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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."

8 of 333 comments (clear)

  1. Hitler's anti-semitism did him the most harm by asmithmd1 · · Score: 5, Insightful

    Richard Rhodes' The Making of the Atomic Bomb shows clearly and ironically that Hitler drove many Jewish physicists out of Germany in the '30s including Einstein. If he would have let them keep there posts he almost certainly would have had the bomb before the US.

    1. Re:Hitler's anti-semitism did him the most harm by knobmaker · · Score: 5, Insightful

      Sometimes I think there are no more Einar Skinnarlands, at least not in America. On my cynical days, I think that if another Hitler came to power, no one would even attempt to stop him.

      Let's examine the evidence. Since Vietnam, our inconclusive proxy war with World Communism, we haven't exactly made a habit of fighting Good Wars. Take the last Gulf War, for example. We mobilized the troops to throw Saddam out of our Kuwaiti friends' oil fields. Bush Sr. liked to call it a battle for freedom and democracy, somehow failing to mention that Kuwaiti was the personal property of a few aristocratic Arabs and that there was no more democracy in Kuwait than in, say, General Motors. Sure Saddam is a monster, but he's a small-time monster. Mao was a bigtime monster, and his regime is still in power. They have weapons of mass destruction and it's doubtful they'd hesitate to use them if pressed. Why aren't we worried about the "Chinese threat," and their various crimes against humanity?

      Other actions during this time? Panama, Grenada, Haiti? Not serious. There are still thousands of drug-corrupted generals in Central and South America, there's still no democracy in Haiti, and Grenada is a bad joke. And consider Somalia, Bush Sr.'s lovely parting gift to Clinton. There we had a clearcut (if pointless) humanitarian mission, but when we took a few casualties it was Sayonara Somalia.

      Bosnia really wasn't our finest hour. We did bomb the Chinese, something we've never dared to do to them in China.

      What really disturbs me are the true horrors we neglected during the dying days of the Soviet. There were genocides in Uganda and Rwanda, and we didn't do anything. Millions died. It was far worse than anything Saddam has ever done.

      So I don't know. If The Ashcrofts and Poindexters have their way and we end up living in a nation where the trains run on time, will there be any Skinnermans or Schindlers among us? Or are those days, and those kinds of men gone forever?

    2. Re:Hitler's anti-semitism did him the most harm by Ironpoint · · Score: 4, Insightful

      "When has Europe, as a whole, stood up in a meaningful way and taken a stand for against anything?"

      Europe isn't supposed to 'stand united'. Your forgetting that Europe is comprised of several different countries each with their own language and system of values. And what, exactly, are they required to take a stand on? Simply surviving, pursuing happiness, and prospering is not enough? The common theme that I keep hearing is "Getting tough for getting tough's sake" is not logical.

      "At least they've got the courage to a) say what they mean and b) act on it."

      Does a dog know what its doing when it tries to hump a person's leg? It has acted on something, is it courageous? I could say I'm going to take a dump, and go take a dump. Am I courageous? Hitler could have said that he was going to exterminate all the crippled people and then he did it. Was he courageous? Your definition of courage is worthless.

      The administrative branch, by your definition, is not courageous. They want to "disarm" Iraq which can be accomplished today with the air power in the region and those nice b/w photos. However, what they want to do is remove the government from power. Two different objectives. They will not come out and just say "We want to remove the government and instill our own government" They keep using the word disarm.

  2. What matters is not who was going to get the bomb by aerojad · · Score: 3, Insightful

    What matters is that eventually, the cursed thing was used. Go ahead and say it was to save x number of troops or y politcal plans, or anything else, but the bottom ine is that the first to discover the thing was going to use it, and this world has been quite the scary & dangerous place ever since.

    --

    SecondPageMedia - Wha
  3. Re:What matters is not who was going to get the bo by Henry+V+.009 · · Score: 5, Insightful

    Maybe it matters a slight amount that the thing was used by a democratic nation to end a dreadful war launched against them rather than by the Nazis to achieve world domination in a war of their own making?

  4. Re:What matters is not who was going to get the bo by pVoid · · Score: 4, Insightful
    Oh I see.

    So you are acting a-la US acts when Russian hacker gets tried in US soil for un-crime commited in Russia?

    You must be really naive if you think Diplomatic talks degenerate because of bad manners at the tea table.

    The cards are always down, it's all about how much one is willing to bend over and grab their ankles.

    And the US lately, has become the master pimp of the world... expecting anyone and everyone in their sight to bend over and grab em.

    Well fuck you! It's about time you realized it doesn't work that way... You have a current world crisis going on just because of said behaviour. Just sit and watch how the US will go in like the First of the Ninth Air Cav even after the UN says "no". The world isn't your playground...

    Like I said before, it's one thing to think you're right in an argument, and something else completely to try and justify glaring events of 50 years past.

  5. Re:What matters is not who was going to get the bo by Guppy06 · · Score: 4, Insightful

    "As soon as the germans capitulated, Russia was on Japan's ass, and they were scared of it."

    Bullshit. Complete and utter bullshit. If you knew your history, you'd know that, after being essentially blockaded and slowly starved by the US submarine force for the better part of a year, after being nuked twice, after the Soviets declared war on Japan and the sudden influx of bloodthirsty eastern-front veterans, Hideki Tojo's army was so "scared" that they staged a desparate coup to prevent the emperor from surrendering!

    If the coup had been successful, it would have taken more than just two nuclear devices to convince them to surrender. Probably far more.

    " What I can *guarantee* you without any ambiguity is that the second bomb was definitely *not* necessary."

    I disagree, for the reasons stated above.

    If you can find it, there's a flick out there named Hiroshima that examines the final months of the war in the Pacific from both the US and Japanese sides. It feels a lot like Tora! Tora! Tora! You'll see just how "scared" and "willing to surrender" the Japanese military was. It airs on Showtime from time to time.

    "And it achieved exactly what it had started out to do: begin the cold war."

    The Cold War was "starting" after WWII no matter what happened to Japan. It's roots come from well before 1945 (even before 1938). The only thing that the use of the atomic bombs on Japan did was make sure that the Soviets weren't able to carve up Japan like they did to Germany and (eventually) Korea.

    "The US dropping that bomb completely undermined Russia's crucial role in the war... etc. etc"

    What role? The Soviet Union had a non-aggression pact with Japan until August 1945. They didn't declare war on Japan until two days after the Hiroshima bombing, the day before Nagasaki. Japan had nothing to do with the Great Patriotic War.

    "Read up on some history..."

    Hypocrite.

  6. Re:What matters is not who was going to get the bo by Guppy06 · · Score: 4, Insightful

    Man, the historical accuracy of your posts just keeps going downhill...

    "Not a single millitary outpost with it's contingency."

    Off the top of my head, I can't remember the signifigance of Hiroshima, but Nagasaki was on the list of potential targets because of its port facilities.

    " And don't forget, Pearl harbour was a millitary outpost,"

    On US territory.

    "if Uncle Sam wants to put his soldiers around the globe, he will have to face the risks of doing so..."

    Uncle Sam wouldn't have had to worry if Uncle Sam would have continued exports to Japan that were fueling Japan's nine-year-old (at the time) war of aggression and expansion on the Asian mainland.

    "Pearl Harbour, if anything was a major strategic win for Japan, nothing more, nothing less."

    They were a major strategic loss, a minor tactical victory at best. There were no carriers at anchor at Pearl, which were Yamamoto's primary target. He played his only trump card and gained next to nothing because of it.

    "That last statement is, of course, if we all play nice, and really believe the US was *completely unaware* of the impending attack (which I believe is bullshit)"

    You are right only to a degree, only in the tactical sense.

    Even the US public was well aware of Japanese intentions towards the US. Those on Oahu and the Philippines that day were taken by surprise by the attacks themselves, not the ones attacking them. Operation Barbarossa was far more of a surprise than 12/7/41.

    "Do you *really* think the US was unaware of the actions of Bin Laden?"

    The US wasn't in the middle of diplomatic negotiations with either bin Laden or Mullah Omar's government in September 2001. Afghanistan was only butchering its own civillians, and had yet to even consider invading one of its neighbors. Tojo's Japan had already slaughtered many, many more civillians for a longer period of time by 1941 than bin Laden could possibly hope to achieve, even after 2001.

    Your metaphor is strenuous at best.