The Manhattan [Engineering] Project

There seems to be an awful lot of supposition about who did what and when, as the atom bomb was being researched.

I have trawled through my notes and come up with the following info:

Albert Einstein is, I suppose, the Grandfather of the atomic bomb. If he had not discovered that E=mc2, then I don’t think these weapons would have been ready top be used against Japan in 1945.

The following events happened and are not in any particular chronological or alpha-numerical order:

1. Lise Meitner, together with Niels Bohr [see below] were working in Copenhagen and Fritz Strassman and Otto Hahn [working at the Kaiser Wilhelm institute] discovered Barium after bombarding uranium with electrons;

2. H.B. Hanstein, Enrico Fermi [see below] and Herbert L Anderson discovered (quite by accident) that a ‘chain reaction’ occurred when uranium discharged neutrons as it ‘fissioned’;

3. The first nuclear chain reaction occurred, would you believe it, on a tennis court at the Chicago University in 1942.

4. In 1942 the Manhattan [Engineering] Project was set up in the United States, at the Los Alamos laboratory and also at Oak Ridge and Hanford – the latter used to produce and process plutonium from Canadian Uranium, imported for the project.

5. The Manhattan [Engineering] Project was under the command of Brigadier General Leslie Groves.

The following scientists were the Project Team Leaders:

Leo Szilard and Eugene Wigner [Hungarian];

Rudolf Peierls, Otto Frisch, James Franck and Klaus Fuchs [exiled German Jews];

Emilio Segre and Enrico Fermi [Italians];

Niels Bohr was from Denmark, Edward Teller was Hungarian and Felix Bloch was from Switzerland.

James Chadwick was the sole British scientist who was a team leader.

The project was led by Robert Oppenheimer and David Bohm.

And you have played straight into their hands by failing to mention the tube alloys project!

en.wikipedia.org...

oh and it was, i believe, a squash court not a tennis court.

Obviously either you or I missed something in this thread, because it is about the Manhattan [Engineering] Project.

I know that Paperplane - because I started it.

And Paperplane, nowhere does it say anything about Project Tube Alloy!

Had I wanted to start a thread about the history of splitting the atom or the fledgling nuclear/radiological research or how Einstein worked out that E=MC2 and so on, I would have started a thread about it.

I didn't though, did I?

The reason? Well, it's in the title of the thread, funnily enough. It is about the race to design, develope, deploy and detonate the first atomic bomb at Los Alomos.

Nothing else. So please paperplane, instead of trying to turn this superbly written thread into yet another anti-American rant thread, perhaps you should start a thread about the Tube Alloy Project.

Nothing else. So please paperplane, instead of trying to turn this superbly written thread into yet another anti-American rant thread

I want no such thing, I was just warning that this will turn into an EU/UK Vs the USA thread and i think you have been on this forum long enough to know full well that that is what it will end up as.

The reason? Well, it's in the title of the thread, funnily enough. It is about the race to design, develop, deploy and detonate the first atomic bomb at Los Alomos.

And part of the background to that story is the contribution that the other allies made, particularly in the thoeretical side of things, in the years before (and the early years of ) the war. It is your decision to just concentrate on what happened at Los Alomos (the final chapters of a long story) that will spark the anti-american feelings that so often occur on this thread.

I personally AM NOT one of the patriotic revisionists on this forum who belive that the brits did everything but build the actual bomb first and all the americans did was pay for it. All the allies had some part to play but the VAST MAJORITY of the work on the invention, design, production (of the actual bomb and the materials to make it ) and delivery of the bomb was american! and anyone who says otherwise on here is just wrong.

[edit on 18-12-2006 by paperplane_uk]

On your point number two...about uranium discharging neutrons.

Measurement of neutron activity is how it is determined that a nuclear reactor has gone from sub critical to critical to super critical condition where she is capable of making heat or the byproduct of heat in this application...steam. In otherwords the chain reaction is taking place...also called criticality. Going Critical.

This discovery has been used further than just weapons desgn into the arena of peaceful uses for nuclear power. A certain amount of Neutron activity is the tell tale sign or fingerprint of criticality taking place in the core.

There is a term in the buisness called SCRAM..it stands for Super Critical Reactor Axe Man.

It stems from the very early days when the control rods were raised by ropes. The ropes were all funneled through a couple of large rings and it was the job of a technician to sit there with a axe. IN case of emergency he would chop the ropes and drop the rods to stop the reaction. Now this is real olde school compared to how it is done today. Really flying by the seat of ones pants so to speak.

This term has survived in the buisness unto today. To SCRAM a reactor. Emergency dropping of the control rods to end criticality.

Just my two cents worth..Thanks for the post.

Orangetom

Paperplane is absolutely correct. The Manhattan Project had a lot of roots in the Tube Alloys Project. The creation of the atomic bomb wasn't an American project, and it wasn't a British project. It was an Allied project, a team effort. So one can't ignore the grand scheme of things.

Originally posted by cyberdude78
Paperplane is absolutely correct. The Manhattan Project had a lot of roots in the Tube Alloys Project. The creation of the atomic bomb wasn't an American project, and it wasn't a British project. It was an Allied project, a team effort. So one can't ignore the grand scheme of things.

I thought I had covered that, by naming all the team Leaders who headed up the main engineering project at the Los Alomos site.

Obviously I was wrong.

I was also wrong to start this thread because it appears to me, that all you people want to do, is nit-pick about what info I included and what info I left out.

If everybody is that concerned about who did what and where or to whome, then perhaps that everybody could start a thread about who did what - etc

fritz, it appears to me you just started this thread for another 'e-war' by your first few lines actually

Originally posted by fritz
There seems to be an awful lot of supposition about who did what and when, as the atom bomb was being researched.

then soon as the first reply came you tryed contradicting someone, in any case 'the manhattan project' isn't above top secret news, if you want to read up about this stage of human history there's plenty of websites regarding the manhattan project and plenty about various other countrys researching into the atomic bomb pre-hiroshima/nagasaki.

if you can't find any i'll be happy to point you in the right direction.

[edit on 19-12-2006 by Sepiroth]

jeez ok, just get back on topic everyone.

Peace love and joy to everyone!

Originally posted by Sepiroth
fritz, it appears to me you just started this thread for another 'e-war' by your first few lines actually

Originally posted by fritz
There seems to be an awful lot of supposition about who did what and when, as the atom bomb was being researched.

then soon as the first reply came you tryed to contradicting someone, in any case 'the manhattan project' isn't above top secret news, if you want to read up about this stage of human history there's plenty of websites regarding the manhattan project and plenty about various countrys researching into the atomic bomb pre-hiroshima/nagasaki.

if you can't find any i'll be happy to point you in the right direction.

Cheers mate! That really helps matters, especially when you manage to misquote me.

I said: Quote: I have trawled through my notes and come up with the following info: Unquote, yet you ignored that.

No problems old son. As to my not knowing about the Manhattan [Engineering] Project, you have got to be kidding, don't you? I am a former Nuclear, Biological and Chemical Warfare Instructor. Why would I not know about the atom bomb or the hydrogen or even a fusion bomb for that matter?

The reason why I started this thread - and I am beginning to wish I had not, was because people were squabbling about who did what etc. It had turn into a UK/EU v USA thread which I detest at best.

All I did, was look at my notes which, I must admit go back to 1984, and retype them and used them for this post.

Originally posted by fritz


Obviously I was wrong.

obviously...................did you not get the memo ??

I was also wrong to start this thread because it appears to me, that all you people want to do, is nit-pick about what info I included and what info I left out.

such is the natur of things ...........sadly , what ever info you gave them , some one would spin it

i am supprised no one has claimed it was a " jewish conspiracy " due to the high number of jewish physicists involved

but every one has thier heroes and villans , often selected on nationalistic lines , and however small / insignificant the contribution of thier countrymen to a given endeavour .... the lens of hubris will maginify their significance to a pivotal role

If everybody is that concerned about who did what and where or to whome, then perhaps that everybody could start a thread about who did what - etc

and start just the sort of idiotic wankfest you despise ? if you ow the seeds - the idiots will reap it

The reason why I started this thread - and I am beginning to wish I had not, was because people were squabbling about who did what etc. It had turn into a UK/EU v USA thread which I detest at best.

heck i had to bite my tongue in another thread when in all seriousness [ or so it appeared ] a member who will remain nameless claimed that :

" america invented flight "

i ask you ?



[edit on 19-12-2006 by ignorant_ape]

Originally posted by ignorant_ape

" america invented flight "

[edit on 19-12-2006 by ignorant_ape]

What the hell are you talking about? the US did invent powered flight.

Kitty Hawk 1903, ring any bells?

how about this?

wam.umd.edu...

Nope, Otto Lilienthal invented human flying, both in practise as well as his scientific theories. Earlier gliding pioneers had unsteerable constructions, so basically they were strapped to sail-like airbrakes.

The Wrights were the first to perfect the concept of the airplane by combining the existing concepts of the engine, the propeller airfoil and describing their effects, but they needed head wind and a start rail - hence, their aircraft was not capable of flying by its own construction alone. Their status of "first powered flight" is disputed, they were however incredibly lucky to have the biggest news and witness coverage of their experiments.

The honor of inventing the "airplane" as we understand it, meaning a heavier-than-air controlled machine leaving the earth entirely on its own, goes to Troian Vuia and/or Alberto Santos-Dumont.

What the has flight got to do with the Manhattan [Engineering] Project?

Apart from the Enola Gay that is?

To be exact the Wrights were the first to demonstrate SUSTANED CONTROLLABLE POWERED FLIGHT

And I agree with Fritz what have the Wrights go to do with the manhatten [engineering] project????????

Get back on topic people.

Less well known is that Axis spies had bugged the telephone of General Leslie Groves and knew a great deal about the Manhatten project through the war. when Paris was liberated the office of a small scientific journal called Cellastique on champs d'lysee was searched. There the Allied investigators found extensive phone transcripts of Grove's conversations about building the bomb.

Oh dear... and then not to forget Paul Harteck who enriched Uranium for the nazis and Kurt Diebner who were working on the Nazi A-bomb...

and lets give some credit to the Japanese scientist Prof Bunsuku Arakatsu and Dr Yoshio Nishina who successfully test blasted Japan's nuclear bomb before the war ended.

Are you sure about the Japanese 'A' Bomb, sy.gunson?

To be honest mate, I have been teaching this subject for over 20 odd years and this is the first time I have ever heard of a Japanese atomic device.

Can you provide a link to this subject, or is this just hearsay?

Ignorant_ape said:

heck i had to bite my tongue in another thread when in all seriousness [ or so it appeared ] a member who will remain nameless claimed that :

" america invented flight "

i ask you ?

Gosh the effrontery of some people ?
Everybody knows that New Zealander Richard Pearse was the first person to achieve powered flight in May 1903.

Just an illustration above how easily people get a wrong interpretation of history.

Yeah I am absolutely certain about the Japanese A-bomb test blasted on a small offshore island near Hungnam (now) North Korea on 8 August 1945.

Indeed according to the radioman of U-234, a guy by the name of Hirsch who is still alive and corresponds through the sharkhunters.com website, he asserts that japan succeeded as early as July 1943.

I am personally skeptical about the 1943 claim. What did happen on 7 July 1943 was that General Touransouke Kawashima of the Japanese 8th Army signaled General Oshima of the embassy in Berlin asking for Germany to ship uranium oxide to Japan from mines at Jacymov (Chechoslovakia). The Germans queried the request three times until November 1943 when they agreed to ship the uranium oxide.

I believe Hirsch may have gotten a garbled story based upon the Kawashima signal of July 1943. I have not had the chance to contact him directly through the website, but you could try.

Proof of the August 1945 blast are on record with Army G-2 intelligence files of Major Furman (previously an ALSOS investigator in Europe) which are now held in the NARA archives at Suitland, Maryland. I can't recall the file box numbers, but I could look them up.

You could get the book "Japan's Secret War" by Robert K Wilcox. You can order his book through Wilcox's own website.

During WW2, a handful of Japanese I-class submarines went to France to collect Uranium oxide which was shipped back in an amalgam with mercury which they packed in the keels. Some Italian submarines manned by German crews (UIT-23/24/25) voyaged to the far East aswell. There was also a German U-boat base at Penang and scores of U-boats voyaged to the far east in 1943-44.

Two U-boats which arrived at Djakarta in November 1944 (U-219 and U-195) also carried 12 broken down V-2 rockets for Japan. Germany shared it's uranium centrifuge technology (Harteck Process) with Japan too.

UIT-24 and UIT-25 operated a regular cargo shuttle from Singapore and Djakarta to Kure naval base.

The Japanese had a naval nuclear program under Professor Bunsuku Arakatsu, under the codename SUN.

The Japanese Imperial Army had a rival project under Dr Yoshiro Nishina. When the Rikken institute at Tokyo was fire bombed by a B-29 raid both projects were drawn together under Nishina as codename F-GO and were shifted to Hungnam in what Japan called their province of Choesul (Korea) to place it beyond the range of bombers.

The location itself also explains why Japanese forces continued to fight the Russians in Korea until October 1945, well after Japan's surrender. Stalin had the entire nuclear laboratory and it's captured engineers shipped back to Russia to form the nucleus of Russia's A-bomb project.

In my view Marcus and Ethel Rosenberg were entirely innocent as the soviets already had the A-bomb's secrets.

Does that help ?

[edit on 4-6-2007 by sy.gunson]

Sorry Fritz... You asked for some links.

www.zmag.org...

www.answers.com...

www.robertkwilcox.com...

Also Fritz I have done years of research on the Nazi nuclear project which was also far more advanced that is generally given credit.

A Spanish spy Velasco de Alcazar closely connected with general Peron, operated a ring of spies at the Los Alamos laboratory. Nazi Germany was getting regular telephone transcripts out of Los Alamos and Japan operated spies at Los Alamos too.

Everybody knew about the manhatten Project. Japan knew. Hitler knew, Even stalin and not only did the soviets know, but Roosevelt was discreetly shipping Canadian nuclear material to Russia in defiance of Churchill.

Sy, that is really interesting.

I knew that Japan was conducting biological warfare against both the Chinese and Koreans, and was recently told that there were experiments conducted on Russian prisoners as well.

It seems to me, that so many secret projects were going on in the Far East
that the western allies had every chance of capturing any technologies that were up for grabs in China and Korea in 1945, the Russians notwithstanding.

You are correct about so many Japanese scientists and high ranking military personnel escaping the gallows whilst their German counterparts took the long drop.

That it what has been bothering me for so long and you have solved the puzzle for me. Many thanx.