Quote:
Originally Posted by Tom Houlihan
Sarge, you're right, this is getting OT, but I have to ask. You're kidding about the number of the U-Boot, right??? The U-234?? Carrying uranium? That would have to be one of the biggest ironies of the entire war, since the atomic number of Uranium is, well, 234!!!
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Tom, sarge and Jim, the U-boat was U-234, but it was carrying 560kgs of U-235, not U-234! When the U-234 surrendered to the Americans, they found all the containers marked U-235 on board. When loading the U-boat before departure, one of the Kriegsmarine crew thought that the containers were supposed to be for U-235, but for some reason or other, he assumed U-235 was unavailable, so their boat, U-234 had to transport them instead. Little did he realize that the containers were actually carrying uranium-235! Uranium 235 was the active ingredient in the second atomic bomb, a uranium bomb, called Little Boy, which hit Hiroshima. The first bomb, known as 'the gadget' or Trinity, as it was detonated at the Trinity site in New Mexico, and the third bomb, Fat Man, which hit Nagasaki, were plutonium bombs. The active ingredient of these is Plutonium 239 (Pu-239). This is made from U-238 absorbing one neutron to form Pu-239!
