Critical Mass

Critical Mass
ISBN-10
0975985302
ISBN-13
9780975985304
Series
Critical Mass
Category
History
Pages
380
Language
English
Published
2004
Publisher
Whitehurst & Company/Jifyline Incorporated
Author
Carter Plymton Hydrick

Description

The true story of the Manhattan Project you haven't heard about! On May 19, 1945, eleven days after the surrender of Nazi Germany in Europe, a U-boat was escorted into Portsmouth Naval Yard, New Hampshire. News reporters covering the surrender of U-234 were ordered, contrary to all previous and later U-boat surrender procedures, to keep their distance from crew members and passengers of U-234, on threat of being shot by the attending Marine guards. Why the tight security? Buried in the nose of the mammoth boat, sealed in cylinders "lined with gold," was 560 kilograms, 1,120 pounds, of enriched uranium oxide labeled "U235"-the fissile material from which atom bombs are made. Following ten years of research, author Carter Hydrick presents documentation that demonstrates surrendered German components from U-234 were used by the Manhattan Project to complete both the uranium bomb dropped on Hiroshima and the plutonium bomb dropped on Nagasaki to defeat the Japanese, win World War Two and usher in the Nuclear Age.

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