Hitler's Terror Weapons by Brooks, Geoffrey (life books to read .txt) 📗

The appearance of atmospheric disturbance lasted about 10 seconds without noticeable climax.

52. About one hour later I started with an He 111 from the aerodrome at Ludwigslust and flew in an easterly direction. Shortly after the start I passed through the almost complete overcast (between 3000 and 4000 metre altitude). A cloud shaped like a mushroom with turbulent, billowing sections (at about 7000 metres altitude) stood, without any seeming connections, over the spot where the explosion took place. Strong electrical disturbances and the impossibility to continue radio communication as by lightning, turned up.

53. Because of the P-38s operating in the area Wittenberg-Merseburg I had to turn to the north but observed a better visibility at the bottom of the cloud where the explosion occurred.

Note: It does not seem very clear to me why these experiments took place in such crowded areas.

For the Commanding

Officer Helenes T. Freiberger, AC. Captain

Distribution List: 248 copies in all.

Making Sense of the Zinsser Report

The Zinsser Report has a distribution list of 248 copies to eighteen different departments. This means that for security reasons the document will not be worded so lucidly as if it were a secret report from one person to another. The report is written by a US Navy Intelligence officer and couched in the usual intelligence style which is intended to make it difficult to read.

First, this is a report about observations made by a German prisoner while in captivity in the United States on 19 August 1945. All his captors are prepared to state is that his name is Zinsser and that he is a flak rocket expert. We are not enlightened as to whether he is Luftwaffe or a civilian scientist, but, as he is not described in the report as a “P/W”, it is a fair assumption that he is a scientist from Peenemünde where the new generation of flak rockets were assembled and tested. Numerous converted He 111-H bombers were attached to the Karlshagen experimental station near Peenemünde for the testing of new types of aerial weapons. These reliable machines served for rocket launching, flight measurement and aerial photographic roles.

Because of an obviously trained eye for detail, Zinsser is accustomed to observing explosions, but this explosion is different and is “in contrast to normal explosions”. Since all Luftwaffe aircraft would have been warned to avoid transit near a proposed explosive test area that day and in the report he states that the combustion was lightly felt from his “observation plane”, it is obvious that Zinsser was an appointed test observer. A flier off his course and passing by accident through a test area would not describe his aircraft as an “observation plane”, nor would he have stayed around to make copious detailed notes about what he saw.

Where did this test take place? What is definite is that it did not occur fifteen kilometres from Ludwigslust. If we insert one word we can make sense of it. Zinsser flew “from Ludwigslust (south of Lübeck) TO about 12 to 15 kms from an atomic bomb test station”. This could be anywhere but would be about the right distance to observe a 1-kiloton neutron bomb test. An Italian emissary representing the exiled former Italian dictator Mussolini stated that on 11 October 1944 he attended the test of a “small-scale atom bomb” at the Baltic island of Rügen, not far from Peenemünde. A two-second illumination of the entire atmosphere during a nuclear explosion indicates a device equivalent to 1000-tons TNT. 104

The well-known New York Times correspondent W. L. Laurence, a Pulitzer Prize-winner in 1937 and 1946, who had associated with physicists long before the Manhattan Project, was allowed to fly in one of the three B-29 aircraft which took part in the atomic bombing of Nagasaki. His eyewitness report was published on the same day, 9 August 1945. His article was an absolute sensation, but Zinsser’s account is more complete, particularly in two material respects.

Zinsser: “… when I noticed a strong bright illumination of the whole atmosphere lasting for about two seconds.”

Laurence: “… all of us became aware of a giant flash that broke through the dark barrier of our arc-welder’s lenses and flooded our cabin with an intense light.”

Zinsser: “… and the colour of the cloud changed frequently … it became dotted after a short period of darkness with all sorts of light spots, which were, in contrast to normal explosions, of pale blue colour.”

Laurence: “... we removed our glasses after the first flash but the light still lingered on, a bluish-green light that illuminated the entire sky all around.”

Zinnser: “The combustion was lightly felt from my observation plane in the form of pulling and pushing.”

Laurence: “A tremendous blast wave struck our ship and made it tremble from nose to tail.”

Zinsser: “The clearly visible pressure wave escaped the approaching and following cloud formed by the explosion.”

Laurence: “Observers in the tail of our ship saw a giant ball of fire rise.”

Zinsser: “Personal observations of the colours of the explosion cloud found an almost blue-violet shade.”

Laurence: “By the time our ship had made another turn in the direction of the atomic explosion, the pillar of purple fire had reached the level of our altitude.”

Zinsser: “During this manifestation reddish-coloured rims were to be seen, changing to a dirty-like shade in very rapid succession.”

Laurence: Failed to mention this red coloration which is caused by nitric oxide.

Zinsser: “A cloud shaped like a mushroom with turbulent, billowing sections stood (at about 7000 metres altitude) over the spot where the explosion took place.”

Laurence: “It [the mushroom cloud] retained that shape when we last gazed at it from a distance of about 200 miles.”

Zinsser: “About an hour later, I started with an He 111: shortly after the start I passed through the almost complete overcast … strong electrical disturbances and the impossibility to continue radio communications as by lightning turned up …”

Laurence: Did not mention this typical phenomenon of an atomic test.

Radio and Radar Interference is an unwanted side-effect of atomic explosions and never occurs during normal explosions.