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http://www.scmp.com/news/asia/artic...ow-how-close-japan-got-acquiring-nuclear-bomb
Notebooks uncovered in university library show how close Japan was to building wartime nuclear bomb
Notebooks found in university show how close Japan got to acquiring nuclear bomb in 1940s before US struck Hiroshima and Nagasaki
PUBLISHED : Wednesday, 01 July, 2015, 10:14am
UPDATED : Wednesday, 01 July, 2015, 11:53am
Julian Ryall in Tokyo
Previously unseen documents have been discovered in a university library in Japan that will shed new light on just how close Japanese scientists were to developing a nuclear weapon during the second world war.
As the nation prepares to mark the 70th anniversary of the attacks on Hiroshima and Nagasaki this year, three notebooks, containing hand-written calculations by a scientist working on equipment to produce enriched uranium for a weapon, have been found at Kyoto University.
Previously known as Kyoto Imperial University, the institute was at the forefront of research into nuclear physics during the war and had been charged by the Japanese navy with studying the feasibility of developing an atomic weapon.
The notebooks are dated October and November 1944 and were apparently the findings of Sakae Shimizu, a researcher who worked for Bunsaku Arakatsu, known as the foremost nuclear scientist in Japan in the 1940s.
Arakutsu had studied in Cambridge and under Einstein at Berlin University and in 1943 was tasked with achieving the separation of Uranium-235 with centrifuges. The research was given the code-name F-Go Project.
Due to a chronic shortage of raw materials, progress on the project, as well as a parallel scheme by the army, was slow. It was also disrupted by air raids on Japan as the war wore on, although the Allies were not apparently aware of the nuclear programmes and did not target the research centres.
In April 1945, the army's project was abandoned when the research facility in Tokyo was badly damaged in air raids.
Had the weapon been perfected before Japan's surrender, however, there is little likelihood a desperate government in Tokyo would not have used it against its enemies, given the chance.
"I think there were generally fewer qualms at a time of total war about the nuclear weapons programmes of all sides, as well as fewer qualms about the indiscriminate bombing of civilian targets," Jun Okumura, a visiting scholar at the Meiji Institute for Global Affairs, told The South China Morning Post.
"I don't think there is much to separate the saturation bombing of Dresden with the single nuclear weapon that was dropped on Hiroshima," he said.
"Nothing can be proven, of course, but it's not very difficult to assume that if Japan had a nuclear weapon, it would have used it," he added.
A bigger problem for the Japanese military would have been delivering any weapon to its target. By 1945, Japan's navy and air force was decimated, although a government that encouraged kamikaze attacks by aircraft, ships and submarines might have been willing to attempt a similar suicide mission.
Instead, the first nuclear attack in history took place against the city of Hiroshima on August 6, 1945.
Historians are studying the notebooks to determine just how advanced Arakatsu's team was before the war came to an end, and they point out few documents from Japan's nuclear research projects survived as they were quickly seized by the Occupation forces after the surrender.
In an interview with The New York Times in 1946, Arakatsu claimed his team was making "tremendous strides" towards making an atomic bomb. The documents provide details on the equipment required to separate and enrich Uranium-235, the Asahi newspaper reported, which would have given the scientists the key ingredient for the chain reaction required to achieve nuclear fission.
One of the books has the Japanese words for ultracentrifugal separation written on the cover and includes tables showing the revolutions required to achieve separation and copies of foreign research papers. Other pages provide details on the lengths and diameters or parts required to build a centrifuge.
Historians had previously been unable to confirm research into the construction of a centrifuge took place at the university.
This article appeared in the South China Morning Post print edition as War papersshed lighton atomicresearch
For links see article source.....
Posted for fair use.....
http://www.scmp.com/news/asia/artic...ow-how-close-japan-got-acquiring-nuclear-bomb
Notebooks uncovered in university library show how close Japan was to building wartime nuclear bomb
Notebooks found in university show how close Japan got to acquiring nuclear bomb in 1940s before US struck Hiroshima and Nagasaki
PUBLISHED : Wednesday, 01 July, 2015, 10:14am
UPDATED : Wednesday, 01 July, 2015, 11:53am
Julian Ryall in Tokyo
Previously unseen documents have been discovered in a university library in Japan that will shed new light on just how close Japanese scientists were to developing a nuclear weapon during the second world war.
As the nation prepares to mark the 70th anniversary of the attacks on Hiroshima and Nagasaki this year, three notebooks, containing hand-written calculations by a scientist working on equipment to produce enriched uranium for a weapon, have been found at Kyoto University.
Previously known as Kyoto Imperial University, the institute was at the forefront of research into nuclear physics during the war and had been charged by the Japanese navy with studying the feasibility of developing an atomic weapon.
The notebooks are dated October and November 1944 and were apparently the findings of Sakae Shimizu, a researcher who worked for Bunsaku Arakatsu, known as the foremost nuclear scientist in Japan in the 1940s.
Arakutsu had studied in Cambridge and under Einstein at Berlin University and in 1943 was tasked with achieving the separation of Uranium-235 with centrifuges. The research was given the code-name F-Go Project.
Due to a chronic shortage of raw materials, progress on the project, as well as a parallel scheme by the army, was slow. It was also disrupted by air raids on Japan as the war wore on, although the Allies were not apparently aware of the nuclear programmes and did not target the research centres.
In April 1945, the army's project was abandoned when the research facility in Tokyo was badly damaged in air raids.
Had the weapon been perfected before Japan's surrender, however, there is little likelihood a desperate government in Tokyo would not have used it against its enemies, given the chance.
"I think there were generally fewer qualms at a time of total war about the nuclear weapons programmes of all sides, as well as fewer qualms about the indiscriminate bombing of civilian targets," Jun Okumura, a visiting scholar at the Meiji Institute for Global Affairs, told The South China Morning Post.
"I don't think there is much to separate the saturation bombing of Dresden with the single nuclear weapon that was dropped on Hiroshima," he said.
"Nothing can be proven, of course, but it's not very difficult to assume that if Japan had a nuclear weapon, it would have used it," he added.
A bigger problem for the Japanese military would have been delivering any weapon to its target. By 1945, Japan's navy and air force was decimated, although a government that encouraged kamikaze attacks by aircraft, ships and submarines might have been willing to attempt a similar suicide mission.
Instead, the first nuclear attack in history took place against the city of Hiroshima on August 6, 1945.
Historians are studying the notebooks to determine just how advanced Arakatsu's team was before the war came to an end, and they point out few documents from Japan's nuclear research projects survived as they were quickly seized by the Occupation forces after the surrender.
In an interview with The New York Times in 1946, Arakatsu claimed his team was making "tremendous strides" towards making an atomic bomb. The documents provide details on the equipment required to separate and enrich Uranium-235, the Asahi newspaper reported, which would have given the scientists the key ingredient for the chain reaction required to achieve nuclear fission.
One of the books has the Japanese words for ultracentrifugal separation written on the cover and includes tables showing the revolutions required to achieve separation and copies of foreign research papers. Other pages provide details on the lengths and diameters or parts required to build a centrifuge.
Historians had previously been unable to confirm research into the construction of a centrifuge took place at the university.
This article appeared in the South China Morning Post print edition as War papersshed lighton atomicresearch
