Japanese A-bomb

[wmaxt]

I just saw a documentary that claimed to have come across data that Japan had an extensive A-bomb project in WWII. As they followed the info they interviewed the scientists (those still living) that worked on it and even evidence that on August 12, 45 on an island off N. Korea a bomb was sucessfuly detonated. There was also an extensive coverup of the information to hide just how close they came.

Your thoughts?

wmaxt

[DaveB.inVa]

Ive heard of it before but seriously doubt the validity of any testing. I do believe the Japanese Army and Navy did have their own individual abomb projects. This is well documented.

The test or development of an actual bomb is pretty far out though. It sounds fishy for a few reasons.

1. The test site is conveniently located in N. Korea where you can't easily test the area.

2. It is just not like the Japanese to ever just "test" anything without involving some human subjects. If the Japanese actually had anything remotely like an atom bomb I'm pretty sure they would've put it to some use, especially considering they had just received two themselves.


Aside from the claims of a few people (David Snell mainly) you can find no real concrete evidence of a Japanese a-bomb. There are however lots of documentation about their research and work to build a bomb, including drawings and warhead development. Ive read that the major problem the Japanese had was not in understanding how the reaction occured or how to initiate the reaction but the engineering on how to initiate the reaction fast enough to achieve a supercritical state. In other words they were unable to find a way to bring the two radioactive pieces together fast enough.