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During WWII the United States rushed to create an Atomic bomb in the belief that Nazi Germany was working on such a weapon. Various stories have emerged on just how far the Nazi's actually got in the development of this weapon, but the fact is that German scientists did apply for war time patents on actual nuclear weapons. Most of these were sub-critical mass devices that relied on implosive devices to create high energy neutrons to simulate a critical mass condition to cause a nuclear explosion in a sub-critical mass of fissionable material. These patents were secreted out of Germany by US forces and kept secret for many years. They were used in the development of battlefield tactical nuclear weapons by the US military.

What is not common knowledge is that Japan was also working on Atomic weapons during the war, but it was only toward the end of the conflict that serious attention was made toward such research. Ironically the only place on the Japanese home islands that contain any concentrations of Uranium were one small mine at Ishikawite, Fukashima prefecture.

There is some evidence that shortly after the bombing of Hiroshima the Japanese may have actually successfully tested a sub-critical mass Atomic bomb.

https://sites.google.com/site/naziabomb/home/japan-s-a-bomb-project
http://northerntruthseeker.blogspot.com/2012/04/more-real-history-revealed-japans.html


What a bit of history to base an Astro time travel fan fiction on!

hmy: I thought that critical mass was required to make an atomic explosion!

So did I. It seems what is really required is a supply of high energy (fast moving) neutrons. In a critical mass (spherical shape) of enriched fissionable material this condition is self generating, but there are other ways to do this also. If this were not possible, atomic weapons of less than 20 kilo tons would not be possible.

Learn something new every day.

You never know. Japan today could have a working nuclear weapon in less than 12 months by some estimates.