Japan close to making nuclear bombs in WWII
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E-mail China.org.cn, February 8, 2014
One year later, Nishina completed the theoretical research, but was bottlenecked by the lack of uranium material for the conducting of actual experiments. As a result, the Japanese military turned to its axis ally German for help - aside from undertaking further exploration in its own country and Korea.
German, in return, wished to acquire raw material and strategic resources from Japan's occupied areas. Yet between the two countries, all land transport had been blocked and shipping by sea would surely encounter allied gunfire. And since neither country possessed long-range aircrafts, transportation by submarine was their last resort.
By late 1943, Germany sent a U-boat carrying 1 ton of uranium ore to Japan. The vessel was sunk when ambushed by U.S. forces in the Malacca Strait. The two countries kept seeking nuclear deals, but repeatedly failed to see them through due to the allied reign over the seas. When Germany surrendered in May of 1945, U.S. troops seized 560 kg of uranium oxide from a Japan-bound U-boat, containing 3.5 kg of U-235, one fifth of the required amount for the production of an atomic bomb.
Japan did not care too much about its impeded nuclear plans as a panel of nuclear physicists had calculated that an atomic bomb would require at least 1 ton of U-235, to be refined from hundreds of tons of uranium ore, and the process would need 10 percent of Japan's annual power generation - in addition to half of its copper production. The panel had deemed that neither the United States nor Germany possessed that extra industrial capacity for completing a nuclear bomb before the war's end.
In April of 1945, Nishina's lab was razed in U.S. air raids of Tokyo; almost at the same time, the Japanese navy's F Project also came to an unsuccessful end due to centrifuge malfunctions.
After the U.S. bombing of Hiroshima on Aug. 6, 1945, Nishina and his men conducted field research of the city's ruins. The team confirmed the weapon employed had been an atomic bomb made of U-235. The Japanese military, based on its own meager nuclear experience on the cost in refining U-235, miscalculated that the United States had only produced one atomic bomb, i.e. Little Boy dropped over Hiroshima.
In their desperation, the Japanese military imagined they would be able to hold out for another six months after the U.S. troops' landing, during which Japan could produce its own atomic bomb and reverse the situation. Yet Nishina regretted to say that for Japan, which lacked both electricity and uranium, another six years would not be sufficient for this purpose.
Three days later, another atomic bomb, the Fat Man, exploded over Nagasaki. Nishina's team discovered it was a plutonium-based bomb, a technology Japan had never expected. It was at this moment that Japan realized it had no time for bargaining.
U.S. troops, occupying Japan after the war had ended, recovered five cyclotrons which had been used to isolate fissionable material from ordinary uranium ore. The United States destroyed them before sinking them in Tokyo Bay.
Japan's failure to develop nuclear weapons during World War II was largely due to a lack of raw material, uranium and plutonium, all of which now it possesses in large stock after years of nuclear power plant development. Combined with Japan's intentions to produce nuclear weapons, this will be yet another disturbing fact for the international community to realize.
The article was translated by Chen Boyuan. Its original unabridged version was published in Chinese.
Opinion articles reflect the views of their authors, not necessarily those of China.org.cn.
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