Japan Was 'Days Away From Test' Of A-Bomb

Independent (UK) ^ | 8-5-2002

[blam]

Japan was 'days away from test' of A-bomb

By David McNeill in Tokyo
05 August 2002

Japan's secret plans to build its own atom bomb have resurfaced with the uncovering of a dossier smuggled out of the country at the end of the Second World War.

The papers, containing crude diagrams for a small nuclear weapon, were part of a six-year effort by military scientists to make the country the world's first nuclear power.

According to yesterday's Asahi newspaper, the American widow of a Japanese researcher, who fled to the US with the document in 1945, has returned it to the Institute of Physical and Chemical Research, where he worked during the war. The researcher, Kazuo Kuroda, who later became a professor at the University of Arkansas, kept the document secret for half a century until his death in America in April last year.

The liberal-left Asahi, which seems to be the only Japanese media organisation to have picked up the story, says the military ordered the destruction of the plans the day before Japan surrendered on 15 August 1945. Scientists at the institute, however, thought this was "a waste" and decided to save at least part of the plans by giving them to Mr Kuroda.

Although suppressed in postwar Japanese education, the race by imperial scientists to develop the bomb has long been the stuff of wartime legend. Scientists at secret bases in Korea worked furiously to make a viable weapon before abandoning the facilities to the advancing Red Army.

Several historians have claimed Japan was days away from testing an atomic weapon in Nagoya when Hiroshima was obliterated by one American bomb on 6 August 1945.

The discovery of the dossier comes as Hiroshima and Nagasaki, which was bombed on 9 August, are preparing to commemorate the deaths of more than 250,000 nuclear victims.

[blam]

When Germany surrendered, wasn't there a German U-boat captured on the way to Japan with A-Bomb material? (I think so)

[correctthought]

Yes, (it gave itself up in newfoundland... and had about 400 LBS of Uranium oxide.)

[buffyt]

My father in law has always said that our bomb saved his life and won the war for us. This is just more proof that we had to do what we did when we did it. It was too late alread for my uncle Richard - still MIA from WWII.

[Eccl 10:2]

Which is why we need to attack Iraq sooner rather than later.

[muir_redwoods]

I'm sure the japanese were working on it. For that matter I'm sure physicists everywhere were aware of the possibility and certainly combatant nations were more than a bit interested. That being said, the best minds on the subject were right here working on the Manhattan project. I find it very hard to believe that a country like Japan that fielded such a poor rifle for its troops and valued courage and valor way above equipment and materiel would be nearly as far along as we were with much more skilled scientists working on it.

[sonofron]

wow! this is very interesting. the what if's...

[muawiyah]

There were people in General Stillwell's reconnaisance operation who knew about the Japanese atom bomb. They may well have observed one accidentally exploding in Harbin, or have examined photos that showed the aftermath.

General Stillwell undoubtedly had the information at hand and was informed.

[sonofron]

Yea, this is the first time i've heard about the japanese working on the bomb. I watched something on the history channel about the german physicist who made a calculation error, and concluded they needed like 10,000 times the uranium to make the bomb than they really needed. I'll be looking out to see if this gets more media attention.

[Wondervixen]

Little known radio message sent to the Japanese from the Enola Gay seconds before the bomb dropped on Hiroshima:

"Hey boy's, that thing you're working on down there...Look anything like THIS?"

[blam]

"I'll be looking out to see if this gets more media attention."

Not likely. The Japanese were victims, remember.

[spectre]

This article is such a crock. First of all Germany was in no way shape or form remotely close to an atomic weapon. They had not even started the feasibility studies and lab work to begin a chain reaction, much less the engineering required to fabricate a weapon.

The Japanese were not even at the level of "mildly interested" in an atomic weapon . Even if they had the vision, they did not have the resources to even think about this weapon.

When the atomic bomb was dropped on Hirosima, the government didn't even know what weapon was used until a days later when a theoretical physicist from Tokyo was brought in with lab equipment to confirm radiation at the site.

A fantasy article that is incompetently attempting to rewrite history.

[parsifal]

Yes. And FWIW, Arkansas has the bomb. Y'all yankees remember that. Woooo Pig Soooooieee! parsy.

[Southack]

As far as I know, the Japanese never got as far as making their first self-sustaining atomic chain reaction, something that the U.S. did in 1942 (and it then took us, with the world's largest economy tossing infinite money at the problem, another 3 years to go from that point to a working bomb).

The Germans and Japanese were always behind us in the technologies that counted (such as atomic weapons, computers, mass production, and cryptography).

But their atomic programs from more than half a century ago are still ahead of what most of the third world has cobbled together today.

[T. P. Pole]

Ok, question time.

If this is true, you would think that they would have therefore been able to come up with one in very short order after the war, like Russia did. When did they finally get one? Were the war sanctions so bad that they couldn't? Or are we just looking at somebody's "back of the napkin" guess?

[parsifal]

I have been curious as to whether Taiwan has the bomb. I suspect they are one of those nations like South Africa and Israel that have it and are keeping quiet about it. Heck, about half the US physicists come from there. parsy.

[blam]

"If this is true, you would think that they would have therefore been able to come up with one in very short order after the war, like Russia did. When did they finally get one? Were the war sanctions so bad that they couldn't? Or are we just looking at somebody's "back of the napkin" guess?"

The answer to most of you questions is that General Douglas McArthur was the government in Japan after the surrender. He (and the US Army) administered Japan for a number of years after the war.

Now about the Russians. The father of the atomic bomb, Robert Oppenheimer, betrayed his country and revealed A-bomb secrets to the Russians. (re: The Venona Files)

[blam]

"I have been curious as to whether Taiwan has the bomb. I suspect they are one of those nations like South Africa and Israel that have it and are keeping quiet about it. Heck, about half the US physicists come from there. parsy."

No, Taiwan does not have the bomb. SA did but, the program was dismantled prior to the end of apartheid.

[Southack]

Yes, Taiwan has the bomb. It was Taiwan, Israel, and South Africa who together conducted the last rogue nuclear test in the South Pacific some 15 years ago.

[TheDon]

I would have to agree. Considering the scale of our efforts, it would be impossible to hide such development. No doubt the US would have loved to be able to publicize such as fact.

[hc87]

"Doubtful" is the only word I can come up with to describe this story. Japan did not make a fraction of the industrial effort the United States, Germany (which was miniscule compared to our efforts) and later the Soviet Union made in A-bomb building. In order to build an A-bomb you need either plutonium (which does not occur in nature) or uranium-235 (which has to be seperated from uranium-238). In order to get either plutonium or or uranium in 1945, you had to make a massive industrial effort the size of the Manhattan Project. Just as a for instance, 13,540 tons of silver (395 million troy ounces) were used in the building of the calutrons used to separate U-235 from U-238 at Oak Ridge.I can't find the exact cost, but I beleive the Manhattan Project cost something like $2 billion in 1945 dollars.

The Japanese program was small scale and suffered from a lack of materials, experimental failures and lack of personnel. What little progress the Japanese made all but ended in April 1945 when the main laboratory used for nuclear research burned in a B-29 raid.

IF anyone has any interest, Richard Rhodes' book "The Making of the Atomic Bomb" http://www.amazon.com/exec/obidos/ASIN/0684813785/qid=1028503335/sr=8-2/ref=sr_8_2/002-4938812-2602442 is an excellent history of the Manhattan Project and one of the best books I have ever read.