Critical Mass: How Nazi Germany Surrendered Enriched Uranium for the United States Atomic Bomb [Paperback]

On May 19, 1945, eleven days after the surrender of Nazi Germany in Europe, a U-boat was escorted into Portsmouth Naval Yard, New Hampshire. News reporters covering the surrender of U-234 were ordered, contrary to all previous and later U-boat surrender procedures, to keep their distance from crew members and passengers of U-234, on threat of being shot by the attending Marine guards. Why the tight security? Buried in the nose of the specially-built mammoth boat, sealed in cylinders “lined with gold,” was 1,120 pounds of enriched uranium labeled “U235”the fissile material from which atom bombs are made.Critical Massdocuments how these Nazi bomb components were then used by the Manhattan Project to complete both the uranium bomb dropped on Hiroshima and the plutonium bomb dropped on Nagasaki, to defeat the Japanese and win World War Two and global domination in the modern age.

“Compelling . . . as gripping as good fiction. Hydrick's book is important history well written." —Tony Hillerman,New York TimesBest Selling author, Retired Journalism Professor, Decorated Hero of D-Day and the Italian Front

“This is a fascinating book . . . with excellent primary source research." —Joe Sills, Former United Nations spokesperson

“The assertion inCritical Massthat the uranium surrendered to U.S. authorities onboard the German submarine U-234 was enriched U-235 [enriched uranium] is certainly a credible conclusion in view of the storage, containment and prevailing shipping conditions." —Dr. Gary Sandquist, Instructor, Nuclear Engineering, United States Military Academy, West Point

"Critical Massbrings to the surface defining new information, long hidden within archives, about the birth of the Atomic Bomb . . . . Should be in every library." —D. Ray Smith Oak Ridge Y-12 (uranium enrichment facility) Historian