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21 " If you’re careless and disorganized, you lose your ability to see things clearly. "
― Neal Bascomb , The Winter Fortress: The Epic Mission to Sabotage Hitler’s Atomic Bomb
22 " Soon he was assigned to fly the B-17. The four-engine, long-range bomber had an arsenal of machine guns and could take punch after punch and still deliver its bomb load—over ninety-six hundred pounds. Crewed by ten men, the B-17 was known as the Flying Fortress and was a giant in the sky. "
23 " With an ever-increasing number of fast-moving neutrons flinging themselves about, splitting atoms at an exponential rate, scientists could create what was called a chain reaction—and generate enormous quantities of energy. Which prompted the obvious question: To what purpose? "
24 " Within a week of Hahn’s discovery, American physicist J. Robert Oppenheimer sketched a crude bomb on his blackboard. "
25 " Given the aggression shown by Nazi Germany by the end of summer 1939, such a bomb, if it could be built, might be needed in a world on the precipice of war. Plans to obtain it were rapidly put together on both sides. "
26 " Diebner called another meeting of his “Uranium Club.” This time Werner Heisenberg attended. Heisenberg was considered the leading light of German theoretical physics, particularly after Hitler’s rise had forced Albert Einstein and other Jewish physicists to flee the country "
27 " Within days, Tronstad received final confirmation from Skinnarland’s spies that the entire shipment of Vemork’s heavy water—except for a few drums of nearly worthless concentrate—was at the bottom of Lake Tinnsjø. "
28 " By the end, there was only one conclusion to draw: “Germany had no atom bomb and was not likely to have one in any reasonable time. "
29 " By year’s end Diebner had dozens of scientists under his watch across Germany refining the uranium-machine theory and building the first small experimental designs. "
30 " Beside the Columbia River in Washington State, construction had commenced on reactors that used two hundred tons of uranium moderated by twelve hundred tons of graphite. Working with their Canadian ally, the Americans were building a massive heavy water plant at a hydropower station in Trail, British Columbia. At the Los Alamos Ranch School in New Mexico, a small city of physicists was working to build a functioning fission bomb. "
31 " By Heisenberg’s calculations, he was sure to have a self-sustaining reactor if he could only obtain 50 percent more uranium and heavy water. He would get neither. "
32 " In the hills of Tennessee, monumental plants were being built to separate the rare isotope U-235 from U-238 using two different methods. Beside the Columbia River in Washington State, construction had commenced on reactors that used two hundred tons of uranium moderated by twelve hundred tons of graphite. Working with their Canadian ally, the Americans were building a massive heavy water plant at a hydropower station in Trail, British Columbia. At the Los Alamos Ranch School in New Mexico, a small city of physicists was working to build a functioning fission bomb. "
33 " The Uranium Club would require a steady, robust supply of the precious liquid. Unfortunately, the world’s sole producer, Norsk Hydro’s Vemork plant, was far away in an inaccessible valley in Norway, a country whose neutral status in the war made it an unreliable partner. "
34 " Since the Allied thrust into France just over a week before, it had become clear that there would be no invasion to free Norway. His countrymen would have to do it themselves. "
35 " Norsk Hydro wanted to know the purpose of such a large order, but with experiments using heavy water now labeled SH-200, a high-level military secret, the IG Farben representative offered only silence. Not long after, the Norwegians did find out, from Jacques Allier, what that purpose was: the potential development of an atomic bomb. "
36 " There was a danger that the Germans would implement a scorched-earth policy when they withdrew their 350,000 troops, as they had done when leaving Italy. "
37 " Syverstad was at Vemork, and Nielsen in an Oslo hospital, awaiting an appendectomy that his sister, a nurse there, had arranged for him to have on Sunday—the perfect alibi. "
38 " The Norsk Hydro director general offered to give France the heavy water on loan, with no price attached, and told Allier that Norsk Hydro would provide France with first claim on what was produced in the future. "
39 " At long last, on October 5, Tronstad returned to Norway, dropping by parachute into the Vidda. His “long exile” was over. "
40 " By spring 1945, the time for action looked imminent. Nazi Germany was collapsing, and the march into Berlin would soon cut off the head of the snake. Throughout Norway, the sabotage of railway transports, ports, ships, and communication lines was hobbling the Wehrmacht and obstructing the removal of its troops to reinforce their defenses inside Germany itself. "