it's easier to get the materials needed to make one and easier to transport said materials from one place to another. Other reports refer to a documentary in which is was possible to read a report on Hg2Sb207, in which the compound had a density of 20.20 Kg/dm3 (!). Personally, I find it plausible that mercury antimony oxide, as a low density (nonradioactive?) powder, may be of interest as a ballotechnic material. The high-density material seems unlikely. It would also seem unreasonably dangerous (to the maker) to use a ballotechnic material in a fusion device. One intriguing source mentions a liquid explosive, HgSbO, made by Du Pont laboratories and listed in the international chemical register as number 20720-76-7. Anyone care to look it up?
>

http://chemistry.about.com/cs/chemicalw ... ercury.htm

That in fact makes it easier to trigger.

Given Paul Hartek I think it is is on record at Farm Hall as being 'shushed' by his fellow scientists when, having already embarrassed Heisenberg with the basic reduction formula for determining fast neutron flux separations (better than we had at the time), he next muttered about a 'photochemical reduction process' which brought even the translator's hair on end.

I think it's clear that what happened in 1938 with Otto Hahn's discovery of fractionate isotopes was in fact carried on throughout the war by himself and Diebner and Von Wertzsacker (sp.) as separate from Heisenberg's staid atomic engine investigations at the KWI.

IMO, the Germans, employed some of that world famous chemical engineering capability to define by sheer experimental brow sweat, secondary isotopes of Thorium or perhaps Tritium which could be excited to a very high level, sufficient to induce a low level fusion reaction in a secondary fuel. Whether this fuel was itself mercury or the mercury was simply the heavy nucleide material which acted to change the properties of some other radioisotope, I am less certain of.

The other late-war subjects that interest me most at the moment are:

1. Schaubergs, 'vorticular physics' (from which quadripolar interpretations of nuclear binding strength sheer levels could be interpreted as lowering the energy state required to cascade. Sufficient perhaps for slow neutron detonation.).

2. Schumann's Twin Shaped Charge theory to create nuclear detonations with dual implosion/explosion charges that 'focussed together' might create. This could be nothing more than the discovery of a means to make a gun system work with low time domain errors. Or it could be a way to describe concentric explosion spheres which compress the more insensitive Plutonium between them, perhaps avoiding the gas generator venting issues on our own cores.

3. The presence of Plutonium in parafin brickets at the site of the breeder facility outside Berlin. Which suggests that either a high energy radiosource was required to create the explosive compound which made the bomb possible. Or that it was derived from same.

4. The purpose of the 'Bell'. Again, if it's just a high power calutron, then why all the assertions about it having to be chained down, 'ruining itself' after every test run and the need to employ slaves to clear the cave where it was tested who died immediately thereafter from the effects? More specifically, why did Patton cross his lines of demarcation with the Soviets by almost 200km to go get it out of Czechoslovakia at the end of the war?

5. And the lack of interest in the Heavy Water shipment security, particularly in combination with Hahn (or maybe it was Hartek's) statement about 'what was going on at IG Farben' which he wished to patent as ammonia distillate reduction process to gain deuterium. Li6 is a plasticized _fusion_ fuel.

6. What is 'Bondur'? If it is a protective coating for metals in the presence of Uranium Hexafluoride as some sources suggest, why did the Japanese have problems getting their thermal diffusion stacks to work and why are there no listings for it in U-Boat manifests?

7. The final disposition of the scientists involved with Kammler's unit and his own supposed flight to Argentina on the Ju-390. Where they went and who they were associated with could say much.

CONCLUSION:
Together with the descriptions of the Ohrdruf test which used only a few hundred milligram's of a LIQUID explosive to completely level a test area filled with dummys. And Clare Werner's description of the aftereffects of the Thuringia Walde explosion (namely nausea and bleeding wet orifices) as much as intense light and the 'tree in full leaf' Rayleigh-Taylor effect. As well as the fact that among the Soviet POW test cases there actually were bodies to be buried.

I'm not certain that what is being described is not in fact the precursor to a modernday Isomer weapon where a given initiator is stimulated to release a high energy gamma ray wave whose instantaneous energy transferance creates thermal compaction sufficient to trigger a fusion process in some materials (Li6) and a complete oxygen-fuel conversion in others (Coal dust and Fuel Oil, as stated in some of the Thuringia reports).

High intensity, low period, Gamma radiation would certainly make you sick yet (now) be absent from both the Thuringia and Reugen sites.

If you wrap it all up as a collective inferrance, what you are seeing are the edges of a German program designed to be scaleable (I assume with a FiFuFi process) using very hot radioisotopes of unknown type but probably NOT Uranium based, the potential of a molecular chemical reaction used to fractionate these isotopes to a yet higher energy state (one of the witness reports mentions a 'paste' being applied to the Thuringia weapon with a short time delay thereafter making it unlikely to be weaponized). And the use of mercury as either an inhibitor or a raiser of atomic energy state prior to employment.

Imagine if the Germans were doing work on proto-nuclear, 1-2KT, explosives 50 years ago as a kind of pumped thermobaric weapon. It wouldn't win them the war in 1945. But it would certainly be a unique and potentially dangerous idea to advance publically today.


CJ

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