Sunday, December 28, 2014

U-234

I ran across a little clarification tonight. On its trip from Nazi Germany to Imperial Japan U-234 was carrying technical drawings, templates and forms and a couple of engineers, not broken-down ME262 jets. It also had 560kg of uranium oxide, which no doubt the Japanese scientists were eager to get ahold of (when they heard of Hiroshima they knew exactly what had happened because they were trying to build the same kind of weapon).

It makes more sense to provide the drawings--though they'd have been unbeatable while they lasted the jets themselves wouldn't have lasted long before they needed maintenance. Of course the Japanese weren't going to have the time to tool up a new factory.

1 comment:

Grandma Bee said...

See "Battleground Atlantic" by Richard N Billings for details of Japanese cargo in submarines. U-234 had uranium for dirty bombs, to be launched against Pacific Coast cities or the Pananma Canal; and other I-boats designed for cargo had, or were to have, vital war materiel and technological info. ULTRA was reading communiques and tracked these subs, nailing them either in the Atlantic (I-52) or in Asia (I-29 Balintang Channel, for example).