3 - The War and the Bomb
In as early January 1940 the team from Birmingham
put their research to Sir Henry Tizard. Interesting ly the scientists were Rudolf
Peierls and Otto Robert Frisch, two physicists who were refugees from Nazi
Germany working at the University of Birmingham under the direction of Mark
Oliphant. As early as April 1939, an approach had been by the team at Cambridge
made concerning the feasilibity of an Atomic bomb. They approached Sir Kenneth
Pickthorn, the local Member of Parliament, who took their concerns to the
Secretary of the Committee for Imperial Defence, Major General Hastings Ismay.
Ismay in turn asked Sir Henry Tizard for an opinion. Like many scientists,
Tizard was sceptical of the likelihood of an atomic bomb being developed,
reckoning the odds of success at 100,000 to 1
Even at such long odds, the danger was sufficiently
great to be taken seriously, but Tizard's Committee for the Scientific Survey
of Air Warfare (CSSAW) was directed to continue the research into the
feasibility of atomic bombs.
The
French connection
Meanwhile the French (with allied cooperation)
had succeeded in removing the only source of heavy water (a key component in
the production of enriched Uranium 235) from Norway due to fears that it may be
captured by the Germans.
They also heard from Jacques Allier of the French
Deuxieme Bureau, who had been involved in the removal of the entire
stock of heavy water from Norway. He told them of the interest the Germans had shown
in the heavy water, and in the activity of the French researchers in Paris.
Because of the key element (no pun) in this being Uranium, immediate action was
taken: the Ministry of Economic Warfare was asked to secure stocks of uranium
oxide in danger of being captured by the Germans.
At the time the only source of Uranium was a mine
in the Belgian Congo. Lord Chartfield, Minister for Coordination of Defence
checked with the Treasury and Foreign Office, and found that the Belgian Congo
uranium was owned by the Union Minière du Haut Katanga company, whose
British vice president, Lord Stonehaven, arranged a meeting with the president
of the company, Edgar Sengier. Since Union Minière management were
friendly towards Britain, it was not considered worthwhile to immediately
acquire the uranium
