Japan's Atomic bomb

[Ducimus]

Using once-secret Japanese wartime documents, this special offers evidence that Japan had world-class nuclear physicists, access to uranium ore, and cyclotrons to process it.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ESoFyHEMFro

[Madox58]

I forget where I saw it, but I recall there was a battle fought during the Korean war to capture the area where Japan had thier A-Bomb stuff?
:hmmm:

[Hylander_1314]

Good one Ducimus! Thanks! Really interesting stuff. Like the one I saw some years back where the Germans used predecessors of the smart bombs used today in March 1945. Too little too late.

[boonie]

and this is probably the means by which they plan to deliver it with:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=fgfZPjHENCM

alot of their developement was focused on delivering very small payload, the A-bomb is probably the weapon they planned on using. Yamamoto was probably waiting for all the pieces to come together.

[WernherVonTrapp]

I just watched this video last night. I think it's the first time I ever watched it. It was fairly commensurate with what I've seen or read in other documentaries and books, with one exception; the actual detonation of a nuclear device. The first question I found myself wrestling with was if I believed it or not. All the sources I had seen or read suggested that the Japanese were years behind the U.S. in the research and developement of The Bomb. Nothing I had previously heard suggested that the Japanese were capable (at that time) of anything more than a "dirty" bomb or device.

Essentially, it all boiled down to the newly disclosed document and the interrogations of a lone intelligence officer. I got the impression that, although the document has resurfaced (allegedly) after all these years, no one accounted it as proof that a detonation had occurred or was capable of occurring strictly on the strength of the document's contents. For me, that left the sole proof in the hands of the intelligence officer. That also posed another question for me.

Did I believe the interrogator? Yes.
Did I believe the Intelligence Officer? This one was a little harder for me and this documentary provided some of the clues that I considered in my equation. One of those clues was the lead physicist who was so distraught at losing face to the Allies (who completed the bomb first), he wanted himself and his colleagues to commit seppuku. Like the Bushido code, or individual warrior spirit, "saving face" was deeply imbued into Japanese culture. So much so, that the Japanese would fabricate stories about their accomplishments. This might very well account for a single, solitary, witness who was the only person thus far claiming to have witnessed a successful Japanese nuclear detonation.
At the same time, this doesn't preclude the possibility that one occurred, it's simply not enough evidence to raise anything more than speculation in my mind.
I think it's fair to say that the news of the U.S. bombings of Hiroshima and Nagasaki spread rather quickly throughout the Japanese Empire considering the communications channels of the era. This might explain both the (possible) fabrication of a story implying that the Japanese were equally capable of such a weapon, but it also raises the question of how an atomic detonation (or explosion) could remain so secret after all these years. Yes, I believe the Japanese completed a crude cyclotron but this is not proof of a successful detonation.
I'm also taking into account that, despite having spies keeping timely accounts of U.S. developements and advances in creating an Atomic Bomb for the Manhattan Project at Los Alamos, it took the Soviet Union until August 29, 1949 to detonate their first nuclear device, and this after starting their program in 1942.
Oh well, anyway, I thought it was a very intriguing video. I'm surprised that I don't recall seeing it before.:hmm2: The jury is still deliberating this one in my mind.

[fred8615]

If I recall correctly, this documentary is based on a book. And the author of that book also wrote one claiming General Patton's auto accident was actually an attempted assassination by the U.S. government! When it failed, they allowed the Soviets to kill him in the hospital.

So consider the source when debating the validity of this. :doh:

[Rockin Robbins]

Had a detonation occurred, there would still be incontrovertible evidence in the form of radioactive isotopes that could be recovered and traced to an atomic explosion at the site. There would be evidence on Google Earth of a crater made by such an explosion. So let's look together!

At 41:13 finally and reluctantly the video spills the beans on the location of the island where the explosion took place, but fails (of course) to name the island. Let's search.

http://i196.photobucket.com/albums/aa293/RockinRobbins13/screenshot211.jpg

Here's the entire Hungnam area. Supposedly this factory thing was in Hungnam and we can clearly see that there is a city there. One point for the "documentary." Sometimes they make up entire cities you know....

Now the unnamed island off Hungnam. Well there are three candidates, all south of the city being pointed at by that bright sand beach. These are the only islands off Hungnam so we can be absolutely sure one of these, if there was an explosion, is where it took place. You can see the three, all together with the largest on the bottom and the next two to the NNE.

http://i196.photobucket.com/albums/aa293/RockinRobbins13/screenshot210.jpg

Here are the largest two. You can't see any craters, but what you can see is very telling: they are both inhabited! The southern one has a great big AAA installation marked by the letter I in the middle. These two islands are totally unscarred by any nuclear explosion, that's for sure.

http://i196.photobucket.com/albums/aa293/RockinRobbins13/screenshot212.jpg



Then we have this little island to the NNE, largest dimension about 100 yards. It's a rocky island that would preserve any evidence of a devastating nuclear explosion and there is no doubt that here there was none.

No other islands are off Hungnam. We just came up dry and can state with confidence no explosions took place here. It's amazing that a fake nuclear explosion preceded the North Korean nuclear un-explosion of a couple of years ago.

Had a nuclear explosion actually taken place you KNOW we would have had submarines with commandos land, take samples, bring them back to the US or even test them aboard the submarines to confirm or debunk such a thing. Had that happened, there are no secrets that keep long, just look at all the other revelations that come out.

Suppose we compare a US test site, Danny Boy, where in 1962, on the surface, we exploded a small 430 ton, that's .43 kiloton, device to study the effects of nuclear bombardment on solid basalt. Slide, please!
http://i196.photobucket.com/albums/aa293/RockinRobbins13/screenshot213.jpg

Nice crater produced with diameter 265 feet, depth 84 feet! Clear evidence remains after fifty years. I'd say this case is absolutely closed. Note that no habitation of human activity is nearby. There's a reason for that...

Plenty of smoke here. But when you clear that away it conceals nothing. No nuclear explosion here. Move along folks....:D

[TorpX]

Interesting documentry, but the part about the atomic test seems rather implausible for the reasons RR states. Certainly, radioactive debris would still be around to betray the event.

Another thing in the program bothers me. Although it is a minor point, they say a German U-boat was at sea to deliver the uranium ore to Japan, and the US beat the Canadians to it (fairly or otherwise), near Portsmouth, NH. But wouldn't a U-boat going from Kiel to Japan go south around South Africa and east, toward the India Ocean? Why on earth, would it be anywhere near Canada?

This makes no sense to me. :88)

[WernherVonTrapp]

Well, I was already skeptical about the detonation. RR brought up a great point which I hadn't even considered (using Google Maps) to set the record straight (for me anyway). I've been a bit behind lately with the latest technologies (I still don't even have a cellphone). I suppose, as far as the captured sub was concerned, the Germans would have to negotiate the Cape of Good Hope via the Atlantic and probably had not completed the task when Germany surrendered.
I've always been skeptical of the post WWII interrogations of Japanese prisoners for reasons that I've already mentioned (either in this forum or at UBI -I don't recall).
Funny though, I have used Google Maps before, just didn't even dawn on me that I could've used it to investigate this.:doh:
Oh well, Nice, direct and to the point, presentation RR.:salute:

[Rockin Robbins]

Interesting documentry, but the part about the atomic test seems rather implausible for the reasons RR states. Certainly, radioactive debris would still be around to betray the event.

Another thing in the program bothers me. Although it is a minor point, they say a German U-boat was at sea to deliver the uranium ore to Japan, and the US beat the Canadians to it (fairly or otherwise), near Portsmouth, NH. But wouldn't a U-boat going from Kiel to Japan go south around South Africa and east, toward the India Ocean? Why on earth, would it be anywhere near Canada?

This makes no sense to me. :88)

Well! That's the way things work out sometimes. With history, logic is useless. People do the darnedest things. Either things happened or they didn't happen. In this case, a submarine from Germany WAS sent toward Japan with nuclear materials, U-234 with 560 kg of uranium oxide, among other materials for making Germany's most sophisticated weapons. On its way to Japan, it overheard Admiral Doenitz' surrender message, directing U-Boats to head for the nearest Allied port.

Instead, "Dynamite" Fehler decided to head for the US, but rendezvoused with an American vessel. At that point they took on an American boarding party to supervise and presumably to ensure their safety. They actually did end up at Portsmouth, NH. In addition to the uranium, U-234 also turned out to contain two complete ME-262s! http://www.orau.org/ptp/articlesstories/u234.htm

I do remember in a DVD, U-234 - Hitler's Last U-boat, which I have but can't find right now, that it was said there that Fehler's first plan was to head for Halifax, Nova Scotia but encountered unavoidable American warships along the way.

[TorpX]

Well, that answers my question.

Nice research.

[Rockin Robbins]

What a movie the whole thing would make! There is one more absolute blockbuster WWII submarine movie to make or bungle and this is it! Like you said, the implausibility of the decision process there makes an irresistably fascinating story.