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War Hero Thwarted Nazi Heavy Water Production
Freshly Exhumed writes "Its doubtful you know the name of Einar Skinnarland, but his sabotage over several years repeatedly thwarted Nazi plans to exploit Norway's heavy water production capabilities for their atomic bomb research plans. Skinnerland recently passed away in Canada and his daring exploits are recounted here. Details of some of the raids on the production facilities can be found on pafko and Stephen's Study Room. So many 'what if?'s and suspicions have swirled around the Nazi atomic bomb program that this man's efforts seem crystal clear for a change."
The japanese decided it was a bad idea to persue the atomic bomb (heavily) because of the shortage of deuterium. The germans and the french had the nice little plant, Norsk Hydro in Norway, to make enough of the stuff to have a burgeoning atomic program, fortunately there was enough sabotage that Hitler didn't get the bomb. Especially since he already had an excellent delivery system.
http://www.pafko.com/trips/norway/n10/ - about the sabotage
http://www.fas.org/nuke/intro/nuke/heavy.htm - about heavy water and it's use
http://www.lawzone.com/half-nor/haukelid.htm - about Knut Haukelid; another of the heroes from Telemark
http://www.390th.org/warstories/Rjukan.htm - about how the USAF tried and failed to knock out the heavy water plant
I know, I gotta learn proper html
Everything in the world is controlled by a small, evil group to which, unfortunately, no one you know belongs.
Aside from an interesting quote from Werner Heisenberg, it gives a lot of information about the efforts at sabotaging the heavy water processing plant. If you can find a copy, it's well worth the price.
Oh, no! You have walked into the slavering fangs of a lurking grue!
A few months ago I saw an old movie based on this exact story. It wasn't a documentry, and it was actually very good. Full of action and suspense, but without all that Hollywood junk.
I can't remember what it was called, but it was on Canada's "History Television" cable channel.
Does it make you happy you're so strange?
And close to 98% of the US population were against getting involved with Hitler too... Or are we forgetting the whole America First movement?
Je ne parle pas francais.
Heavy water is D2O, D being deuterium, or an isotope of hydrogen that has 1 extra neutron. Heavy water is used as a moderator in the breeder reactors that convert/purify barely-fissionable U-235 into U-238. The only other material that can act as an appropriate moderator is super-pure graphite, but the Nazi's found heavy water easier to produce, so they used that.
The only other alternative is to not use a breeder reactor, but instead to try and extract the U-238 directly from the uranium ore (in which it is present in VERY low concentrations). However, this approach requires enourmes complexes, noxious chemicals, and complicated pressure systems. This is a much more expensive method, but technically simpler if you haven't yet discovered how to build an effective breeder reactor. This was also the method used by the americans to build their first bombs.
Not strictly true. The Nazis had a significant nuclear-weapons research program, using the intellectual powers of such notable physicists as Werner Heisenberg (of "Uncertainty Principle" fame). However, they were convinced that an exploding nuclear bomb was impractical, because Dr. Heisenberg had grossly mis-estimated the critical mass of uranium. Because of this, the most likely form of Nazi nuclear weapon was a subcritcal reactor-bomb which would "detonate" through a mechanism more like the Chornobyl meltdown than a runaway complete fission reaction.
That said, the commando raids on the various plants supporting this reasearch definitely helped guarantee that Nazi Germany never attained nuclear weapons. We can be fairly grateful for that, I think.
Welcome to the Panopticon. Used to be a prison, now it's your home.
There is a very good book out there written by the man that developed the codes that Skinnarland used. While the focus is on wartime codes and the internal struggles in the British War Department, it still contains good information about Skinnarland, and is a very good read It is called Between Silk and Cyanide by Leo Marks.
Robert Jungk and richard Rhodes both say that the Nazi's were not working on an atomic bomb. Read "Brighter than a 1000 suns" by Jungk and "The Making of the Atomic Bomb" by Rhodes.
This man was a terrorist. And, one could argue, a "cowardly terrorist" - he didn't go on the boat and go down with it. He'd done other things more classically heroic, but the bombing of the ferry Hydro was not an act of heroism. At best, it was militarily necessary.
You got it bassackwards. Its is the U235 that fissions and it is about 1/140th of natural uranium.
The U238 can be added around a U235 core in order to increase the yeild.
The ferry incident was merely an extension of this first effort. The ferry was carrying parts from the reactor and the remaining supply of heavy water back to germany to be used in further atomic research. He blew it up to stop that, and he was greatly saddened by the fact that there were several norweigans on board at the time.
As well, Norway wasn't neutral, it was occupied by germany and as such was part of the Nazi war effort.
The UK one The Heroes of Telemark, and a much less known one, because it was norwegian. I can't even manage to find the name of the norwegian one, though I've seen it. The latter is a real documentary, and while it may not have the same suspense, it is much more true to the real story. If that's of interest, of course...
Kjella
Live today, because you never know what tomorrow brings
"Was it the
abundance of energy in Norway?"
Yes, you've hit the nail on the head there. Norway has tons of hydroelectric energy potential, and making heavy water requires lots of energy: first you have to separate H20 into H2 + O2 by electrolysis, and then you have to cool the H2 to a liquid and distill out the D2. Then you recombine to form the heavy water. In all this makes the process so energy-intensive that you basically need an entire power plant to provide for a heavy water plant.
After the german's realized the insecurity of the facility in Norway, they tried to move the facility parts back to germany, but were again failed when this same guy sank the ferry that was transporting the components.
Hiroshima and Nagasaki were BOTH of major military importance to the Japanese which made them candidates for bombing.
Hiroshima contained the 2nd Army Headquarters, which commanded the defense of all of southern Japan. The city was a communications center, a storage point, and an assembly area for troops. To quote a Japanese report, "Probably more than a thousand times since the beginning of the war did the Hiroshima citizens see off with cries of 'Banzai' the troops leaving from the harbor."
Nagasaki had been one of the largest sea ports in southern Japan and was of great war-time importance because of its many and varied industries, including the production of ordnance, ships, military equipment, and other war materials. The narrow long strip attacked was of particular importance because of its industries.
Also you might want to realize that without using the atomic bombs the invasion of Japan was to take place on Dec 1, 1945. It was to start with the invasion of the Island of Kyushu (Operation Olympic). The invasion was projected to cost the lives of some 245,000 Americans, and 1,000,000 Japanese, far more than died in both Hiroshima and Nagasaki combined.
The Japanese had no plans on surrender and the reason no major battles were taking place is because the Japanese were consolidating their forces for 'Ketsu-Go'; the plan to defend their homeland.
As part of Ketsu-Go, the Japanese were building 20 suicide take-off strips in southern Kyushu with underground hangars. They also had 35 camouflaged airfields and nine seaplane bases. On the night before the expected invasion, 50 Japanese seaplane bombers, 100 former carrier aircraft and 50 land based army planes were to be launched in a suicide attack on the fleet.
The Japanese had 58 more airfields on Korea, western Honshu and Shikoku, which also were to be used for massive suicide attacks. Allied intelligence had established that the Japanese had no more than 2500 aircraft of which they guessed 300 would be deployed in suicide attacks.
In August 1945, unknown to Allied intelligence, the Japanese still had 5651 army and 7074 navy aircraft, for a total of 12,725 planes of all types. Every village had some type of aircraft manufacturing facility. Hidden in mines, railway tunnels, viaducts and in basements of department stores, work was being done to construct new planes.
Additionally, the Japanese were building newer and more effective models of the Okka, a rocket propelled bomb much like the German V-1, but flown by a suicide pilot. When the invasion became imminent, Ketsu-Go called for a four-fold aerial plan of attack to destroy up to 800 Allied ships.
While Allied ships were approaching Japan, but still in the open seas, an elite force of 2000 army and navy fighters would take off to fight to the death to control the skies over Kyushu. A second force of 330 non-combat pilots were to attack the main body of the task force to keep it from using fire support and air cover to protect the troop-carrying transports. While these two forces were engaged, a third force of suicide planes was to hit the American transports.
As the invasion convoys approached their anchorages, another 2000 suicide planes were to be launched in waves of 200 to 300, to be used in hour by hour attacks.
American troops would be arriving in about 180 lightly armed transports and cargo vessels. The Japanese defenders would be the hardcore of the home army. These troops were well fed and well equipped. They were familiar with the terrain, had stockpiles of arms and ammunition, and had developed an effective system of transportation and supply almost invisible from the air. Many of these Japanese troops were the elite of the army, and they were swollen with a fanatical fighting spirit. Japan's network of beach defenses consisted of off-shore mines, thousands of suicide scuba divers attacking landing craft, and mines planted on the beaches.
You say in your post "Know your history, and you can see many very striking paralels..." I think before you look for any parallels you should first learn your history and find out exactly WHY things happened the way they did. If after knowing of what awaited in Operation Olympic and then Operation Coronet you still come to the same conclusion.... I say we're damn lucky you're not in any decision making capacity.
I try to make everyone's day a little more surreal.
Here, basically the German's had abandoned the idea of a "nuclear bomb" because they belived that the amount of uranium required for a critical mass would require something on the order of a giant barge to deliver, making it impractical as a weapon. Here is information on Hiesenberg's reaction to hearing of the Allied nuke.