A healthy Lyman Briggs and the first nuclear attack of October 1944

[Hnau]

Inspired by the Sun over Berlin thread by 037771.

I found a suitable POD throughout my searching of Wikipedia that could jumpstart the American nuclear program by fourteen months. On the Lyman James Briggs page you will discover the following information:

Boris Pregel said "It is wonder that after so many blunders and mistakes anything was accomplished at all" Leo Szilard believed that the project was delayed for a least a year by the short-sightedness and sluggishness of the authorities. At the time Briggs was not well and was due to undergo a serious operation. He was unable to take the energetic action that was often needed.

Then:

One of the members of the MAUD Committee, Marcus Oliphant flew to the United States in late August 1941 in an unheated bomber to find out why the United States was ignoring the MAUD Committee's findings. Oliphant said that: "The minutes and reports had been sent to Lyman Briggs, who was the Director of the Uranium Committee, and we were puzzled to receive virtually no comment. I called on Briggs in Washington, only to find out that this inarticulate and unimpressive man had put the reports in his safe and had not shown them to members of his committee. I was amazed and distressed."

And even blatant pro-althist gems such as:

Some argue that many lives might have been saved in the Second World War if the development of the atomic bomb had been started sooner.

Wow! Has no one attempted a timeline on this? So, here's the POD: Lyman James Briggs is healthier, due to some better choices early on in life, and does not need his operation. In June 1940 the Frisch-Peierls memorandum, and a progress report of British nuclear efforts are sent to Briggs. Instead of putting all the information into his safe, he shares the files with the rest of the Uranium Committee. He's no Oliphant, and there is much less information available here than in September 1941, but it is a start.

By December 1940, a full year before OTL, the Office of Scientific Research and Development goes to action. This essentially allows the American nuclear program skip ahead by a year.

There are some differences: the Manhattan Project isn't as productive as there is a full year of working during peace-time, before Pearl Harbor. There doesn't seem to be as much of a hurry. Let's shave a month off for that. And there's the fact that the Tube Alloys program still hasn't made a lot of its discoveries by December 1940. Let's shave a month off for that as well.

In early October, 1944, the Allied air force could arrange for a Little Boy-analogue explosion pretty much anywhere they wanted to in Germany. Berlin? Munich? Hamburg? Where do you think they'd use the bomb?

Fat Man is used on Hiroshima, a week later. There was a third bomb, according to some sources that could have been dropped anywhere from two week to several weeks later. It seems to me that they'd use the bomb on Germany if they hadn't surrendered, according to the "Europe First" strategy. A fourth bomb (if necessary) could be dropped on Japan several weeks after that. However, it will be realized that the United States does not have a steady stream of nuclear explosives, which might hearten resistant Japanese or Nazi regimes...

So, I guess the main question is... on which German city would the United States drop Little Boy? Would it do the trick, in October 1944?

 

[Shimbo]

I think would help, however IMO the biggest help would be Churchill and FDR agreeing to work together on nuclear weapons right from the start (maybe in their meeting at Placentia Bay that produced the Atlantic Charter in August 1941) instead of the misunderstandings that kept them working separately until 1943.

 

[Theodoric]

Well,a nuclear bomb in Germany was not necessary, as the war was going on fine. Nuclear bombs are horrid weapons, only used when there's no other real option. Heck, even if the allied front had problems, they simply would have waitd for the Russians to finish it. Also, don't forget that Germany was already flattened by massed bombing, and that didn't work.

There's big difference between having a bomb, and using it.

 

[MarkA]

I think would help, however IMO the biggest help would be Churchill and FDR agreeing to work together on nuclear weapons right from the start (maybe in their meeting at Placentia Bay that produced the Atlantic Charter in August 1941) instead of the misunderstandings that kept them working separately until 1943.

What is your source for this?

My understanding is that Churchill gave all the British/Commonwealth atomic secrets to the US in 1940/1 simply as an act of good faith. This at the time the US was insisting on the UK selling its assests to them at prices many orders of magnitude below their real value.

 

[Shimbo]

What is your source for this?

My understanding is that Churchill gave all the British/Commonwealth atomic secrets to the US in 1940/1 simply as an act of good faith. This at the time the US was insisting on the UK selling its assests to them at prices many orders of magnitude below their real value.

The British gave the US the MAUD report in 1941. However the British continued with their own project, Tube Alloys, until 1943 when it was subsumed into the Manhattan Project.

See:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/MAUD_Committee
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tube_Alloys
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Quebec_Agreement

 

[Hnau]

Well,a nuclear bomb in Germany was not necessary, as the war was going on fine. Nuclear bombs are horrid weapons, only used when there's no other real option. Heck, even if the allied front had problems, they simply would have waitd for the Russians to finish it. Also, don't forget that Germany was already flattened by massed bombing, and that didn't work.

Yeah but did they think that way in the height of World War Two? Seems to me like they were pulling out all the stops to take down Germany as much as possible, but Japan would probably have a higher priority, as we hadn't landed any troops there yet.

 

[Shimbo]

Yeah but did they think that way in the height of World War Two? Seems to me like they were pulling out all the stops to take down Germany as much as possible, but Japan would probably have a higher priority, as we hadn't landed any troops there yet.

I could see that if they were getting very close to a nuclear weapon by early 1944 (e.g. it was just a matter of time, all the technical/theoretical issues had been resolved), then the Western Allies would have cancelled D-Day (OTL June 1944) and then used the bomb on Germany and Japan in October 1944 in order to end the war.

The arguments in favour would be the same ones used in OTL to justify the nuclear attacks on Japan, e.g saving allied casualties.

 

[alt_historian]

bumpage!

 

[Markus]

So, I guess the main question is... on which German city would the United States drop Little Boy? Would it do the trick, in October 1944?

Question 1: Best drop it on Berlin, because...
Question 2: ...if you don´t kill Hitler, the bomb has been wasted.