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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.
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.
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.