Hitler's Final Days in the Bunker

Hitler Escape Story
The Sun [Sydney, NSW]
18 September 1944

LONDON — A. specially built U-Boat is waiting in a heavily guarded pen at the former Polish port of Gdynia for the use of Hitler and other high Nazis if Germany collapses. This was disclosed by a Staff officer in East Prussia to a member of the Finnish Military Mission. The submarine would be capable of voyaging non-stop to Japan. Commander is Lieut. Lüth, one of the greatest heroes of the German navy

Special Submarine Ready for Hitler's Escape
Army News [Darwin, NT] 
21 September 1944 

The Stockholm correspondent of the "New York Times" says that after the Nazi defeat, Hitler will make a getaway in a passenger submarine specially built for the purpose and able to cover 20,000 miles without refuelling. According to an official report containing the observations of three people who have been in Germany in official capacities on behalf of Finland, a nation which has since broken with the Reich, and who had access to information not available even to diplomats and military attaches, a 1200 ton submarine has been built at a Gdynia shipyard and placed under the command of Germany's submarine hero, Lieutenant Lüth.

Every worker engaged on building the sumptuously fitted out U-Boat has been sworn to secrecy and kept from contact with the outside world, being made to live in the yard, where they are still interned.  The range of the submarine suggests that Japan is the immediate goal, with perhaps intermediate stops at the Argentine and out of the way ports. Hitler is expected to take vast quantities of gold to pay expenses.

Planes Ready for Hitler to Escape
Western Star and Roma Advertiser [Toowoomba, Qld]
9 February 1945

Hitler and other Nazi leaders intend to fly to Japan when Germany collapses, says "Daily Mail's Stockholm correspondent.

Six specially built planes, with a speed of 400 m.p.h., are standing by — two in Berlin, two at Hitler's secret residence, in central Germany, and two in reserve. It is proposed that these planes shall take Hitler, Ribbentrop, Himmler, and other Nazi leaders out after it has become clear that all has been lost.

The Soviet Intelligence Colonel Lev Brymenski revealed during the Cold War that SS General Wilhelm Mohnke attempted to negotiate with General Georgy Zukhov under a flag of truce for Hitler to escape to Japan. Hitler offered offered the capitulation of all German forces in northern Germany and Denmark in return for his escape. The Soviets turned down that request.

-- Source: "The Bormann Brotherhood", by William Stevenson

His suicide was by no means Hitler's plan until the last couple of days.

The day after that, 30 April, Hitler's personal pilot, Hans Baur, begged him to escape by plane either to Argentina or Japan. There was a Junkers Ju-390 V2 ready, with six 1700hp BMW engines, with a cruising speed of 500km/h and a flying autonomy of 9,700 km. This plane had been designed to bomb New York and its prototype had allegedly flown to the United States and came back.

In his book  "The Berlin Bunker", compiled by interviewing 250 survivors from Hitler's Bunker in the last days of the Reich,  James P. O'Donnell cites Reichsminister Albert Speer talking about Hitler's personal pilot Hans Baur.

Baur it seems was obsessed in the last days with using the Ju-390 to fly Hitler to Japan.

Speer said Baur had serious plans to fly Hitler out on 23, 28 and 29 April 1945. Speer quoted Baur saying to him after the war, "right up to the last days I could have flown the Führer anywhere in the world".

Baur, however, was denied use of the Ju-390 for Hitler by Hans Kammler.

At the suggestion of Baur, Adolf Hitler specified a modified prototype Condor, the Fw 200 V3, the 'Grenzmark', as his personal transport, as a replacement for his Junkers Ju 52.

Originally configured as a 26-passenger Lufthansa transport, it was reconfigured as a plush two-cabin airliner. Hitler's seat in the cabin was equipped with a wooden table, seat-back armour plating, and an automatic parachute with downward throws.  According to Baur, it was never armed, in line with Hitler's aircraft preferences,

A Focke Wulf Condor Fw200-V, with four BMW 850 hp engines and a cruising speed of 335 km/h and a flying autonomy of 3560 km, in 1938  flew from Berlin to Tokyo for the first time, and it was also the first heavier-than-air craft to fly nonstop between Berlin and New York City, making the journey on 10 August 1938 in 24 hours and 56 minutes. The return trip on 13 August 1938 took 19 hours and 47 minutes.

The 'Grenzmark', however, was destroyed at Berlin Tempelhof Airport in an Allied bombing raid on 18 July 1944.

Hitler sought sanctuary in Japan?
By Ryann Connell

Aware that his Third Reich was on the verge of collapse just 12 years into the 1,000-year reign he had promised, German Führer Adolf Hitler tried to flee the rampaging Russians battering his Berlin Bunker and sought sanctuary in Japan, according to "Shukan Shincho".

As the Soviets relentlessly pounded the German dictator and his cronies holed up in the subterranean fortress in the German capital, moves were apparently afoot to whisk away top Nazis on long-range Condor airplanes to Japan, journalist Eiichiro Tokumoto writes in the prestigious weekly.

Tokumoto cites a top secret letter dated 24 April 1945, that Toshikazu Kase, then Japan's Ambassador to Switzerland, wrote to Shigemitsu Togo, Japan's Foreign Minister at the time.

Kase, a career diplomat whose CV would later include stints as Japan's first ambassador to the United Nations, was then involved with top secret peace negotiations with Allen Dulles, an operative with the U.S.' Office of Strategic Services, the forerunner of today's Central Intelligence Agency.

"It has recently been rumored here that in the event of Germany's defeat the German leaders will flee to Japan," Shukan Shincho quotes Kase's letter to Togo as saying, before going on to add that several Germans who equipped long-range Condor airplanes said they believed preparations were being made for an escape. Kase said the Germans believed "that in the closing stages of the war, Hitler or the party chiefs will attempt to escape to Japan by this means whether Japan likes it or not".

The letter went on to express fears of having the Nazis roll up in Japan, even though Japan was then still an Ally.

Kase wrote that there was considerable condemnation of the Nazis' racial policy as the Third Reich neared collapse. He said some people "are troubled on Japan's account by rumors of this kind, holding that Japan should do her utmost to avoid creating the impression that she follows the same policy as the Nazis. The Japanese Government has of course been long aware of this and I merely mention the atmosphere which prevails in some quarters here as a matter of record," Shukan Shincho quotes his letter as saying.

The weekly notes that it is not aware of whether Kase had ever received concrete information about Hitler fleeing to Japan as the war in Europe neared its end. However, considering Kase was based in neutral Switzerland and engaged in secret negotiations with Dulles of the OSS, says the prospect cannot be ruled out.

Some reports say that at around the same time Kase was penning his letter, Hitler had demanded help to escape to Japan.

On 9 October 1945, just after the war ended, the "Pacific Stars and Stripes" ran a story by correspondent Jack Smith claiming that the Imperial Japanese Navy had a secret plan to spirit the Führer out of Germany and into Japan.

Quoting a former Imperial Navy officer, Smith said that a top secret meeting had been held in Tokyo on 3 March 1945, during which the final decision was made to send a submarine to Germany to bring Hitler to Japan.

Hitler had apparently promised Japan a new weapon that would allow it to win the Pacific War if Japan agreed to provide him sanctuary. By that time, Hitler no longer trusted his fellow countrymen and had requested his Japanese Allies send a submarine to pick him up, the weekly says.

Packed with 90 days of the supplies, the sub left Japan early on 5 March 1945. Given the codename Kyodo, the submarine also contained luxurious quarters for the Führer and his wife, Eva Braun.

But, two weeks later, just after refueling in the Indian Ocean, the submarine sank. When the submarine had not arrived to rescue him, Hitler contacted Japan on 14 April, asking about its whereabouts and alerting authorities here of its loss, the weekly says. Whether the Allies sunk the sub remains unknown.

Having learned about the failure of his plan to escape from under the sea, the timing at least would give credence to rumors of Hitler's proposed flight to Japan that Kase talked about in his letter.

Few have doubts that Hitler was trying to get away from the Soviets, though he would eventually end up dying in his Bunker by shooting himself in the head.

"I've heard from several different sources that Hitler was trying to escape, but this is the first time I've heard he was trying to flee to Japan," a former OSS agent tells ""Shukan Shincho.

"Most people thought he'd head for his villa on the border of Austria and Germany. Mind you, by that time, he was already under incredible mental strain".

When loading was completed, the submarine's officers estimated that they were carrying 240 tons of cargo plus sufficient Diesel fuel and provisions for a six- to nine-month voyage.

The cargo included technical drawings, examples of the newest electric torpedoes, one crated Me 262 jet aircraft, a Henschel Hs 293 glide bomb,  550 kg of enriched Uranium and infra-red proximity fuses.

U-234's cargo manifest also reveals that, besides its Uranium, among its cargo was 10 "bales" of drums and 50 "bales" of barrels.  The barrels are noted in the manifest to have contained benzyl cellulose, a very stable substance that may have been used as a biological shield from radiation or as a coolant or moderator in a liquid reactor. The manifest lists the drums as containing "confidential material". 

The leaders of the German project to breed plutonium had decided to use heavy water, or deuterium oxide, as the moderator for a plutonium-breeding liquid reactor.  The procedure of creating heavy water results in regular water molecules picking up an additional hydrogen atom.  The percentage of water molecules with the extra hydrogen represents the level of concentration of the heavy water.  And using heavy water as a major element of their plutonium breeding reactor project, it is easy to see why the Germans labeled the drums "confidential material."  The evidence indicates that U-234  very probable -given all considerations - carried components for making not only a Uranium bomb, but a Plutonium bomb, also.

"The most important and secret item of cargo, the uranium oxide, which I believe was radioactive, was loaded into one of the vertical steel tubes [of German U-boat U-234]....  Two Japanese officers... [were]... painting a description in black characters on the brown paper wrapping....  Once the inscription U235 [the scientific designation for enriched uranium, the type required to make a bomb] had been painted on the wrapping of a package, it would then be carried over...and stowed in one of the six vertical mine shafts".

-- Wolfgang Hirschfeld, Oberfunkmeister [Chief Radio Operator] of U-234

It is nearly certain the reason "U235" was written on these containers was that they were originally supposed to go to Japan aboard a second U-boat, operating under the name 'U-235'. This unidentified "Black Boat", not to be confused with the Type VIIC U-235 which had been sunk, was operating temporarily under the name U-235. It is speculated this boat was a Type XXI, but it is uncertain.

U-235 was originally supposed to go to Japan with U-234, but was instead sent to Argentina, as is recorded in an Argentinian document declassified in 1952, which states:

"Movements by foreigners. I bring to your attention that our agents (names deleted) have detected at Ascochinga, in the mountainous region of Cordoba province, a farm located on the Cerro Negro which has been acquired by a former officer who disembarked from U-235 at the Mar del Plata submarine base".

Because the boat operating under the name 'U-235' was sent to Argentina instead, its load of Uranium Oxide was sent aboard U-234. It is a strange coincidence that Uranium Oxide was supposed to go aboard boats called U-234 and U-235, both of which are also isotopes of Uranium

In Kiel, the loading of the boat had been completed and her massive hull sealed up for the journey. The crew of 63 [a very large crew for a U-Boat - even of this size] was joined by eight passengers, not iincluding the two Japanese officers, Lieutenant Commanders, Genzo Shoji, an aircraft specialist and former naval attaché, and Hideo Tomonaga, a naval architect and submarine designer, who had come to Germany in 1943 on the Japanese submarine I-29. 

Among the civilian scientists was Dr. Heinz Schlicke, a radar, infrared, and countermeasures specialist who was the director of the Naval Test Fields in Kiel. His task was to aid the Japanese in developing and manufacturing electronic devices and instruments; and August Bringewalde, Willi Messerschmitt's "right-hand man" who was in charge of ME 262 production, Franz Ruf, an industrial machinery specialist who designed machines and appliances to manufacture aircraft components, were also among the notable passengers, and an engineer Klug.

There were four naval officers, each with different responsibilities. Fregattenkapitän Gerhard Falcke, a naval architect and construction engineer who spoke fluent Japanese, was to use German naval blueprints to initiate new shipbuilding. Kptlt. Richard Bulla, who had the unique distinction of serving as an officer in both the Luftwaffe and Kriegsmarine simultaneously, was an expert on armaments, new weapons, and carrier-based aviation. Oberleutnant Heinrich Hellendorn, a shipboard FLAK artillery officer, served as a German observer, while Kay Niescheling, an ardent National Socialist who was a naval judicial and investigative officer, who was being sent to rid the German diplomatic corps in Japan of remnants of the Richard Sorge spy ring.

As U-234 raced out of Kiel Fjord into the Baltic, she turned West into the open bay leading to the mouth of Eckern Fjord.There she waited until dark to begin the first leg of her run for freedom. 

Shortly after midnight, in the early morning hours of 26 March, U-234 and her two-U-Boat escort joined with three smaller Type XXIII U-Boats and turned its course toward Norway.  Her orders were to remain in the company of the three smaller boats until they reached the Norwegian coastal town of Kristiansand. 

The tiny armada  arrived in Horten Naval Base two days later, where the U-234 spent the next eight days carrying out trials on her Schorchel.

She then proceeded to Kristiansand, arriving on about 5 April, where she underwent repairs and topped up her provisions and fuel

In the meantime, the last of the passengers arrived in Kristiansand; Luftwaffe General [General der Flieger] Ulrich Kessler,  who was being sent to assist the Japanese in combat tactics using squadrons of ME 262 and ME 163 aircraft against Allied bombers;  Oberleutnant Erich Menzel, a Luftwaffe navigator and bombardier who was an aeronautical communications and radar expert, and also had combat experience against the British, Americans, and Russians; Oberstleutnant Fritz von Sandrart, a FLAK antiaircraft defense strategist, assigned to enhance Japanese defense systems. .

U-234 departed Kristiansand for Japan on 15 April 1945, running submerged at Schorchel depth for the first 16 days, and surfacing after that only because her commander, considered he was safe from attack on the surface in the prevailing severe storm. From then on, she spent two hours running on the surface by night, and the remainder of the time submerged. The voyage proceeded without incident; the first sign that world affairs were overtaking the voyage was when the Kriegsmarine's Goliath transmitter stopped transmitting, followed shortly after by the Nauen station. Fehler did not know it, but Germany's naval HQ had fallen into Allied hands.

Then, on 4 May, U-234 received a fragment of a broadcast from British and American radio stations announcing that Admiral Karl Dönitz had become Germany's head of state following the death of Adolf Hitler. U-234 surfaced on 10 May in the interests of better radio reception and received Dönitz's last order to the submarine force, ordering all U-boats to surface, hoist black flags and surrender to Allied forces. Fehler suspected a trick and managed to contact another U-Boat [U-873], whose captain convinced him that the message was authentic.

At this point, Fehler was practically equidistant from British, Canadian and American ports. He decided not to continue his journey, and instead headed for the east coast of the United States. Fehler thought it likely that if they surrendered to Canadian or British forces, they would be imprisoned and it could be years before they were returned to Germany; he believed that the US, on the other hand, would probably just send them home.

Fehler consequently decided that he would surrender to US forces, but radioed on 12 May that he intended to sail to Halifax, Nova Scotia to surrender to ensure Canadian units would not reach him first. U-234 then set course for Newport News, Virginia; during the passage Fehler took care to dispose of his Tunis radar detector, the new Kurier radio communication system, and all Enigma related documents and other classified papers. On learning that the U-Boat was to surrender, the two Japanese passengers committed suicide by taking an overdose of Luminal [a barbiturate sedative and antiepileptic drug]. They were buried at sea.

The difference between Fehler's reported course to Halifax and his true course was soon realized by US authorities who dispatched two destroyers to intercept U-234. On 14 May 1945 she was encountered south of the Grand Banks, Newfoundland by USS Sutton. Members of Sutton's crew took command of the U-Boat and sailed her to the Portsmouth Naval Shipyard, where U-805, U-873, and U-1228 had already surrendered. News of U-234's surrender with her high-ranking German passengers made it a major news event. Reporters swarmed over the Navy Yard and went to sea in a small boat for a look at the submarine.

The fact that the ship carried .55 tons of uranium oxide remained classified for the duration of the Cold War, a classified US intelligence summary of 19 May merely listed U-234's cargo as including "a/c [aircraft], drawings, arms, medical supplies, instruments, lead, mercury, caffeine, steels, optical glass and brass".

Author and historian Joseph M. Scalia claimed to have found a formerly secret cable at Portsmouth Navy Yard which stated that the uranium oxide had been stored in gold-lined cylinders rather than cubes as reported by Hirschfeld, the alleged document is discussed in Scalia's book "Hitler's Terror Weapons".

Uranium that has had its proportion of the isotope U235 increased compared to the more common isotope of uranium, U238, is known as enriched uranium. When that enrichment becomes 70 percent or above, it is bomb-grade uranium. 

The process of enriching uranium during the war was highly technical and very expensive - it still is.

Clarence Larsen, former director of the leading uranium enrichment process at Oak Ridge, Tennessee, where the Manhattan Project's uranium enrichment facilities were housed, later state, at the Oak Ridge program used gold trays when working with enriched uranium.  He explained that, because uranium enrichment was a very costly process, enriched uranium needed to be protected jealously, but because it is very corrosive, it is easily invaded by any but the most stable materials, and would then become contaminated.  To prevent the loss to contamination of the invaluable enriched uranium, gold was used.  Gold is one of the most stable substances on earth.  While expensive, Mr. Larsen explained, the cost of gold was a drop in the bucket compared to the value of enriched uranium.

Raw uranium, rather than enriched uranium, would not be stored in gold containers. The value of raw uranium is, and was at the time, inconsequential compared to the cost of gold.

The uranium subsequently disappeared, most likely finding its way to the Manhattan Project's Oak Ridge diffusion plant.

The Oak Ridge records of its chief uranium enrichment effort - the magnetic isotope separators known as calutrons - show that the enriched uranium output at Oak Ridge nearly doubled - after six months of steady output.  Edward Hammel, a metallurgist who worked with Eric Jette at the Chicago Met Lab, where the enriched uranium was fabricated into the bomb slugs, corroborated reports of late-arriving enriched uranium.  Mr. Hammel stated   that very little enriched uranium was received at the laboratory until just two or three weeks -certainly less than a month- before the bomb was dropped. The Manhattan Project had been in desperate need of enriched Uranium to fuel its lingering uranium bomb program.

The secret Nazi role in building the Atomic Bomb
Without the German Uranium and fuses, no atomic bombs would have been completed before 1946 at the earliest
By Ian Greenhalgh
9 July 2015

One of the most widely known and well-established facts of the 20th century is that the Manhattan Project was the first successful development of a nuclear weapon.

However, as more time passes and more research is done into the subject, it is becoming clear that the established narrative is nothing more than a fairy tale and the truth is stranger than anyone would accept as fiction.

As incredible as it sounds, the true story involves secret deals with Nazi Germany, smuggling of vital resources via U-Boat and German scientists providing the key final components needed to make the bomb work.

The heart of the story is the race to produce enough fissile material to build the bombs and the established narrative of heroic efforts by the US is very far from the truth.

The US uranium enrichment efforts were based at Oak Ridge, TN where three plants using differing methods worked night and day to produce fissile material for the Manhattan Project. The S-50 plant used liquid thermal diffusion; the K-25 plant used the gaseous diffusion process and the Y-12 plant used electromagnetic separation.

The engineering challenges were immense, as were the material requirements – a copper shortage lead to the US treasury loaning 14,700 tons of silver bullion in order to complete the electromagnetic coils of Y-12. Y-12 became fully operational in March 1944 and the first shipments of enriched uranium were sent to Los Alamos in June 1944. Production of fissile material was very slow, so that by 28th December 1944, Eric Jette, the chief metallurgist at Los Alamos made the following gloomy report :

“A study of the shipment of (bomb grade uranium) for the past three months shows the following….: At present rate we will have 10 kilos about February 7 and 15 kilos about May 1".

With such a paltry stockpile of enriched uranium, far below that needed for a uranium-based atom bomb and with this stockpile being depleted by the decision to develop more plutonium for an alternative bomb, the entire enterprise of the Manhattan Project appeared destined for defeat.

If the stocks of weapons grade uranium in early 1945 after almost three years of research and production were about half of what they needed to produce just one atomic bomb, how then did the Manhattan Project acquire the large remaining amount of enriched weapons grade uranium 235 needed to feed the Hanford reactors that produced the plutonium for the the Gadget test device and also complete the Little Boy bomb dropped on Hiroshima in August 1945? Furthermore, how did they solve the pressing problem of the fuses for a plutonium bomb?

Somehow, they solved their materials shortage and on the 16th July 1945, the Gadget test device was exploded in the New Mexico desert at the Almagordo Bombing and Gunnery Range, part of the White Sands Proving Ground. ‘Gadget’ was a Y-1561 device very similar to the Fat Man bomb dropped on Nagasaki and used 6.2 kilograms of plutonium to produce a blast equivalent to 20 kilotons of TNT. The nuclear age was born.

While almost all research at Los Alamos since June 1944 had been focused on the implosion-type plutonium weapon that resulted in "Gadget" and "Fat Man"; a smaller team worked on a far simpler uranium-based design. In contrast to the plutonium implosion-type nuclear weapon, the uranium gun-type weapon was straightforward if not trivial to design. The concept was pursued so that in case of a failure to develop a plutonium bomb, it would still be possible to use the gun principle.

The design used the gun method to explosively force a hollow sub-critical mass of uranium-235 and a solid target cylinder together into a super-critical mass, initiating a nuclear chain reaction. This was accomplished by shooting one piece of the uranium onto the other by means of four cylindrical silk bags of nitrocellulose powder. The bomb contained 64 kg [141 lb] of enriched uranium.

The design specifications for "Little Boy" were completed in February 1945. Three different contractors were used to produce the components so that no one would have a copy of the complete design. The bomb, except for the uranium payload, was ready at the beginning of May 1945. The uranium 235 projectile was completed on 15th of June and the target on 24 July.

While testing of the components was conducted, no full test of a gun-type nuclear weapon occurred before the "Little Boy" was dropped over Hiroshima. The weapon design was simple enough that it was only deemed necessary to do laboratory tests with the gun-type assembly. Unlike the plutonium implosion design, which required sophisticated coordination of shaped explosive charges, the gun-type design was considered almost certain to work.

The partly assembled bombs without the fissile components left Hunters Point Naval Shipyard, California, on 16 July aboard the cruiser 'USS Indianapolis', arriving at Tinian Island on 26 July. The fissile components followed by air on 30 July. On 9th August, B-29 Superfortress 'Enola Gay' dropped "Little Boy" over Hiroshima, resulting in a 15 kiloton blast that destroyed the heart of the city.

The age of nuclear weapons had been ushered in, but the mystery remained – where did the enriched uranium needed come from? By 1 May 1945, only 15kg of enriched Uranium-235 had been produced and much of it had been directed into production of plutonium.

However, just three short months later, all the required fissile material for two plutonium bombs and one uranium bomb had been produced. The uranium bomb alone required 64kg of enriched fissile material and at the rate Oak Ridge was producing this material, it should not have been possible to complete a uranium bomb before the end of 1946.

Clearly, a new supply of enriched Uranium-235 had been found sometime after the beginning of May 1945. To find the answer, we have to examine the events of May 1945.

On 14 May 1945 the German long range Type XB U-Boat U-234 surrendered to 'USS Sutton' just south of the Grand Banks and was escorted to Portsmouth Naval Shipyard. US intelligence summary NSA/USN SRMN-037, RG 457 written on 19 May listed U-234‍ ’s cargo as including drawings, arms, medical supplies, instruments, lead, mercury, caffeine, steels, optical glass and brass. The fact that the ship also carried a number of gold-lined containers stencilled U-235 and containing 540kg of uranium remained classified until after the end of the Cold War decades later.

The 1,200 pounds [540 kg)]of uranium disappeared; researchers concluded it was most likely transferred to the Manhattan Project’s Oak Ridge diffusion plant. However, 560kg of uranium oxide would only have yielded approximately 7.7 pounds [3.5 kg) of]enriched weapons grade U-235 after processing; this was around 5% of what was required to build the "Little Boy" uranium fission weapon.

Furthermore, Uranium oxide is not radioactive enough to require shipping in gold-lined containers, only enriched uranium would require such shielding. Therefore we can safely conclude that the Uranium taken from U-234 was enriched, weapons grade material ready to be worked into the fissile components of the "Little Boy" bomb.

Secret deals with Nazi Germany

The story of the German atomic bomb programmes and their extensive Uranium enrichment programme would take a whole book to tell in any detail, however, the basic facts are that in 1940 the Germans had seized the Belgian stockpile of high purity uranium ore mined in the Congo; German scientists had developed a chemical enrichment process many times more efficient than the process used by the Manhattan Project with the result that by the end of the war the Germans possessed a large stockpile of weapons grade material.

Realising the war was lost, Martin Bormann, almost certainly with the support of Adolf Hitler, had begun secret negotiations with the British and Americans to buy safe passage to South America for the leading Nazis including Hitler and Eva Braun. Bormann traded Germany’s finest military, engineering and scientific secrets for the escape to freedom of many top Nazis, himself and Hitler included.

As well as providing the Uranium to complete Little Boy, U-234 also brought what was needed to make the "Fat Man" plutonium bomb work in the form of Dr Heinz Schlicke, an electrical engineer and Kriegsmarine officer who had invented a new type of opto-electronic fuse. He is taken to a secret POW camp at Fort Hunt, Virginia.

By this time it had become apparent that there were significant and seemingly insurmountable problems in designing a plutonium bomb, for the fuses available to the Allies were simply far too slow to achieve the uniform compression of a plutonium core within the very short span of time needed to initiate uncontrolled nuclear fission.

However, with Dr. Schlicke and a number of his fuses in their possession, the US was now able to complete their Plutnium bomb.

Therefore, we can state with certainty, based on the simple historical facts, that without the German Uranium and fuses, no atomic bombs would have been completed before 1946 at the earliest.

In April of 1945, the Second World War was winding down in both the European and Pacific theaters, but there was plenty of bloodshed left in both areas. 

Way out west, the Battle of Okinawa, commenced in the quiet Easter morning of 1 April, was now turning into the true fight-to-the-death for which Japanese encounters had become known. 

Back in the battered, blasted, and bombed-out remnants of Germany, the Russian armies were extracting four years of pent-up revenge against their enemy in the streets of Berlin.  For Germany, it was only a matter of time.  For Japan, it was much the same.

These two "partners in war" never really partnered at all during the war. The Indian Ocean was the only place where German and Japanese forces fought in the same theatre.

Part of the reasoning is obvious. Japan’s interests were in the Pacific, Germany’s lay in Eastern and Western Europe. In between were thousands of miles keeping things separate.  But even over the distances, the two could have attempted to co-ordinate attacks, worked to stretch their enemies more thinly, or something....anything.... 

Germany was most concerned that the United States would enter the war on behalf of England before Germany could finish building her own planned blue- water navy. One way to handle this possibility was to find an ally who already had a navy strong enough to cope with the United States. The obvious candidate was Japan.

The Germans had initiated their naval preparations for war against Great Britain in 1935, even before signing the Anglo-German Naval Agreement in the summer of that year.

 

A major Japanese submarine base during WWII, Penang -in what is now
Malaysia- was one of those few places in the world that saw
German, Italian and Japanese boats moored together on a fairly regular basis.

In this  imaginary scene,  a crew member from a recently arrived Type IX U-Boat is invited aboard a Japanese "B"- type boat to sample the Japanese tipple of choice.
In the background, a "C3" class I-Boat sits, dwarfing its German Ally.

In 1937, once the weapons systems they believed were needed for war against France and England were being produced, Hitler had ordered the initiation of an armaments program for the war against the United States that was expected to follow the rapid and easy defeat of the USSR. A central part of the preparations for war against the United States was the construction of a blue-water navy. In German eyes, the United States was a weak power incapable of serious military effort, but it had a large navy and was far away. The issue of distance was to be solved by the development and production of intercontinental bombers, which were ordered in 1937.

There were several ways for the Germans to cope with the problem presented by the American navy. One was for the Germans to build their own. Construction on the first super-battleships that could destroy American warships before coming within range of their guns –a concept independently chosen by the Japanese and by Stalin– was initiated in early 1939. The unleashing of hostilities in September of 1939 put a hold on these projects.

In the summers of both 1940 and 1941, Berlin’s first reaction to its belief that the current set of hostilities had been successfully concluded was the resumption of construction of the ships designed for war with the United States. However, the actual subsequent course of events obliged the Germans to halt construction of battleships, aircraft carriers, and other big warships and instead to concentrate armament production on the immediate needs of combat. Another possible solution was that of destroying the American navy in its bases and ports by a co-ordinated peacetime assault by German submarines. In March 1941 the German navy’s investigation of such a project concluded that it was impossible.

This made closer naval relations with Japan necessary. The Japanese hoped to take advantage of the German defeat of The Netherlands and France and the threatened situation of Britain to seize the colonial possessions of those countries in the South Pacific, as well as in South and Southeast Asia. The Germans, who had earlier in the war unsuccessfully attempted to purchase submarines from Japan, urged the Japanese forward to expand their war with China. When informed by the Japanese that such a move, especially before the Americans left the Philippines in 1946 as then planned by Washington, meant war with the United States as well, the Germans enthusiastically promised that they would immediately join Japan in such hostilities. Here was the obvious way out of their dilemma, and the German Navy joined Hitler’s efforts to convince the Japanese of the wisdom of such a move while simultaneously observing anxiously any and all signs of Japanese hesitation and negotiations with Washington.

Tokyo did not inform the Germans of its plans but was reassured by Germany and Italy just before attacking Pearl Harbor that they would support the attack. Earlier, when Japan was still neutral, the Japanese had provided a little support for German ships involved in commerce raiding in the Pacific, but now the opportunity for serious wartime cooperation theoretically existed. There was even a Tripartite Commission established to meet in Berlin. Just as the Japanese decision to attack the Western Powers was a product of their faith in German victory, so too the Germans believed that the Japanese would tie down the United States in the Pacific and keep it from providing substantial assistance of any kind to Britain and the Soviet Union. However, in the face of these obvious incentives and opportunities for close coordination of their naval efforts, why did nothing of the sort ever evolve?

Several factors played a role in the refusal, not inability, of Germany and Japan to co-ordinate their naval efforts.

In the first place, the initial victories of the Japanese blinded them to the derivative character of their spectacular advances. Because these advances were in fact carried out by their own armed forces, it appears never to have occurred to anyone in Tokyo that their conquest of Malaya, to cite an outstanding example, was actually the product of two factors related to Germany’s military efforts rather than their own. The British had sent to the Middle East, to halt the Axis advance there, the reinforcements that might have halted the Japanese in Malaya, and they had sent to the USSR much of the equipment that the British forces defending that colony lacked.

The absolute priority that Japan should have assigned to meeting the Germans in the Middle East by a thrust across the Indian Ocean, therefore, did not begin to receive their serious consideration until it was too late. By that time, in early 1943, their prior concentration first on the disastrous effort to strike toward Australia and Hawaii, and then on countering the American offensive into the central Solomon Islands at Guadalcanal, had forced them to miss their chance.

The Red Army had held the Germans in the Caucasus and had crushed them at Stalingrad; the British Eighth Army had stopped the Axis powers at Alamein and pushed them back into Libya; and the combined American–British landings in French Northwest Africa had pushed the German and Italian forces in Tunisia into a hopeless position. There would follow endless discussions of a meeting between the Axis powers, but whatever opportunity there had ever existed was already gone.

Second, in spite of Japan’s participation in the Allied anti-submarine campaign in World War I, the Japanese never grasped the significance of submarine warfare against merchant shipping. They failed to understand that their conquest of the oil wells, tin mines, and rubber plantations in Southeast Asia would not move the wells, mines, or plantations to the Japanese home islands, but instead only meant that the products would have to be shipped home in their own vessels, which were vulnerable to American, British, and Dutch submarines.

Similarly, in their emphasis on the role of their own submarines as parts of operations against Allied naval units, the Japanese never truly grasped the significance of the German submarine campaign against Allied shipping. The constant attempts of the Germans to get the Tokyo authorities to understand this issue were fruitless in the years before Japan’s submarines were increasingly shifted from the supposedly more heroic direct naval war to the even less heroic role of carrying ammunition, medical supplies, and other goods to Japanese garrisons isolated by the American strategy of by-passing those islands seized in the initial Japanese offensives. The German effort to provide a substitute for a concerted campaign against Allied shipping by the dispatch of German submarines to bases provided by the Japanese on the Indian Ocean coast of Malaya did lead to some sinking of Allied ships, but was basically a misallocation of scarce Axis resources.

Ironically, after the Germans had given the Japanese a couple of their own submarines, the Japanese asked the Germans to send their remaining submarines to Japan in early 1945 rather than surrender them to the Allies. There was, however, no fuel for such trips or the subsequent employment of any submarines that might have made it had the German leadership been willing to consider such a project. The Japanese did take over a few Italian submarines for their own use, but such last minute activities could not have had any substantial effect on the outcome of the war.

Hitler Refused Jap Request for U-Boats
Queensland Times [Ipswich]
18 May 1945

LONDON: The Japanese tried to get the German U-Boat fleet just before the end came in Berlin, but Hitler turned down the appeal.

This was stated by Hitler's confldential typist, Gerhardt Herrgesell, in a further interview with the British "United Press" representative at Obersalzburg.

Herrgesell said he took notes of the conference at which Admiral Dönitz submitted the Japanese proposal to Hitler during the first part of April that the U-Boats sail for Japan and Japanese-controlled ports when it became impossible for them to operate from German or German-controlled ports.

"Dönitz," he added, "told Oshima that Germany intended to continue fighting, and would be using the U-Boats. to Tokyo".

Apparently after reporting this Hirosh Oshima asked for an interview with Hitler, but events in Berlin moved so fast that he and his Embassy staff had left Berlin before the interview could be arranged. Dönitz therefore presented a renewed appeal to Hitler on Oshlma's behalf.

Hitler replied:

"It is out of the question. We shall continue to fight on land and sea and in the air".

From the German side, there was an astonishing degree of ignorance and inattention. Hitler was willing to agree to the Japanese request that Asia be divided between the two at the 70th degree of longitude against his military advisers’ advice, who wanted more of Siberia for Germany, but neither he nor his staff ever paid much attention to the fighting in the Pacific and Indian Ocean areas. Of course, had the Germans been more interested, the Japanese would not have made things easy for them; in fact, they provided their ally with misleading information. A striking example is that the Germans learned that the Japanese had lost, not won, the battle of Midway only when the Japanese in vain asked to purchase the unfinished German aircraft carrier 'Graf Zeppelin" to tow to the Pacific.

Certainly an additional fact that made concerted coalition strategy unlikely was that in both Germany and Japan the respective army and navy command structures were never able to agree on strategic priorities in the years 1941–42 when the two powers still held the initiative. In Germany, the army invariably concentrated on the fighting on the Eastern Front and looked with doubt and even horror at the navy leadership’s interest in meeting with the Japanese. In Japan, the army and navy went their own way, and there was no prospect of their combining forces to invade India in 1942 when the conquest of Burma first offered that possibility and at a time when there was serious unrest in that largest portion of the British Empire.

The steady refusal of the Germans to agree to Japanese urgings, beginning in the fall of 1941, that Germany make peace with the USSR and concentrate on fighting the Western Allies, particularly in the Mediterranean, made for friction at the highest levels. Similarly, the unwillingness of the Japanese to interfere with the flow of American supplies to the USSR’s Far Eastern ports, lest the Soviets provide the United States with air bases for attacking the home islands, provided the basis for additional troubles between Tokyo and Berlin.

Although the Japanese did provide the Germans with support for their submarines at bases in Malaya, whether this project, which necessitated very lengthy journeys from Europe and substantial losses along the way, was really a cost-effective employment of limited German naval resources is difficult to say. In spite of even greater losses, the efforts to break the Allied blockade by sending first surface ships and subsequently submarines with cargoes from Europe to East Asia and the other way almost certainly proved a more useful form of naval cooperation, especially for Germany. Because Germany’s synthetic rubber program required a tiny percentage of natural rubber, the small quantities that actually arrived at German-controlled French ports were of real significance. This was also true of some of the other materials transported in this fashion. On the other hand, the technical information and equipment, such as samples of new German weapons, which were provided to the Japanese, arrived too late for the latter to take advantage of the knowledge and examples provided.

As the war continued, Germany attacked its main ally the USSR, and its naval relations with both Spain and Italy deteriorated. Throughout the years 1943 and 1944, coalition discussions between German and Japanese diplomats and military representatives continued with no discernible improvement. The Germans could no longer contemplate even a theoretical advance into the Middle East, and Hitler was under no circumstances willing to listen to Japanese – or for that matter Italian – advice to make peace with the USSR.

As the tide in the Battle of the Atlantic definitively turned against the Germans in 1943, their hopes of recruiting the Japanese into a role in the campaign against Allied shipping were no more effective than earlier. In view of Japan’s hopes of continued Soviet neutrality in the Pacific War, slowly turning to the further hope of Soviet intervention on their own side against the Western Powers, the Japanese were not about to do anything to interfere with the stream of American aid, of which fully half was being sent to the Soviet Far East.

Karl Dönitz, the new commander of the German navy who had replaced Räder early in 1943, looked in the last weeks of the war into a future in which Germany would once again build a large surface fleet. He wanted to send to Japan a group of naval engineering officers who were to study major Japanese warships on the assumption that these were of a superior quality. No one had informed him that most of the ships he wanted studied and copied were already at the bottom of the ocean. The project was never implemented, but its almost lunatic character surely provides a fitting conclusion to the absolute failure of German–Japanese naval cooperation.

Of course, by the time both Germany and Japan were fully engaged, both Russia and the United States were fully engaged as well, and there was no way Germany and Japan could match the war-making capabilities of either foe.  Each of the Axis powers couldn’t handle its own main enemy, much less give thought to really assisting in another theater.

It is against this backdrop in Berlin on 15 April 1945, amid the fire and bombs and slaughter, that Japanese Vice-Admiral Katsuo Abe was granted a meeting with German Admiral Karl Dönitz - finally granted, since he and other emissaries had been trying to interview members of the German High Command for a while.  And when Abe entered Dönitz’s presence, he finally asked about co-ordinating some attacks.

Vice Admiral Abe begged his German counterpart to send the surviving German fleet to Japan so it could be used in the Pacific against America.  At first glance, it’s not so unreasonable a request.  Germany’s days of fleet actions were finished.  She did not even have enough ammunition for all the guns defending Berlin, and ships and U-Boats couldn’t defend the Chancellary.  But from the German point of view, Abe was basically saying, “You guys are toast, give us your goodies so we can delay our own defeat a bit longer".  The response from Dönitz was predictable and emphatic.  Abe tried his luck with Ribbentrop and Keitel a couple of days later, but was again flatly refused.  The Japanese Admiral persisted and tried to meet with Hitler, but the dictator was too busy playing with pretend armies on his maps deep in his Bunker and refused to even grant Abe an audience.

So two countries that now had no chance of victory gave up their last chance to work together.  And based on how they had carried out the war to that point, it was fitting.

The Gruppe Monsun or Monsoon Group was a force of German U-Boats that operated in the Pacific and Indian Oceans during World War II. Although similar naming conventions were used for temporary groupings of submarines in the Atlantic, the longer duration of Indian Ocean patrols caused the name to be permanently associated with the relatively small number of U-Boats operating out of Penang, [with its capital, George Town]. After 1944, the U-Boats of the Monsun Gruppe were operationally placed under the authority of the Southeast Asia U-Boat Region.

The Indian Ocean was the only place where German and Japanese forces fought in the same theatre. To avoid incidents between Germans and Japanese, attacks on other submarines were strictly forbidden Altogether 41 U-Boats of all types including transports would be sent; a large number of these, however, were lost and only a small fraction returned to Europe.

Indian Ocean trade routes

The Indian Ocean was considered strategically important, containing India, and the shipping routes and strategic raw materials that the British needed for the war effort. In the early years of the war German merchant raiders and pocket battleships had sunk a number of merchant ships in the Indian Ocean; however as the war progressed it became more difficult for them to operate in the area and by 1942 most were either sunk or dispersed.

The 'Thor' was one of the few German auxiliary cruisers that did two operations. It began its first combat cruise on 6 June 1940, under the command of Captain Otto Kähler. Thor spent 328 days at sea, and sank or captured 12 ships, for a combined tonnage of 96,547, and ending its first operation in Hamburg on 30 April 1941. During this operation, the 'Thor' engaged three British auxiliary cruisers, destroying one of them ['Voltaire'] while the other two ['Carnarvon Castle' and 'Alcantara'] were badly damaged.

Thor next operational area was the Indian Ocean, and set out on its second cruise on 30 November 1941, under the command of Captain Günther Gumprich. It sank or captured 10 ships during her second cruise, for a total of 58,644 tons, during 328 days of operation.

Thor arrived in Yokohama on 9 October 1942, where she commenced refitting in preparation for a third voyage. However on 30 November, a series of explosions on the supply ship 'Uckermark' destroyed her superstructure, sending a large amount of burning debris onto 'Thor', which was moored alongside. Both ships were rapidly set ablaze, along with the 'Nankin/Leuthen' and the Japanese freighter 'Unkai Maru'. All four ships were destroyed in the fire, and 12 of Thor's crew were killed. 'Thor' was wrecked beyond repair, and was abandoned. Her captain, KzS Gumprich, later commanded the raider 'Michel' on her second raiding voyage, from which he did not return.

From 1941, U-Boats were also considered for deployment to this area but due to the successful periods known as the First and Second Happy Times, it was decided that sending U-Boats to the Indian Ocean would be an unnecessary diversion. There were also no foreign bases in which units could operate from and be resupplied, hence they would be operating at the limits of their range. As a result, the Germans concentrated primarily on their U-Boat campaign in the North Atlantic.

Japan’s entry into the war in 1941 led to the capture of European South-east Asian colonies such as British Malaya and the Dutch East Indies. In May and June 1942, Japanese submarines began operating in the Indian Ocean and had engaged British forces in Madagascar. The British had invaded the Vichy-controlled island in order to prevent it from falling into Japanese hands — however, as Japan was never known [from post-war evaluation] to have had plans to place Madagascar within its own sphere of influence, Britain's defense of the island could also have been surmised to have been a plausible defense against any possibility of Madagascar falling under Germany's own ambitions.

Axis strategic raw materials

The German invasion of the Soviet Union in 1941 had ended the use of overland routes which were for the delivery of strategic materials from southeast Asia, and few Axis ships were able to avoid Allied patrols of the North Atlantic. Japan was interested in exchanging military technology with Germany, the Japanese submarine I-30 initiated the submerged transport of strategic materials in the summer of 1942 by delivering 1,500 kg of mica and 660 kg of shellac. Japanese submarines designed for the vast distances of the Pacific were more capable transports than the compact German U-Boats which were designed for operations around coastal Europe; but large Italian submarines had proved ineffective for convoy attacks. The Italian Royal Navy [Regia Marina] converted seven Italian submarines operating from Betasom into "transport submarines" in order to exchange rare or irreplaceable trade goods with Japan. They were: The 'Bagnolin', the 'Barbarigo', the 'Cappellini' [renamed 'Aquilla III' in May 1943], the 'Finzi', the 'Giuliani', the 'Tazzoli' and the 'Torelli'.

Joint operations in the Indian Ocean

The idea of stationing U-Boats in Malaya and the East Indies for operations in the Indian Ocean was first proposed by the Japanese in December 1942. As no supplies were available at either location, the idea was turned down, although a number of U-Boats operated around the Cape of Good Hope at the time. A few days after 'Cappellini' reached the East Indies, U-511 became the first U-Boat to complete the voyage. This boat carried the Japanese naval attaché Admiral Naokuni Nomura from Berlin to Kure. The boat was given to Japan as RO-500; its German crew returned to Penang to provide replacement personnel for the main submarine base being established at a former British seaplane station on the west coast of the Malayan Peninsula. A second base was established at Kobe; small repair bases were located at Singapore, Jakarta and Surabaya. As part of the dispersal of U-Boat operations following heavy losses in the North Atlantic during the spring of 1943, Wilhelm Dommes was ordered to sail his U-178 from his operating area off South Africa to assume command at Penang. 

Early submarine patrols to Penang

- Japanese submarine I-30 sailed 22 August 1942 carrying German torpedoes, Torpedo Data Computer, search radar, Metox, hydrophone array, 50 Enigma machines and 240 Bolde sonar countermeasure charges. She struck a mine and sank off Singapore on 13 October 1942.
- 'Tazzoli' sailed in a cargo configuration on 21 May 1943 and was sunk by aircraft in the Bay of Biscay.
- 'Barbarigo' sailed in a cargo configuration on 17 June 1943 and was sunk by aircraft in the Bay of Biscay.
- 'Cappellini' sailed in a cargo configuration on 11 May 1943 with 160 tons of mercury, aluminum, welding steel, 20mm guns, ammunition, bomb prototypes, bombsights and tank blueprints; she reached Singapore on 13 July 1943.
- U-511 sailed on 10 May 1943 and sank the 7,200-ton American Liberty Ship 'Samuel Heintzelman' before reaching Penang on 17 July 1943.
- 'Giuliani' sailed in a cargo configuration on 16 May 1943 and reached Singapore on 1 August 1943.
- U-178 sailed on 28 March 1943 and sank the 6,600-ton Dutch freighter 'Salabangka', the 2,700-ton Norwegian freighter 'Breiviken', the 6,700-ton British freighter 'City of Canton', the 7,200-ton American  Liberty ship 'Robert Bacon' and the 4,800-ton Greek freighters 'Michael Livanos' and 'Mary Livanos' before reaching Penang on 27 August 1943.
- 'Torelli' sailed in a cargo configuration on 18 June 1943 and reached Penang on 27 August 1943.

First wave of Monsun Gruppe U-Boats

With the base established, twelve submarines were assigned to the "Monsun Gruppe" and directed to proceed to Penang, patrolling along allied trade routes for the duration of their voyage. The group name reflected an intent; that the opening of the Indian Ocean U-Boat campaign should coincide with the Monsoon season. The Italian armistice with the Allies became effective as the operation proceeded. The Italian submarine 'Ammiraglio Cagni' surrendered at Durban, South Africa rather than continuing to Penang. The converted Italian cargo submarines were taken over by Nazi Germany's Kriegsmarine and renumbered with UIT prefixes.

- U-200 sailed on 11 June 1943 and was sunk off Iceland by a PBY 'Catalina' on 24 June.
- U-514 sailed on 3 July 1943 and was sunk by a B-24 Liberator of the RAFs 224 Squadron in the Bay of Biscay on 8 July.
- U-506 sailed on 6 July 1943 and was sunk by an American 1st A/S Squadron B-24 Liberator in the Bay of Biscay on 12 July.
- U-509 sailed on 3 July 1943 and was sunk by aircraft from 'USS Santee' on 15 July.[
- U-516 sailed on 8 July 1943 but returned to France on 23 August after transferring its fuel to other boats, enabling them to continue when their tanker was sunk.
- U-847 sailed on 29 July 1943 but was damaged by ice in the Denmark Strait and was diverted to fuel other boats in the North Atlantic before being sunk by aircraft from 'USS Card' on 27 August.
- 'Ammiraglio Cagni' sailed in combat configuration in early July 1943 but surrendered after the Italian armistice became effective on 8 September 1943.
- U-533 sailed on 6 July 1943 and was sunk by a Bristol Blenheim of 244 Squadron RAF, in the Gulf of Aden on 16 October.
- U-183 sailed on 3 July and reached Penang 27 October 1943, and was sunk two years later in the Java Sea by 'USS Besugo' (SS-321).
- U-188 sailed on 30 June 1943 and sank the 7,200-ton American Liberty ship 'Cornelia P. Spencer' before reaching Penang on 31 October.
- U-532 sailed on 3 July 1943 and sank one Norwegian, one Indian and two British freighters before reaching Penang on 31 October.
- U-168 sailed on 3 July 1943 and sank the 2,200-ton British freighter 'Haiching' before reaching Penang on 11 November.

A second wave of Monsun Gruppe U-Boats was dispatched from Europe to make up for losses in transit.

- U-219 sailed on a minelaying mission on 22 October 1943 but returned to France on 1 January 1944 after being diverted to fuel other boats in the North Atlantic.
- U-848 sailed on 18 September 1943 and sank the 4,600-ton British freighter 'Baron Semple' before being sunk by US Navy PB4Y Liberators in the South Atlantic on 5 November.
- U-849 sailed on 2 October 1943 and was sunk by a USN PB4Y Liberator in the South Atlantic on 25 November.[19]
- U-850 sailed on 18 November 1943 and was sunk by aircraft from 'USS Bogue' on 20 December.
- U-510 sailed on 3 November 1943 and sank the 7,400-ton British tanker 'San Alvaro', the 9,200-ton American freighter 'E.G.Seubert', and three more freighters before reaching Penang on 5 May 1944.

Later sailings from Europe

Submarines attempting to reach Penang from Europe suffered heavy attrition, first from bombers in the Bay of Biscay, then from air patrols in the mid-Atlantic narrows and around the Cape of Good Hope, and finally from allied submarines lurking around Penang with the aid of decrypted arrival and departure information.

- Japanese submarine I-8 sailed 5 September 1943 with a cargo of anti-aircraft guns, torpedo and aircraft engines, and ten German technicians; and reached Singapore on 5 December 1943.
- U-177 sailed on 2 January 1944 and was sunk by a USN PB4Y Liberator in the South Atlantic on 6 February 1944.
- 'Bagnolini' sailed in a cargo configuration as UIT-22 on 26 January 1944 and was sunk off the Cape of Good Hope by RAF 262 Squadron Catalinas on 11 March.
- U-801 sailed on 26 February 1944 and was sunk by aircraft from USS Block Island on 16 March.
- U-1059 sailed on 12 February 1944 with a cargo of torpedoes and was sunk by aircraft from USS Block Island on 19 March.
- U-851 sailed on 26 February 1944 with a cargo of mercury and 500 U-Boat batteries, and disappeared in March 1944.
- U-852 sailed 18 January 1944 and sank the 4,700-ton Greek freighter 'Peleus' and the 5,300-ton British freighter 'Dahomian' before being sunk in the Arabian Sea by RAF Vickers Wellingtons on 3 April.
- U-1062 sailed on 3 January 1944 with a cargo of torpedoes and reached Penang on 19 April.
- U-1224 sailed as Japanese RO-501 in April 1944 and was sunk in the Atlantic by 'USS Francis M. Robinson' on 13 May 1944.
- U-843 sailed ón 18 February 1944 and sank the 8,300-ton British freighter 'Nebraska' before reaching Jakarta on 11 June.
- U-490 sailed in an oiler configuration on 6 May 1944 with a cargo of supplies, spare parts and electronics; she was sunk by aircraft from 'USS Croatan' on 12 June 1944.
- U-860 sailed on 11 April 1944 and was sunk in the South Atlantic by aircraft from 'USS Solomons' on 15 June.
- Japanese submarine I-29 sailed on 16 April 1944 with 10 Enigma machines and the latest German radar technology; she was torpedoed 'USS Sawfish' on 26 July 1944.

In April 1943, I-29 was tasked with a Yanagi mission, enabled under the Axis Powers' Tripartite Pact to provide for an exchange of personnel, strategic materials and manufactured goods between Germany, Italy and Japan. She was commanded by Captain Masao Teraoka, submarine flotilla commander — indicating the importance of the trip. She left Penang with a cargo that included two tons of gold. She met Fregattenkapitän Werner Musenberg's Type IXD-1 U-boat, U-180 on 26 April 1943 off the coast of Mozambique.

During this meeting that lasted over 12 hours due to bad weather, the two Axis submarines swapped several important passengers. U-180 transferred Netaji Subhas Chandra Bose, a leader of the Indian Independence Movement who was going from Berlin to Tokyo, and his Adjutant, Abid Hasan. I-29 in turn transferred two Japanese Navy personnel who were to study U-Boat building techniques in Germany: Commander [later posthumously promoted to Rear Admiral] Emi Tetsushiro, and Lieutenant Commander [later posthumously promoted to Captain] Tomonaga Hideo [who was later connected with the German submarine U-234]. Both submarines returned safely to their bases. I-29 landed her important passengers at Sabang on Weh Island, located to the north of Sumatra on 6 May 1943, instead of the Penang, to avoid detection by British spies. Bose and Hasan's transfer is the only known record of a civilian transfer between two submarines of two different navies in World War II. Also there were exchange of two tonnes of gold ingots as payment from Japan for weapons technology.

On 17 December 1943, I-29 was dispatched on a second Yanagi mission, this time to Lorient, France under star Japanese submarine Commander Takakazu Kinashi. At Singapore she was loaded with 80 tons of raw rubber, 80 tons of tungsten, 50 tons of tin, two tons of zinc, and three tons of quinine, opium and coffee.

In spite of Allied Ultra decrypts of her mission, I-29 managed to reach Lorient 11 March 1944. On her way she was refueled twice by German vessels. Also, she had three close brushes with Allied aircraft tracking her signals. Of special note is the attack of six RAF aircraft including two Tse-tse De Havilland Mosquito F Mk. XVIII fighters equipped with 57 mm cannons from the No. 248 RAF Squadron off Cape Peñas, Bay of Biscay, at 43.66°N 5.85°W, and the protection provided to her during the entry into Lorient by the Luftwaffe's only Long Range Maritime Fighter Unit, V Gruppe/Kampfgeschwader 40 using Ju-88s. At least one Ju-88 was shot down by British fighters over Spanish waters. The Kriegsmarine also provide an escort of two destroyers and two torpedo boats.

She left Lorient 16 April 1944 for the long voyage home with a cargo of 18 passengers, torpedo boat engines, Enigma coding machines, radar components, a Walter HWK 509A rocket engine, and Messerschmitt Me 163 & Messerschmitt Me 262 blueprints for the development of the rocket plane Mitsubishi J8M. After an uneventful trip she arrived at Singapore on 14 July 1944, disembarking her passengers, though not the cargo.

On her way back to Kure, Japan, she was attacked at Balintang Channel, Luzon Strait near the Philippines by Commander W. D. Wilkins' "Wildcats" submarine task force consisting of 'Tilefish', 'Rock' and 'Sawfish', using Ultra signal intelligence. During the evening of 26 July 1944, she was spotted by 'Sawfish' which fired four torpedoes at her. Three hit I-29, which sank immediately at 20.10°N 121.55°E. Only one of her crewmen survived.

Among the dead was I-29's Commanding Officer, Commander Takakazu Kinashi, Japan's highest-scoring submarine "ace". Earlier in the war, as skipper of I-19, Kinashi torpedoed and sank the U.S. aircraft carrier 'Wasp' and damaged both the battleship 'North Carolina' and the destroyer 'O'Brien' during the same attack. 'O'Brien' later sank as a result of the torpedo damage and 'North Carolina' was under repair at Pearl Harbor until 16 November 1942, a notable achievement that is still considered to this day to be the most effective torpedo salvo ever fired in naval history. Kinashi was honored by a rare two-rank posthumous promotion to Rear Admiral.

- U-537 sailed on 25 March 1944 and reached Jakarta on 2 August.
- U-181 sailed 16 March 1944 and sank the 7,100-ton British freighter 'Tanda', the 7,100-ton Dutch freighter 'Garoet' and the 5,300-ton British freighters 'Janeta' and 'King Frederick' before reaching Penang on 8 August.
- U-196 sailed on 16 March 1944 and sank the 5,500-ton British freighter 'Shahzada' before reaching Penang on 10 August.
- U-198 sailed 20 April 1944 and sank the 3,300-ton South African freighter 'Columbine', the 5,100-ton British freighter 'Director', the 7,300-ton British freighter 'Empire City' and the 7,200-ton British freighter 'Empire Day' before being sunk in the Indian Ocean on 12 August 1944 by a Royal Navy hunter-killer group built around 'Shah' and 'Begum'. - U-180 sailed in an oiler configuration on 20 August 1944 and was sunk by mines leaving port.
- U-862 sailed on 3 June 1944 and sank five ships before reaching Penang on 9 September.
- U-861 sailed on 20 April 1944 and sank the 1,700-ton Brazilian troopship 'Vital de Oliveira', the 7,200-ton American Liberty ship 'William Gaston', the 7,500-ton British freighter 'Berwickshire' and the 5,700-ton Greek freighter 'Toannis Fafalios' before reaching Penang on 22 September.
- U-859 sailed on 4 April 1944 with a cargo of mercury and sank the 6,300-ton Panamanian freighter 'Colin', the 7,200-ton American Liberty ship 'John Berry' and the 7,400-ton British freighter 'Troilus' before being torpedoed off Penang by 'HMS Trenchant' on 23 September.
- U-871 sailed on 31 August 1944 and was sunk by a RAF B-17 on 26 September 1944.
- U-863 sailed on 26 July 1944 and was sunk by USN PB4Ys on 29 September.
- U-219 sailed in a cargo configuration on 23 August 1944 and reached Jakarta on 11 December.
- U-195 sailed in an oiler configuration on 20 August 1944 and reached Jakarta on 28 December.
- U-864 sailed with a cargo of mercury and plans and parts for Messerschmitt Me 163 and Me 262 fighters on 5 December 1944 and was torpedoed by 'HMS Venturer' on 9 February 1945.

According to decrypted intercepts of German naval communications with Japan, U-864's mission was to transport military equipment to Japan destined for the Japanese military industry, a mission code-named Operation Cäsar. The cargo included approximately 61 tons of metallic mercury in 1,857 32-kilogram steel flasks stored in her keel. That the mercury was contained in steel canisters was confirmed when one of the canisters containing mercury was located and brought to the surface during surveys of her wreck in 2005. Approximately 1,400 tons of mercury was purchased by the Japanese from Italy between 1942 and Italy's surrender in September 1943. This had the highest priority for submarine shipment to Japan and was used in the manufacture of explosives, especially primers.

There was some speculation as to whether U-864 was carrying uranium oxide, as was U-234, which surrendered to the US Navy in the Atlantic on 15 May 1945, but Det Norske Veritas [DNV] concluded that there was no evidence that uranium oxide was on board U-864 when she departed Bergen. During the Norwegian Coastal Administration's investigation of the wreck of U-864 in 2005, radiation measurements were made but no traces of uranium oxide were found.

According to her cargo list, U-864 also carried parts and engineering drawings for German jet fighter aircraft and other military supplies for Japan, while among her passengers were Messerschmitt engineers Rolf von Chlingensperg and Riclef Schomerus, Japanese torpedo expert Tadao Yamoto, and Japanese fuel expert Toshio Nakai.

U-864, commanded by Korvettenkapitän Ralf-Reimar Wolfram, left Kiel on 5 December 1944, arriving at Horten, Norway four days later. Before leaving Germany, U-864 had been refitted with a Schnorchel mast. Several messages found in the ULTRA archives show that there were problems with the Schnorchel, which needed repairs before the U-864 put to sea for her voyage to Japan. All Schnorchel trials and training were conducted at Horten near Oslo. U-864 would have needed to be certified ready to sail at Horten before proceeding to Bergen.

While en route to Bergen, U-864 ran aground and had to stop in Farsund for repairs, not arriving in Bergen until 5 January 1945. While docked in the Bruno U-Boat pens, U-864 received minor damage on 12 January when the pens and shipping in the harbour were attacked by 32 Royal Air Force Lancaster bombers and one Mosquito bomber of Numbers 9 and 617 Squadrons. At least one Tallboy bomb penetrated the roof of the Bunker causing severe damage inside, and left one of the seven pens unusable for the remainder of the war.

Meanwhile, repairs and adjustments to her Schnorchel had been completed, and U-864 had commenced submerged trials. British submarine 'HMS Venturer', commanded by Lieutenant James "Jimmy" S. Launders, was sent on her eleventh patrol from the British submarine base at Lerwick in the Shetland Islands to Fedje, north of Bergen. After German radio transmissions regarding U-864 were decrypted, she was rerouted to intercept the U-Boat. On 6 February U-864 passed the Fedje area without being detected, but one of her engines began to misfire and she was ordered to return to Bergen. A signal stated that a new escort would be provided her at Hellisøy on 10 February. She made for there, but on 9 February 'Venturer' heard U-864's engine noise (Launders had decided not to use ASDIC since it would betray his position) and spotted the U-boat's periscope.

In an unusually long engagement for a submarine and in a situation for which neither crew had been trained, Launders waited 45 minutes after first contact before going to action stations, waiting in vain for U-864 to surface and thus present an easier target. Upon realizing they were being followed by the British submarine and that their escort had still not arrived, U-864 zig-zagged in attempted evasive manoeuvres and each submarine risked raising her periscope. 'Venturer' had only eight torpedoes (four tubes and four reloads) as opposed to U-864's total of 22, and so after three hours Launders decided to make a prediction of his opponent's zig-zag, and release a spread of his torpedoes into its predicted course. The first torpedo was released at 12:12 and then at 17 second intervals after that (taking four minutes to reach their target), and Launders then dived suddenly to evade any retaliation from his opponent. U-864 heard the torpedoes coming and also dived deeper and turned away to avoid them, managing to avoid the first three but unknowingly steering into the path of the fourth. Imploding, she split in two, sinking with all hands and coming to rest more than 150 meters below the surface on the sea floor, 3.7 km west of the island of Fedje, Norway.

This the only instance in the history of naval warfare where one submarine intentionally sank another while both were submerged.  

- U-234 sailed in a cargo configuration with 74 tons of lead, 26 tons of mercury, 12 tons of steel, seven tons of optical glass, 43 tons of aircraft plans and parts, 550 kg of uranium oxide and a disassembled Me 262 on 25 March 1945 and surrendered at Portsmouth Naval Shipyard when the war ended.

Japanese submarine I-34 sailed 12 November 1943 and was torpedoed by 'HMS Taurus' the following day.
- U-178 sailed 27 November 1943 with a cargo of 121 tons of tin, 30 tons of rubber and two tons of tungsten. She sank the 7,200-ton American Liberty ship 'Jose Navarro' before reaching France on 25 May
- Japanese submarine I-29 sailed 16 December 1943 with a cargo of rubber, tungsten, and two tons of gold; she reached France on 11 March 1944.
- U-532 sailed 4 January 1944 with a cargo of tin, rubber, tungsten, quinine and opium; and sank the 7,200-ton American Liberty ship 'Walter Camp' two ships before returning to Penang after the refueling oiler 'Brake' was sunk.
- U-188 sailed 9 January 1944 with a cargo of tin, rubber, tungsten, quinine and opium; and sank seven British freighters before reaching France on 19 June.
- U-168 sailed 28 January 1944 with 100 tons of tin, tungsten, quinine and opium; and sank a 4,400-ton Greek freighter and the 1,400-ton British repair ship 'Salviking' before returning to Jakarta after 'Brake' was sunk.
- 'Cappellini' sailed for France in a cargo configuration as UIT-24 with about 130 tons of rubber, 60 tons of zinc, five tons of tungsten, 2 tons of quinine, and 2 tons of opium on 9 February 1944; but returned to Penang after 'Brake' was sunk.
- U-183 sailed 10 February 1944 with a cargo of tin, rubber, tungsten, quinine and opium; and sank the 5,400-ton British freighter 'Palma', the 7,000-ton British tanker 'British Loyalty' and the 5,300-ton British freighter 'Helen Moller' before returning to Penang after 'Brake' was sunk.
- 'Giuliani' sailed for France in a cargo configuration as UIT-23 on 15 February 1944 and was torpedoed three days later by 'HMS Tally-Ho'.
Japanese submarine I-52 sailed for France in a cargo configuration on 23 April 1944 with a cargo including two tons of gold and was sunk by Grumman TBF Avengers from 'USS Bogue' on 23 June 1944.
- U-183 sailed on 17 May 1944 and sank one ship before returning to Penang on 7 July.
- U-1062 sailed for France in a cargo configuration on 6 July 1944 and was sunk in the Atlantic on 5 October.
- U-168 sailed 4 October 1944 and was torpedoed two days later by 'HMNLS Zwaardvisch'.
- U-181 sailed 19 October 1944 and sank one ship before returning to Jakarta on 5 January 1945.
- U-537 sailed 8 November 1944 and was torpedoed the following day by 'USS Flounder'.
- U-196 sailed 11 November 1944 and disappeared while traversing an allied minefield.
- U-862 sailed 18 November 1944 and sank two ships in the only German U-Boat Pacific patrol of the war before returning to Jakarta on 15 February 1945. The ships sunk were the 'Robert J Walker' on 25 December 1944 and the 'Peter Sylvester' on 5 February 1945 near Fremantle.
- U-843 sailed for Norway on 10 December 1944 and was sunk in the Kattegat by RAF Mosquitoes on 2 April 1945.
- U-510 sailed for Norway with 150 tons of tungsten, tin, rubber, molybdenum and caffeine on 6 January 1945; and sank the 7,100-ton Canadian freighter 'SS Point Pleasant Park' before surrendering in France.
- U-532 sailed for Norway on 13 January 1945 with a cargo of 110 tons of tin, eight tons of tungsten, eight tons of rubber, four tons of molybdenum and smaller quantities of selenium, quinine, and crystals. The type IXC40 boat sank the 3,400-ton British freighter 'Baron Jedburgh' and the 9,300-ton American tanker 'Oklahoma'; and surrendered at Liverpool when the war was over.
- U-861 sailed 14 January 1945 with 144 tons of tungsten, iodine, tin, and rubber; and arrived in Norway on 18 April.
- U-195 sailed for Norway in an oiler configuration on 17 January 1945 but returned to Jakarta on 3 March after experiencing engine trouble.
- U-183 sailed on 24 April 1945 and was torpedoed two days later by 'USS Besugo'.

- Japanese submarine I-34 sailed 12 November 1943 and was torpedoed by 'HMS Taurus' the following day.
- U-178 sailed 27 November 1943 with a cargo of 121 tons of tin, 30 tons of rubber and two tons of tungsten. She sank the 7,200-ton American Liberty ship 'Jose Navarro' before reaching France on 25 May
- Japanese submarine I-29 sailed 16 December 1943 with a cargo of rubber, tungsten, and two tons of gold; she reached France on 11 March 1944.
- U-532 sailed 4 January 1944 with a cargo of tin, rubber, tungsten, quinine and opium; and sank the 7,200-ton American Liberty ship 'Walter Camp' two ships before returning to Penang after the refueling oiler 'Brake' was sunk.
- U-188 sailed 9 January 1944 with a cargo of tin, rubber, tungsten, quinine and opium; and sank seven British freighters before reaching France on 19 June.
- U-168 sailed 28 January 1944 with 100 tons of tin, tungsten, quinine and opium; and sank a 4,400-ton Greek freighter and the 1,400-ton British repair ship 'Salviking' before returning to Jakarta after 'Brake' was sunk.
- 'Cappellini' sailed for France in a cargo configuration as UIT-24 with about 130 tons of rubber, 60 tons of zinc, five tons of tungsten, 2 tons of quinine, and 2 tons of opium on 9 February 1944; but returned to Penang after 'Brake' was sunk.
- U-183 sailed 10 February 1944 with a cargo of tin, rubber, tungsten, quinine and opium; and sank the 5,400-ton British freighter 'Palma', the 7,000-ton British tanker 'British Loyalty' and the 5,300-ton British freighter 'Helen Moller' before returning to Penang after 'Brake' was sunk.
- 'Giuliani' sailed for France in a cargo configuration as UIT-23 on 15 February 1944 and was torpedoed three days later by 'HMS Tally-Ho'.
Japanese submarine I-52 sailed for France in a cargo configuration on 23 April 1944 with a cargo including two tons of gold and was sunk by Grumman TBF Avengers from 'USS Bogue' on 23 June 1944.
- U-183 sailed on 17 May 1944 and sank one ship before returning to Penang on 7 July.
- U-1062 sailed for France in a cargo configuration on 6 July 1944 and was sunk in the Atlantic on 5 October.
- U-168 sailed 4 October 1944 and was torpedoed two days later by 'HMNLS Zwaardvisch'.
- U-181 sailed 19 October 1944 and sank one ship before returning to Jakarta on 5 January 1945.
- U-537 sailed 8 November 1944 and was torpedoed the following day by 'USS Flounder'.
- U-196 sailed 11 November 1944 and disappeared while traversing an allied minefield.
- U-862 sailed 18 November 1944 and sank two ships in the only German U-Boat Pacific patrol of the war before returning to Jakarta on 15 February 1945. The ships sunk were the 'Robert J Walker' on 25 December 1944 and the 'Peter Sylvester' on 5 February 1945 near Fremantle.
- U-843 sailed for Norway on 10 December 1944 and was sunk in the Kattegat by RAF Mosquitoes on 2 April 1945.
- U-510 sailed for Norway with 150 tons of tungsten, tin, rubber, molybdenum and caffeine on 6 January 1945; and sank the 7,100-ton Canadian freighter 'SS Point Pleasant Park' before surrendering in France.
- U-532 sailed for Norway on 13 January 1945 with a cargo of 110 tons of tin, eight tons of tungsten, eight tons of rubber, four tons of molybdenum and smaller quantities of selenium, quinine, and crystals. The type IXC40 boat sank the 3,400-ton British freighter 'Baron Jedburgh' and the 9,300-ton American tanker 'Oklahoma'; and surrendered at Liverpool when the war was over.
- U-861 sailed 14 January 1945 with 144 tons of tungsten, iodine, tin, and rubber; and arrived in Norway on 18 April.
- U-195 sailed for Norway in an oiler configuration on 17 January 1945 but returned to Jakarta on 3 March after experiencing engine trouble.
- U-183 sailed on 24 April 1945 and was torpedoed two days later by 'USS Besugo'.

Unterseeboot U-234 was intended to be one of a total of eight Type XB ocean-going mine-layers. It  This was the largest type of German U-Boat ever constructed at 1763 tons displacement, 2710 tons submerged and fully loaded, and 89.9 meters in overall length. Under the command of Kapitänleutnant  Johann-Heinrich Fehler, U-234 was originally designed to carry 66 SMA mines. It had only two stern torpedo tubes and carried a maximum of fifteen torpedoes.

On 5 September 1944, the U-234 was refitted as a transport at the Germaniawerft yard at Kiel, and assigned to the perilous Germany-to-Japan run. 

Apart from minor work, she had a Schnorchel added and 12 of her 30 mineshafts were fitted with special cargo containers the same diameter as the shafts and held in place by the mine release mechanisms. In addition, her keel was loaded with cargo, thought to be optical-grade glass and mercury, and her four upper-deck torpedo storage compartments (two on each side) were also occupied by cargo containers.

The cargowas determined by a special commission, the Marine Sonderdienst Ausland, established towards the end of 1944, at which time the submarine's officers were informed that they were to make a special voyage to Japan.

When loading was completed, the submarine's officers estimated that they were carrying 240 tons of cargo plus sufficient Diesel fuel and provisions for a six- to nine-month voyage.

The cargo included technical drawings, examples of the newest electric torpedoes, one crated Me 262 jet aircraft, a Henschel Hs 293 glide bomb,  550 kg of enriched Uranium and infra-red proximity fuses.

U-234's cargo manifest also reveals that, besides its Uranium, among its cargo was 10 "bales" of drums and 50 "bales" of barrels.  The barrels are noted in the manifest to have contained benzyl cellulose, a very stable substance that may have been used as a biological shield from radiation or as a coolant or moderator in a liquid reactor. The manifest lists the drums as containing "confidential material". 

The leaders of the German project to breed plutonium had decided to use heavy water, or deuterium oxide, as the moderator for a plutonium-breeding liquid reactor.  The procedure of creating heavy water results in regular water molecules picking up an additional hydrogen atom.  The percentage of water molecules with the extra hydrogen represents the level of concentration of the heavy water.  And using heavy water as a major element of their plutonium breeding reactor project, it is easy to see why the Germans labeled the drums "confidential material."  The evidence indicates that U-234  very probable -given all considerations - carried components for making not only a Uranium bomb, but a Plutonium bomb, also.

"The most important and secret item of cargo, the uranium oxide, which I believe was radioactive, was loaded into one of the vertical steel tubes [of German U-boat U-234]....  Two Japanese officers... [were]... painting a description in black characters on the brown paper wrapping....  Once the inscription U235 [the scientific designation for enriched uranium, the type required to make a bomb] had been painted on the wrapping of a package, it would then be carried over...and stowed in one of the six vertical mine shafts".

-- Wolfgang Hirschfeld, Oberfunkmeister [Chief Radio Operator] of U-234

It is nearly certain the reason "U235" was written on these containers was that they were originally supposed to go to Japan aboard a second U-boat, operating under the name 'U-235'. This unidentified "Black Boat", not to be confused with the Type VIIC U-235 which had been sunk, was operating temporarily under the name U-235. It is speculated this boat was a Type XXI, but it is uncertain.

U-235 was originally supposed to go to Japan with U-234, but was instead sent to Argentina, as is recorded in an Argentinian document declassified in 1952, which states:

"Movements by foreigners. I bring to your attention that our agents (names deleted) have detected at Ascochinga, in the mountainous region of Cordoba province, a farm located on the Cerro Negro which has been acquired by a former officer who disembarked from U-235 at the Mar del Plata submarine base".

Because the boat operating under the name 'U-235' was sent to Argentina instead, its load of Uranium Oxide was sent aboard U-234. It is a strange coincidence that Uranium Oxide was supposed to go aboard boats called U-234 and U-235, both of which are also isotopes of Uranium

In Kiel, the loading of the boat had been completed and her massive hull sealed up for the journey. The crew of 63 [a very large crew for a U-Boat - even of this size] was joined by eight passengers, not iincluding the two Japanese officers, Lieutenant Commanders, Genzo Shoji, an aircraft specialist and former naval attaché, and Hideo Tomonaga, a naval architect and submarine designer, who had come to Germany in 1943 on the Japanese submarine I-29. 

Among the civilian scientists was Dr. Heinz Schlicke, a radar, infrared, and countermeasures specialist who was the director of the Naval Test Fields in Kiel. His task was to aid the Japanese in developing and manufacturing electronic devices and instruments; and August Bringewalde, Willi Messerschmitt's "right-hand man" who was in charge of ME 262 production, Franz Ruf, an industrial machinery specialist who designed machines and appliances to manufacture aircraft components, were also among the notable passengers, and an engineer Klug.

There were four naval officers, each with different responsibilities. Fregattenkapitän Gerhard Falcke, a naval architect and construction engineer who spoke fluent Japanese, was to use German naval blueprints to initiate new shipbuilding. Kptlt. Richard Bulla, who had the unique distinction of serving as an officer in both the Luftwaffe and Kriegsmarine simultaneously, was an expert on armaments, new weapons, and carrier-based aviation. Oberleutnant Heinrich Hellendorn, a shipboard FLAK artillery officer, served as a German observer, while Kay Niescheling, an ardent National Socialist who was a naval judicial and investigative officer, who was being sent to rid the German diplomatic corps in Japan of remnants of the Richard Sorge spy ring.

As U-234 raced out of Kiel Fjord into the Baltic, she turned West into the open bay leading to the mouth of Eckern Fjord.There she waited until dark to begin the first leg of her run for freedom. 

Shortly after midnight, in the early morning hours of 26 March, U-234 and her two-U-Boat escort joined with three smaller Type XXIII U-Boats and turned its course toward Norway.  Her orders were to remain in the company of the three smaller boats until they reached the Norwegian coastal town of Kristiansand. 

The tiny armada  arrived in Horten Naval Base two days later, where the U-234 spent the next eight days carrying out trials on her Schorchel.

She then proceeded to Kristiansand, arriving on about 5 April, where she underwent repairs and topped up her provisions and fuel

In the meantime, the last of the passengers arrived in Kristiansand; Luftwaffe General [General der Flieger] Ulrich Kessler,  who was being sent to assist the Japanese in combat tactics using squadrons of ME 262 and ME 163 aircraft against Allied bombers;  Oberleutnant Erich Menzel, a Luftwaffe navigator and bombardier who was an aeronautical communications and radar expert, and also had combat experience against the British, Americans, and Russians; Oberstleutnant Fritz von Sandrart, a FLAK antiaircraft defense strategist, assigned to enhance Japanese defense systems. .

U-234 departed Kristiansand for Japan on 15 April 1945, running submerged at Schorchel depth for the first 16 days, and surfacing after that only because her commander, considered he was safe from attack on the surface in the prevailing severe storm. From then on, she spent two hours running on the surface by night, and the remainder of the time submerged. The voyage proceeded without incident; the first sign that world affairs were overtaking the voyage was when the Kriegsmarine's Goliath transmitter stopped transmitting, followed shortly after by the Nauen station. Fehler did not know it, but Germany's naval HQ had fallen into Allied hands.

Then, on 4 May, U-234 received a fragment of a broadcast from British and American radio stations announcing that Admiral Karl Dönitz had become Germany's head of state following the death of Adolf Hitler. U-234 surfaced on 10 May in the interests of better radio reception and received Dönitz's last order to the submarine force, ordering all U-boats to surface, hoist black flags and surrender to Allied forces. Fehler suspected a trick and managed to contact another U-Boat [U-873], whose captain convinced him that the message was authentic.

At this point, Fehler was practically equidistant from British, Canadian and American ports. He decided not to continue his journey, and instead headed for the east coast of the United States. Fehler thought it likely that if they surrendered to Canadian or British forces, they would be imprisoned and it could be years before they were returned to Germany; he believed that the US, on the other hand, would probably just send them home.

Fehler consequently decided that he would surrender to US forces, but radioed on 12 May that he intended to sail to Halifax, Nova Scotia to surrender to ensure Canadian units would not reach him first. U-234 then set course for Newport News, Virginia; during the passage Fehler took care to dispose of his Tunis radar detector, the new Kurier radio communication system, and all Enigma related documents and other classified papers. On learning that the U-Boat was to surrender, the two Japanese passengers committed suicide by taking an overdose of Luminal [a barbiturate sedative and antiepileptic drug]. They were buried at sea.

The difference between Fehler's reported course to Halifax and his true course was soon realized by US authorities who dispatched two destroyers to intercept U-234. On 14 May 1945 she was encountered south of the Grand Banks, Newfoundland by USS Sutton. Members of Sutton's crew took command of the U-Boat and sailed her to the Portsmouth Naval Shipyard, where U-805, U-873, and U-1228 had already surrendered. News of U-234's surrender with her high-ranking German passengers made it a major news event. Reporters swarmed over the Navy Yard and went to sea in a small boat for a look at the submarine.

The fact that the ship carried .55 tons of uranium oxide remained classified for the duration of the Cold War, a classified US intelligence summary of 19 May merely listed U-234's cargo as including "a/c [aircraft], drawings, arms, medical supplies, instruments, lead, mercury, caffeine, steels, optical glass and brass".

Author and historian Joseph M. Scalia claimed to have found a formerly secret cable at Portsmouth Navy Yard which stated that the uranium oxide had been stored in gold-lined cylinders rather than cubes as reported by Hirschfeld, the alleged document is discussed in Scalia's book "Hitler's Terror Weapons".

Uranium that has had its proportion of the isotope U235 increased compared to the more common isotope of uranium, U238, is known as enriched uranium. When that enrichment becomes 70 percent or above, it is bomb-grade uranium. 

The process of enriching uranium during the war was highly technical and very expensive - it still is.

Clarence Larsen, former director of the leading uranium enrichment process at Oak Ridge, Tennessee, where the Manhattan Project's uranium enrichment facilities were housed, later state, at the Oak Ridge program used gold trays when working with enriched uranium.  He explained that, because uranium enrichment was a very costly process, enriched uranium needed to be protected jealously, but because it is very corrosive, it is easily invaded by any but the most stable materials, and would then become contaminated.  To prevent the loss to contamination of the invaluable enriched uranium, gold was used.  Gold is one of the most stable substances on earth.  While expensive, Mr. Larsen explained, the cost of gold was a drop in the bucket compared to the value of enriched uranium.

Raw uranium, rather than enriched uranium, would not be stored in gold containers. The value of raw uranium is, and was at the time, inconsequential compared to the cost of gold.

The uranium subsequently disappeared, most likely finding its way to the Manhattan Project's Oak Ridge diffusion plant.

The Oak Ridge records of its chief uranium enrichment effort - the magnetic isotope separators known as calutrons - show that the enriched uranium output at Oak Ridge nearly doubled - after six months of steady output.  Edward Hammel, a metallurgist who worked with Eric Jette at the Chicago Met Lab, where the enriched uranium was fabricated into the bomb slugs, corroborated reports of late-arriving enriched uranium.  Mr. Hammel stated   that very little enriched uranium was received at the laboratory until just two or three weeks -certainly less than a month- before the bomb was dropped. The Manhattan Project had been in desperate need of enriched Uranium to fuel its lingering uranium bomb program.

The secret Nazi role in building the Atomic Bomb
Without the German Uranium and fuses, no atomic bombs would have been completed before 1946 at the earliest
By Ian Greenhalgh
9 July 2015

One of the most widely known and well-established facts of the 20th century is that the Manhattan Project was the first successful development of a nuclear weapon.

However, as more time passes and more research is done into the subject, it is becoming clear that the established narrative is nothing more than a fairy tale and the truth is stranger than anyone would accept as fiction.

As incredible as it sounds, the true story involves secret deals with Nazi Germany, smuggling of vital resources via U-Boat and German scientists providing the key final components needed to make the bomb work.

The heart of the story is the race to produce enough fissile material to build the bombs and the established narrative of heroic efforts by the US is very far from the truth.

The US uranium enrichment efforts were based at Oak Ridge, TN where three plants using differing methods worked night and day to produce fissile material for the Manhattan Project. The S-50 plant used liquid thermal diffusion; the K-25 plant used the gaseous diffusion process and the Y-12 plant used electromagnetic separation.

The engineering challenges were immense, as were the material requirements – a copper shortage lead to the US treasury loaning 14,700 tons of silver bullion in order to complete the electromagnetic coils of Y-12. Y-12 became fully operational in March 1944 and the first shipments of enriched uranium were sent to Los Alamos in June 1944. Production of fissile material was very slow, so that by 28th December 1944, Eric Jette, the chief metallurgist at Los Alamos made the following gloomy report :

“A study of the shipment of (bomb grade uranium) for the past three months shows the following….: At present rate we will have 10 kilos about February 7 and 15 kilos about May 1".

With such a paltry stockpile of enriched uranium, far below that needed for a uranium-based atom bomb and with this stockpile being depleted by the decision to develop more plutonium for an alternative bomb, the entire enterprise of the Manhattan Project appeared destined for defeat.

If the stocks of weapons grade uranium in early 1945 after almost three years of research and production were about half of what they needed to produce just one atomic bomb, how then did the Manhattan Project acquire the large remaining amount of enriched weapons grade uranium 235 needed to feed the Hanford reactors that produced the plutonium for the the Gadget test device and also complete the Little Boy bomb dropped on Hiroshima in August 1945? Furthermore, how did they solve the pressing problem of the fuses for a plutonium bomb?

Somehow, they solved their materials shortage and on the 16th July 1945, the Gadget test device was exploded in the New Mexico desert at the Almagordo Bombing and Gunnery Range, part of the White Sands Proving Ground. ‘Gadget’ was a Y-1561 device very similar to the Fat Man bomb dropped on Nagasaki and used 6.2 kilograms of plutonium to produce a blast equivalent to 20 kilotons of TNT. The nuclear age was born.

While almost all research at Los Alamos since June 1944 had been focused on the implosion-type plutonium weapon that resulted in "Gadget" and "Fat Man"; a smaller team worked on a far simpler uranium-based design. In contrast to the plutonium implosion-type nuclear weapon, the uranium gun-type weapon was straightforward if not trivial to design. The concept was pursued so that in case of a failure to develop a plutonium bomb, it would still be possible to use the gun principle.

The design used the gun method to explosively force a hollow sub-critical mass of uranium-235 and a solid target cylinder together into a super-critical mass, initiating a nuclear chain reaction. This was accomplished by shooting one piece of the uranium onto the other by means of four cylindrical silk bags of nitrocellulose powder. The bomb contained 64 kg [141 lb] of enriched uranium.

The design specifications for "Little Boy" were completed in February 1945. Three different contractors were used to produce the components so that no one would have a copy of the complete design. The bomb, except for the uranium payload, was ready at the beginning of May 1945. The uranium 235 projectile was completed on 15th of June and the target on 24 July.

While testing of the components was conducted, no full test of a gun-type nuclear weapon occurred before the "Little Boy" was dropped over Hiroshima. The weapon design was simple enough that it was only deemed necessary to do laboratory tests with the gun-type assembly. Unlike the plutonium implosion design, which required sophisticated coordination of shaped explosive charges, the gun-type design was considered almost certain to work.

The partly assembled bombs without the fissile components left Hunters Point Naval Shipyard, California, on 16 July aboard the cruiser 'USS Indianapolis', arriving at Tinian Island on 26 July. The fissile components followed by air on 30 July. On 9th August, B-29 Superfortress 'Enola Gay' dropped "Little Boy" over Hiroshima, resulting in a 15 kiloton blast that destroyed the heart of the city.

The age of nuclear weapons had been ushered in, but the mystery remained – where did the enriched uranium needed come from? By 1 May 1945, only 15kg of enriched Uranium-235 had been produced and much of it had been directed into production of plutonium.

However, just three short months later, all the required fissile material for two plutonium bombs and one uranium bomb had been produced. The uranium bomb alone required 64kg of enriched fissile material and at the rate Oak Ridge was producing this material, it should not have been possible to complete a uranium bomb before the end of 1946.

Clearly, a new supply of enriched Uranium-235 had been found sometime after the beginning of May 1945. To find the answer, we have to examine the events of May 1945.

On 14 May 1945 the German long range Type XB U-Boat U-234 surrendered to 'USS Sutton' just south of the Grand Banks and was escorted to Portsmouth Naval Shipyard. US intelligence summary NSA/USN SRMN-037, RG 457 written on 19 May listed U-234‍ ’s cargo as including drawings, arms, medical supplies, instruments, lead, mercury, caffeine, steels, optical glass and brass. The fact that the ship also carried a number of gold-lined containers stencilled U-235 and containing 540kg of uranium remained classified until after the end of the Cold War decades later.

The 1,200 pounds [540 kg)]of uranium disappeared; researchers concluded it was most likely transferred to the Manhattan Project’s Oak Ridge diffusion plant. However, 560kg of uranium oxide would only have yielded approximately 7.7 pounds [3.5 kg) of]enriched weapons grade U-235 after processing; this was around 5% of what was required to build the "Little Boy" uranium fission weapon.

Furthermore, Uranium oxide is not radioactive enough to require shipping in gold-lined containers, only enriched uranium would require such shielding. Therefore we can safely conclude that the Uranium taken from U-234 was enriched, weapons grade material ready to be worked into the fissile components of the "Little Boy" bomb.

Secret deals with Nazi Germany

The story of the German atomic bomb programmes and their extensive Uranium enrichment programme would take a whole book to tell in any detail, however, the basic facts are that in 1940 the Germans had seized the Belgian stockpile of high purity uranium ore mined in the Congo; German scientists had developed a chemical enrichment process many times more efficient than the process used by the Manhattan Project with the result that by the end of the war the Germans possessed a large stockpile of weapons grade material.

Realising the war was lost, Martin Bormann, almost certainly with the support of Adolf Hitler, had begun secret negotiations with the British and Americans to buy safe passage to South America for the leading Nazis including Hitler and Eva Braun. Bormann traded Germany’s finest military, engineering and scientific secrets for the escape to freedom of many top Nazis, himself and Hitler included.

As well as providing the Uranium to complete Little Boy, U-234 also brought what was needed to make the "Fat Man" plutonium bomb work in the form of Dr Heinz Schlicke, an electrical engineer and Kriegsmarine officer who had invented a new type of opto-electronic fuse. He is taken to a secret POW camp at Fort Hunt, Virginia.

By this time it had become apparent that there were significant and seemingly insurmountable problems in designing a plutonium bomb, for the fuses available to the Allies were simply far too slow to achieve the uniform compression of a plutonium core within the very short span of time needed to initiate uncontrolled nuclear fission.

However, with Dr. Schlicke and a number of his fuses in their possession, the US was now able to complete their Plutnium bomb.

Therefore, we can state with certainty, based on the simple historical facts, that without the German Uranium and fuses, no atomic bombs would have been completed before 1946 at the earliest.