The "From" bug strikes yet again

[Neon John <johngd@bellsouth.net>]

  >>The "From" bug again.  *sigh*

Jim Muckerheide wrote:

> And the note that Heisenberg was one of those detained. Dr. Sohei Kondo, then
> a physics student and entered Hiroshima a few days after the bomb, has said
> that the Japanese were then not able to consider making a bomb.

Before you go too far down that road, you might want to read: 

"Japan's Secret War" by Robert K. Wilcox 

    Taken from the liner notes: 

    Can you imagine an alternative world history in which the last
phase of World War II was
    not marked by Hiroshima and Nagasaki but by totally unforeseen
atomic bombs on Los
    Angeles and San Francisco? 
    This book is an exploration of a story about just such a
possibility. -- From the Preface by
    the late DEREK DESOLLA PRICE, Professor of the History of
Science, Yale University 

    Japan's Secret War is a groundbreaking look at one of the
least-known and most
    astonishing episodes of World War II: Japan's race against time
to develop its own atomic
    bomb. 

    Both the American and the Japanese governments would have
preferred to let this story
    remain untold. But now, after years of research based on
material gathered by American
    intelligence during the occupation of Japan as well as extensive
interviews with surviving
    participants, Robert Wilcox gives the first detailed account of
Japan's version of the
    Manhattan Project - from its earliest days to the possible
testing of an actual weapon.
    The story involves not only Japan's leading scientists but also
a network of Spanish spies
    working in North America and a German U-boat desperately trying
to reach Japan with a
    cargo of uranium in the final days before the Third Reich's
collapse. But perhaps the most
    fascinating element in the story involves a giant industrial
complex in northern Korea
    where much of the Japanese atomic research took place. When the
Soviets invaded North
    Korea at the end of the war, they had the entire complex
dismantled and shipped back
    home to the Soviet Union. We can only speculate about the
information they gained from it. 

    Japan's Secret War will change our understanding not only of the
Pacific War and the way
    it ended but also of the early history of nuclear warfare and
the arms race. It is an
    indispensable contribution to this century's most crucial topic. 


The only thing limiting the jap's A-bomb effort was lack of uranium.
And, of course, the Allied's propensity to occasionally bomb them
back to the stone age.
 
> Many Japanese acknowledge that the bomb stopped the war and saved many
> Japanese lives (likely more than US lives). A recent documentary on Discovery
> Channel (older history) showed that even after the second bomb there were
> serious questions of whether to stop the war, and makes the case that the
> prime motivator to the Japanese leadership, from their own sources, was the
> Russian entry into the war and effective invasions into Japanese-held
> territory, and that more directed threatened the actual invasion and loss of
> Japan to the Russian instead of the Americans.

As an avid student of WWII history, I cringe whenever I see
Discovery Channel associated with the subject.  They are intensely
revisionist and very sloppy in their research.  This is an example -
promoting an extreme minority idea as accepted fact.

The russian factor was a minor, if at all, issue.  The japs had
planned on attacking Russia even before Pearl Harbor and called it
off only after Hitler beat them to it.  The plan certainly remained
on the books throughout the war.  Wildly myopic optimism, of course,
but that was the nature of wartime japan.  They certainly were not
afraid of Russia.  The Japs did make a weak diplomatic effort
through Russia, a (perceived to them) neutral party, to avoid
unconditional surrender between the A-bombings, and a little before.

What ended the war was the Emperor's direct intervention with the
supreme war council. He had done this only one other time in recent
history - in stopping debate over whether to attack Pearl Harbor or
not.  Since the Emperor was considered divine, his words were the
only thing that would have stopped the militant "war to the death"
faction within the army which still controlled the government.

Though this has been documented widely elsewhere, probably the most
comprehensive documentation is in "At Dawn We Slept" by Gordon
Prange.  Mr Prange interviewed many of the actual participants in
his duty as a military historian.  The book was published
posthumously by two of his students.  The 50 year anniversary
edition contains additional material uncovered after the book's
first publication.  Much of this information has come from Soviet
documentation released after the breakup. 

John

-- 
John De Armond
johngdSPAMNOT@bellsouth.net
http://personal.bellsouth.net/~johngd/
Neon John's Custom Neon
Cleveland, TN
"Bendin' Glass 'n Passin' Gas"
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