And among them there was talk of the very real possibility of splitting the uranium atom in a chain reaction—“fission,” they called it—that would create energy on a scale bordering on the incomprehensible.
They theorized that the energy released from such a chain reaction, or continuous disintegration, of one hundred pounds of the uranium 235 isotope was the equivalent of the energy from twenty thousand tons of the high explosive TNT (trinitrotoluene).
The scale of effort to achieve this fission and then harness it in a usable manner—if, in fact, it was entirely possible, and the scientists had some disagreement over that—also bordered on the incomprehensible.
What was not disputed among these great minds was the fact that others in the world’s scientific and political communities were aware of the possibilities of atomic fission and its military applications—and these others included Adolf Hitler.
Thus, the scientists in America—particularly the Hungarians Szilard, Teller, and Wigner, who vividly knew the reach of Hitler’s cruel hand and the inconceivable atrocities that would follow were he to gain control of such a weapon—had to make this information known to the President of the United States.
They did so by drafting a letter, under Einstein’s signature and dated August 2, 1939, that was then delivered to the White House by Alexander Sachs, an economist who enjoyed Roosevelt’s close friendship.
The letter laid out everything the scientists knew about the big picture of turning uranium into an atomic bomb—what the potential uses were, where the rare usable uranium could be found, the limits of current academic funding, et cetera, et cetera. It ended by stating that it was understood that Germany had stopped the sale of uranium from Czech mines it had taken control of, and that the uranium work being done in America was being repeated at the Kaiser Wilhelm Institute in Berlin, where physicist Carl von Weizsacker—son of Nazi under-secretary of state Ernst von Weizsacker—was attached.
FDR instantly read between the lines. And he saw that this situation set up a pair of particula
rly difficult obstacles for the United States—not officially in the war—and the Allies:
They had to beat the Germans in the actual development of such an atomic bomb while not letting the enemy know that they were in fact working on one; and
They had to stop the Germans from accomplishing the same.
To the first problem, FDR put into play the Manhattan Project, a secret so great that only a very small circle of people—the scientists and FDR, of course, Churchill, Donovan, Hoover, the chief of Naval intelligence, an Army general named Leslie Groves—knew about it. Vice President Henry Wallace was not in that circle.
And to aid with the second problem, he established the Office of Coordinator of Information, which, as part of its agents’ secret work in intelligence, counterintelligence, sabotage, and other shadowy operations, would be deeply involved both in the snatching of scientists from the Axis and in the blowing up of their assets that could be used in the development of an atomic bomb.
Donovan flipped through the Dyer file and came to a sheet that caught his interest. “‘Known alloy machining, milling, and extrusion shops in and near Frankfurt’?”
“Another nice list from the professor,” Douglass said. “We were aware of a couple of the major ones, but not that many, and not the scope of their production. There has to be a lot of machinery that the Germans looted and shipped back to put on line.”
“Maybe Doug can take out these facilities with the drones,” Donovan said with raised eyebrows.
Captain Douglass smiled warmly at the thought of his son.
While Peter Stuart “Doug” Douglass Jr. was Captain Douglass’s namesake, the twenty-six-year-old West Point graduate was quite something more. Starting with the fact that he was a triple ace and a newly minted lieutenant colonel in the Army Air Forces.
He also was in England, and caught up with the OSS team involved in the Aphrodite Project, which was trying—key word trying, because so far they had had little luck—to convert B-17s into Torpex-filled drones that, controlled remotely, would attack and blow up German submarine pens and other targets considered highly valuable to the military, such as plants fabricating parts for tanks, attack aircraft, et cetera.
Lieutenant Colonel Douglass believed the drone to be a good idea—anything with the potential to save lives was a good idea—and he had good reason to, professionally and emotionally.
As the commanding officer of the 344th Fighter Group, Eighth United States Air Force, then-Major Douglass had lost 40 percent of his pilots to enemy fire during a bombing mission of German sub pens at St. Lazare. He vowed to do anything he could, when he could, to never allow the risking of the lives of his men in such a reckless way.
That included, one version of the story went, a furious Douglass having gone directly from his shot-up P-38F on the field at Atcham to the Eighth Air Force Headquarters building there, finding the planning and training officer who had laid out the mission—and giving the REMF a bloody nose to make his point known, not to mention remembered.
It wasn’t the smartest of moves, Major Douglass had been the first to admit, but what the hell were they going to do to a graduate of Hudson High who had against all odds managed to actually take out a sub on the mission and bring back 60 percent of his force?
Worst case?
Send the poor bastard back out in his Lockheed Lightning?
The one with its nose painted with ten small Japanese flags (or “meatballs,” each representing the downing of a Japanese airplane), six swastikas (signifying six German aircraft kills), and now a submarine of equal size?
Even the Army’s slow-grinding bureaucratic machinery on rare occasion was capable of exhibiting some wisdom and in this case saw fit to recognize Douglass’s heroism and leadership on the St. Lazare mission by promoting him to lieutenant colonel.
“I know that Doug would certainly welcome the chance to bomb them all,” the deputy director of the OSS replied. “There’s more than a little professional competition with our cousins in the SOE, especially after their saboteurs blew the nitrates plant in Norway last month.”
Norway was a leading producer of deuterium oxide—or “heavy water,” a by-product of the manufacture of fertilizer—one of only two materials (the other being graphite) that scientists found could control (essentially cool) the reactors during nuclear production. The British Special Operations Executive all-Norwegian commando raid at Rjukan had destroyed a critical half ton of heavy water earmarked for the Nazis’ nuclear-development program.
Donovan nodded. “That was such an important facility, they’re rapidly rebuilding it.”