Feature: New Atomic-Bomb History Offered
An author that challenges the traditional history of how the United States developed the nuclear weapons used to end World War II invites the face-to-face scrutiny of some of the nation's most respected scientists and historians.
Carter Hydrick's book has raised eyebrows since it was published nearly two years ago, arguing that enriched uranium found in a surrendered German submarine in 1945 was used in the bombs dropped on Hiroshima and Nagasaki in Japan.
The uranium found aboard submarine U-234 off the East Coast of the United States at the end of the war in Europe was used in the atomic bomb dropped on Hiroshima, and infrared fuses also from the vessel were used to develop the plutonium bomb dropped on Nagasaki, his book asserts.
Hydrick has presented his case to audiences at both the Los Alamos National Laboratory in New Mexico and the Oak Ridge Nat ional Laboratory in Tennessee, both of which were involved in the development of the atomic bomb 60 years ago. He has a return engagement scheduled Tuesday in Los Alamos.
Hydrick said he was nervous the first time he appeared before the audiences, made up mostly of scientists, because he is not a scientist or an historian. Some scientists initially refused to take his book seriously because he was butting up against long-accepted history.
"My answer to them was that's why I'm here - to get the critical review," he said in a recent interview. "If they can shoot it down, I will be sad because I put a lot of my life into it. If that's what it is, that's what it is."
Historians were some of his most severe critics in the beginning because he lacked credentials as an historian, but the climate has changed after the appearances at the laboratories and in academic settings around the nation.
Anthony Stranges, an associate professor at Texas A&M University who specializes in the history of science, knows Hydrick's work and he says the author has appeared twice on the campus to address the history honors society.
"He has some evidence there that seems worth pursuing," Stranges said.
Hydrick is challenging traditional history that has stood for decades, and that is a tough job, Stranges said.
The Texas-based writer spent 10 years researching the book, "Critical Mass: How Nazi Germany Surrendered Enriched Uranium for the United States' Atomic Bomb," which came out in a second edition last year, published by Whitehurst & Company (380 pages, $29.95).
Hydrick, a native of San Diego, began his career in film and video screenwriting and production. He eventually spent more than 20 years in the corporate world, overseeing corporate and marketing communications.
The story of the surrendered U-boat and its possible link to the Manhattan Project first came to his attention when a producer asked him to meet a retired World War II German officer with an interesting story. He thought it might be a possible script, but it turned out to be more.
Hydrick said there were "only two or three little scraps of information," but it was enough to get his attention. If they had validity, however, he wanted to do proper research and pursue critical review. It consumed 12 years of his life.
The Manhattan Project was created because the U.S. government feared Germany was ahead in development of the atomic bomb and what the consequences would be for the world if the Nazis actually acquired nuclear weapons.
The project, based at Los Alamos, was largely a U.S. project, with a large team of scientists, many of them émigrés from Nazi-occupied Europe. The project lasted for three years at a cost of $2 billion.
Hydrick's book asserts for the first time that the surrender of submarine U-234 and its cargo of enriched uranium and infrared fuses allowed the Manhattan Project to complete and drop its bombs on Japan in time to meet an important mid-August 1945 deadline for war planners.
"Without the surrender of U-234 we would not have been able to make the uranium bomb that was dropped on Hiroshima or the plutonium bomb that was dropped on Nagasaki, and would probably not have had a bomb of our own until late 1945 or early 1946," he said.
The Soviet Union announced that it was going to declare war on Japan in mid-August, which meant that if the war lasted much more than a few weeks beyond that, the allies would have to partition off the Pacific like Eastern Europe.
Hydrick cites captured cargo manifests from German submarine U-234 that list 580 kilograms - nearly 1,300 pounds - of uranium oxide, which is not conclusive proof that it was enrich ed uranium, but he found other stronger evidence.
The containers were labeled U235, according to one eyewitness, the submarine's chief radio operator. He also saw two Japanese officers, who were to travel aboard the submarine, painting the label U235 on the containers as they were being loaded for the Atlantic voyage.
The submarine's eventual destination was Japan, where the uranium and other high-tech weaponry and equipment were to be turned over to the Japanese government.
Hydrick traced the enriched uranium, which is necessary to build an atomic bomb, and other components to Los Alamos, where he argues they gave the U.S. team the help they needed to complete the bombs as soon as they did.
Hydrick also presents evidence that indicates infrared fuses found on the German submarine were used to fix problems the project scientists were having with the triggering mechanism for the plutonium bomb dropped on Nagasaki.
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