Some say they tested one just before we dropped the big one, but one thing for certain, they were damned close, and history shows, they'd have used it.
Documents hidden since World War II showing Japan's plans for an atomic bomb have been returned to the country, according to a newspaper report.
The widow of the Japanese scientist who had spirited the documents out of the country after the war has given them to a Tokyo research institute, the Asahi daily says.
The 23-page dossier shows the Japanese army's plans for a relatively weak atomic bomb - blueprints that were ordered destroyed just before Japan's surrender in 1945.
The documents were instead secretly given to chemist Kazuo Kuroda, who then left for the United States and died there last year.
A mushroom cloud rises over Nagasaki on 9 Aug, 1945
Japan surrendered six days after Nagasaki
The documents, the newspaper says, could be a valuable addition to the study of Japan's wartime history.
They show how far Japan got in trying to build nuclear weapons of its own before the United States dropped atomic bombs on Hiroshima and Nagasaki, killing hundreds of thousands of people in August 1945 and forcing a surrender.
Weaker weapon
Kuroda, who was a professor emeritus at the University of Arkansas before his death in 2001, kept the documents secret for more than half a century.
His widow has sent the documents to the Riken scientific research institute just north of Tokyo where Kuroda worked as a young man, the Asahi newspaper reported.
A photograph published in the newspaper shows diagrams and drawings of a bomb, together with text written by a military officer who interviewed the scientist at the head of the atomic bomb development team.
But the newspaper says experts who have examined the documents do not believe the bomb would have been very powerful.
Links to more stories on the subject at the link below.
http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/asia-pacific/2170881.stm
Lucky for us ours was ready before they were able to use theirs.
Quote from: tac on May 28, 2016, 09:51:50 AM
Lucky for us ours was ready before they were able to use theirs.
Also shows the brilliance of the Germans as well as expose how other nations were pursuing what was supposed to be a top secret project.
The Russians and Japs obviously knew what Germany was doing, we were just lucky German scientists recognized what side had the worlds best interest.
Funny, this is the first I'd heard about Japan's attempt at the bomb. I'd love to know who sold them the secret.
I hadn't heard about Japan before either. I did know that Germany was quite advanced in their research and we were very lucky they didn't unleash one in Europe or the US.
Try here.
QuoteThe leading figure in the Japanese atomic program was Dr. Yoshio Nishina, a close associate of Niels Bohr and a contemporary of Albert Einstein.[7] Nishina had co-authored the Klein–Nishina formula.[8] Nishina had established his own Nuclear Research Laboratory to study high-energy physics in 1931 at RIKEN Institute (the Institute for Physical and Chemical Research), which had been established in 1917 in Tokyo to promote basic research.[9] Nishina had built his first 26-inch (660 mm) cyclotron in 1936, and another 60-inch (1,500 mm), 220-ton cyclotron in 1937. In 1938 Japan also purchased a cyclotron from the University of California, Berkeley.[7]
Wow. Berserk-ly was EVER so patriotic, knowing what it would be used for!
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Japanese_nuclear_weapon_program
That may explain a lot....
Quote from: Solar on May 28, 2016, 12:23:15 PM
Also shows the brilliance of the Germans as well as expose how other nations were pursuing what was supposed to be a top secret project.
The Russians and Japs obviously knew what Germany was doing, we were just lucky German scientists recognized what side had the worlds best interest.
Funny, this is the first I'd heard about Japan's attempt at the bomb. I'd love to know who sold them the secret.
Quote from: quiller on June 25, 2016, 06:06:13 AM
In 1938 Japan also purchased a cyclotron from the University of California, Berkeley.[7]
Quote from: tac on May 28, 2016, 09:51:50 AM
Lucky for us ours was ready before they were able to use theirs.
Luck had nothing to do with it. The US was the only nation with enough industrial power, materials and scientists to build the A-bomb in that span of time. Germany and Japan were both torn over which of two methods to use to build the weapon. The US said "screw it" and used both. Then designed the only plane powerful enough to carry the thing.
https://www.orau.org/PTP/articlesstories/u234.htm
and an interesting read...
http://www.ussvance.com/Vance/nazisub.htm
http://www.ussvance.com/Vance/uranium.htm
Quote** The submarine, U-234, was en route to Japan with its cargo of uranium oxide -- enough, he says, to fuel two Japanese atom bomb attacks on the United States -- when it surrendered on May 19, 1945, Wilcox says. Wilcox, who has written books on a variety of military issues, believes Japan had its own secret atom bomb project and cites evidence that Japan may even have exploded a test device in northern Korea.
** In his book, "Japan's Secret War," Wilcox argues that had Germany not surrendered on May 6, ordering its ships and submarines to turn themselves in to the Allies, the first cities to be destroyed by atomic bombs could have been American. Rather than Hiroshima and Nagasaki in Japan, which were bombed by the United States in August of that year. That is, if the Japanese had time to assemble them, he says.
** In any event, Wilcox claims, the Japanese were closer to achieving the bomb than the American people knew -- or American authorities since may have wanted them to know.
If this is true, it is quite disturbing how close we came to a potential reversal of the end results.
Sheer numbers and military productivity might not have been enough, if Japan managed to dropped the bomb on Los Angles.
http://www.ussvance.com/Vance/uranium1.htm
QuotePerhaps Americans didn't find credible his reports that Japan had relocated atomic bomb production facilities to Japanese occupied North Korea in 1945, Wilcox suggests.
But now, with growing U.S. anxiety over the nuclear weapons development program in communist North Korea, Americans may be more willing to take his earlier revelations seriously, he says.
In his book Wilcox traces Japan's determined development effort from its earliest days through possible testing.Wilcox speaks of a network of Spanish spies working in North America, U-234's aborted attempt to deliver 1,235 pounds of valuable, 77 percent pure uranium oxide to Japan, and atomic research centers operating in North Korea.
Wilcox, who at 51 lives in Sherman Oaks, Calif., said in an interview this month that his book was ahead of its time. "In 1985 the country wasn't ready for the story," he said. "Japan has always been looked at as the victim of the bomb. And so a lot of people didn't like the book. "To be very base about it, there is a whole liberal element that does not want Japan to look like anything but the victim. But the fact is the Japanese tried very hard to make the bomb and would have dropped it."
The main thrust of the book is the Japanese did have an atomic bomb program, Wilcox said. "The Japanese knew an atomic bomb was feasible but their problem was uranium."
There is also a video about U-234, the German Uboat that was carrying war materials from Germany to Japan.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8VjeeSwcz_Q
Much of this stuff, I view with really mixed feelings. For one thing, I don't have a reliable reference for the truth, and know my line of reference is deliberately "colored" by our own country's propaganda machine. Then potentially late breaking conspiracy theories like this comes out, "Well, how much of that is speculation, or reality, or 99% false?" Even if I was actually present when they started opening the cargo, I have to be honest, I wouldn't know what the heck I was looking at - so I'd still have to rely on someone else's opinion.
The Complete History of WWII is nothing like what I read/view today.
Very interesting article.
Let us not forget to remind liberals that those two bombs ended WW2 with Japan, and saved an estimated one million American casualties if we would have invaded Japan. Also don't forget the millions of additional Japanese casualties that would have occurred as well.
Perhaps some of you reading this may have never been born if those atomic bombs had not been dropped, if your ancestor had died during the continued war. Remember that the next time some leftist liberal proclaims that America was wrong in using those weapons. Also remember that if Japan would have developed the atomic bomb first, it may have been New York or Los Angeles that would have looked like Hiroshima or Nagasaki in 1945.
Quote from: tac on May 28, 2016, 09:51:50 AM
Lucky for us ours was ready before they were able to use theirs.
I was taught the only reason Japan surrendered is because they did not realize WE HAD ONLY TWO BOMBS.
And that it may have taken a year or more to build another.
Is that right ?
Quote from: Rotwang on September 11, 2016, 03:16:23 PM
I was taught the only reason Japan surrendered is because they did not realize WE HAD ONLY TWO BOMBS.
And that it may have taken a year or more to build another.
Is that right ?
I've read the same which I believe to be true. Bluffing is a war tactic, and I wouldn't be surprised if we told the emperor that we had a lot more.
Even if the emperor knew we only had the two, he knew we would have firestormed Japan into oblivion one way or the other anyway. We were quite ticked off about Pearl Harbor, the Bataan March, etc, and would have had no problem seeing every Japanese killed. I watch the old newsreels of the attack, and even though we have long been allies with Japan, I still get ticked off watching that sneak attack.
Isn't it just stupefyingly unusual that Democrats aren't saying anything about the four North Korean nuke tests? Yet they snivel all day about nuking Japan?
Just sayin', hypocrites galore!
Quote from: stephen50right on September 11, 2016, 03:27:05 PM
I've read the same which I believe to be true. Bluffing is a war tactic, and I wouldn't be surprised if we told the emperor that we had a lot more.
Even if the emperor knew we only had the two, he knew we would have firestormed Japan into oblivion one way or the other anyway. We were quite ticked off about Pearl Harbor, the Bataan March, etc, and would have had no problem seeing every Japanese killed. I watch the old newsreels of the attack, and even though we have long been allies with Japan, I still get ticked off watching that sneak attack.
In 1945 atomic bombs were rather big and heavy. Not sure if Japan could have delivered a bomb anywhere other than Japan itself.
Quote from: ldub23 on November 13, 2016, 02:13:37 PM
In 1945 atomic bombs were rather big and heavy. Not sure if Japan could have delivered a bomb anywhere other than Japan itself.
A submarine, barge, or raft can do the job.
We must be vigilant.
Quote from: Rotwang on November 15, 2016, 08:56:29 AM
A submarine, barge, or raft can do the job.
We must be vigilant.
My understand it's much more effective detonated above ground.
Quote from: walkstall on November 15, 2016, 09:46:02 AM
My understand it's much more effective detonated above ground.
Luckily the Japanese didn't realize their North American balloon bomb program was successful during the war, or they might have built dirigibles large enough to carry a small nuke.
Quote from: Solar on November 15, 2016, 10:25:38 AM
Luckily the Japanese didn't realize their North American balloon bomb program was successful during the war, or they might have built dirigibles large enough to carry a small nuke.
(https://conservativepoliticalforum.com/proxy.php?request=http%3A%2F%2Fwww.japantimes.co.jp%2Fwp-content%2Fuploads%2F2015%2F07%2Fp14-hornyak-balloon-bombs-b-20150726-870x571.jpg&hash=16fa12fdf385675c022848d78f7f3a16d50b736c)
The Balloon Program would have been much more effective if the Japanese FED the School-Girls who assembled the Balloons.
They were so hungry they ATE much of the glue.
http://www.japantimes.co.jp/news/2015/07/25/national/history/winds-war-japans-balloon-bombs-took-pacific-battle-american-soil/#.WCt3QfkrKM8 (http://www.japantimes.co.jp/news/2015/07/25/national/history/winds-war-japans-balloon-bombs-took-pacific-battle-american-soil/#.WCt3QfkrKM8)
https://www.theguardian.com/science/2001/jun/14/humanities.technology (https://www.theguardian.com/science/2001/jun/14/humanities.technology)
More than 9,000 fugos were launched before the factories producing hydrogen were destroyed, but less than 400 were officially recorded in North America, scattered from Alaska to Mexico and as far afield as Canada, Texas and Detroit. Hundreds more are believed to be lying unnoticed in the backwoods, possibly still dangerous. One was found in Oregon in 1992.
Adjusted jpg size.
walks
Quote from: Rotwang on November 15, 2016, 01:00:56 PM
(https://conservativepoliticalforum.com/proxy.php?request=http%3A%2F%2Fwww.japantimes.co.jp%2Fwp-content%2Fuploads%2F2015%2F07%2Fp14-hornyak-balloon-bombs-b-20150726-870x571.jpg&hash=16fa12fdf385675c022848d78f7f3a16d50b736c)
The Balloon Program would have been much more effective if the Japanese FED the School-Girls who assembled the Balloons.
They were so hungry they ATE much of the glue.
http://www.japantimes.co.jp/news/2015/07/25/national/history/winds-war-japans-balloon-bombs-took-pacific-battle-american-soil/#.WCt3QfkrKM8 (http://www.japantimes.co.jp/news/2015/07/25/national/history/winds-war-japans-balloon-bombs-took-pacific-battle-american-soil/#.WCt3QfkrKM8)
More than 9,000 fugos were launched before the factories producing hydrogen were destroyed, but less than 400 were officially recorded in North America, scattered from Alaska to Mexico and as far afield as Canada, Texas and Detroit. Hundreds more are believed to be lying unnoticed in the backwoods, possibly still dangerous. One was found in Oregon in 1992.
Yeah, the program went completely unnoticed here in the US (with the exception of those killed by it) because the military told the press not to talk about it, so the Japanese would never know if the bombs actually made it.
One can be sure, if the Japanese thought it was a success, they'd have build a million or more.
Adjusted jpg size.
walks
Quote from: Solar on November 15, 2016, 01:06:58 PM
Yeah, the program went completely unnoticed here in the US (with the exception of those killed by it) because the military told the press not to talk about it, so the Japanese would never know if the bombs actually made it.
One can be sure, if the Japanese thought it was a success, they'd have build a million or more.
Adjusted jpg size.
walks
So happy this is no more than a historical curiosity.
I was under the impression the balloon bomb program was a failure. They were hoping to start huge forest fires and didnt and if i remember right only 1 person died finding onr by accident.
Quote from: ldub23 on November 23, 2016, 04:18:59 PM
I was under the impression the balloon bomb program was a failure. They were hoping to start huge forest fires and didnt and if i remember right only 1 person died finding onr by accident.
As a terror tactic it could have been huge. Compare it to what Muscum do today with the help of the media, which is why the media during WWII knew what it would mean to the Japanese war effort if they announced every balloon that made it to shore.
The media makes terrorism out to be much bigger than it comparatively speaking. More people die daily from car accidents, texting while walking kills more than terrorists, but did they outlaw texting while walking?
Nope, it doesn't strike an emotional note, it doesn't sell papers or ad time.
"The U.S. government muzzled the media about making any mention of the balloons in fear that whoever was producing them might be encouraged to send more. On March 5, 1945 a minister's wife and five Sunday School students on a fishing trip were killed by one of the grounded balloons near Bly, Oregon while attempting to pull it through the forest, back to their camp. These were the only casualties of the balloon bombs during the war and the victim's relatives were provided with a special death benefit after the war ended (in March 1946). The American public was made aware of the balloons after these tragic deaths, but word of their detonation never filtered back to the Japanese."
(https://conservativepoliticalforum.com/proxy.php?request=http%3A%2F%2Fweb.mst.edu%2F%7Erogersda%2Fforensic_geology%2FJapanese%2520vengeance%2520bombs%2520of%2520World%2520War%25202_files%2Fimage007sm.jpg&hash=4a5bf3a9555fbf93c49755e8544fa4a87e1a86e7)
http://web.mst.edu/~rogersda/forensic_geology/Japenese%20vengenance%20bombs%20new.htm