CHAPTER TWELVE
Nuclear, Biological and Chemical Weapons When war broke out in 1939, it was feared that poison gas would be used even more widely than it had been in World War I. To that fear was added the threat of biological agents, while physicists were struggling with the possibility of harnessing nuclear fission to produce a bomb the likes of which had never been seen.
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n December 1938, German physicists Otto Hahn and Frit/ Strassman demonstrated the fission (splitting) of the uranium atom. This caused a stir in the scientific community, and ripples spread outside it, even as far as the HWA, to which several scientists wrote, suggesting that the phenomenon might conceivably be used in a bomb. The notion made slow progress, but by late 1939 a steering committee had Above: The Heinkel He 177A-5; an He 177 was modified to carry the never-completed German atom bomb. Left: A US serviceman is confronted by massed ranks of German mustard gas shells afterthe war.
been formed. It had just one item on its agenda: could a nuclear reactor to produce fissionable material be built? As a rider, subsidiary questions were posed about costs and timescale. A research programme was drawn up, and six university-based projects were established. By 1941, it had become clear that the notion was feasible, and the steering committee reported to HWA that a reactor could and should be built, and that it should use as its moderator, deutrium, also known as 'heavy water'. The entire project went downhill from there, but it would be a long while before that was to become obvious. By 1942, five different laboratories were experimenting with atomic piles, each one with a different theory of how 39