"Doug Miller" wrote in message
.com...
In article . net, "Agki
Strodon" wrote:

We were technically in a state of war with Krautland ONLY after they
declared war on us. We were in a full state of war when we declared it
on
them. They were allies of Japan and it was common knowledge that we
would
have to fight them. In fact, the American strategy was to concentrate on
Europe as the more dangerous enemy and prevent further Japanese expansion
until Germany was taken care of. It went better in the Pacific than we
thought it would. Although the Japanese were actually closer to making
their own nuke than the Germans ever were, they needed maybe another
year.

This is the first I ever heard that the Japanese had any nuclear weapons
program at all during WWII. Can you cite an authoritative source for that,
please?

BTW, a fascinating history of the German effort to develop an atomic bomb
is
given in the book "Heisenberg's War". Although Werner Heisenberg was a
deeply
patriotic German, he was *not* a Nazi, and was uncomfortable with the idea
of
putting such a weapon in Hitler's hands. There's considerable evidence
that he
deliberately sandbagged the German atomic weapons program.

Did the book say he was an anti-Semite? I've heard conflicting stories on
that and never got it clear. Apparently there were some references to him
by physicists that I heard back in my undergrad days in which he is
purported to have referred to nuclear reactions in bomb making as "Jewish
physics."

Then again, I am uncertain (;-)]




Also, FWIW, the planned target for the first American atomic weapon was
not
Hiroshima, or indeed anywhere in Japan. It was Berlin. But the Nazis
surrendered before the bomb was ready.

--
Regards,
Doug Miller (alphageek-at-milmac-dot-com)


Yeah, the Russkies took care of Berlin.

But who is going to be our next bogeyman?

Agkistrodon