The Atom Bombs of USA and the Uranium of Congo

The United States dropped atomic bombs on the Japanese cities of Hiroshima and Nagasaki on August 6 and 9, 1945, compelling the Japanese to unconditional surrender. The atom bomb was developed after two German chemists, Otto Hahn and Fritz Strauss, made an astonishing discovery in Berlin on December 19, 1938. While bombarding uranium nucleus with neutrons they discovered barium in the reaction products. Now barium nucleus is a little over half the uranium nucleus in mass -  its mass in six tenths of the mass of uranium. The inescapable and thrilling conclusion that could be drawn from this was that the neutrons had split the uranium nucleus in two comparable halves. This splitting of the uranium nucleus into two comparable halves by neutrons is called fission, a term that is now part of common vocabulary.

In order to understand the atom bomb it is helpful to remember that the atom is like a miniature solar system whose entire mass, excepting that of the extremely light electrons, is packed at the center. The electrons move around the nucleus like planets around the sun. The tiny but massive central core of the atom is called the nucleus and is about 100,000 times smaller in radius compared to the radius of the orbit of the electrons that move around it. The nucleus of all atoms contains two types of particles, the positively charged protons and the electrically neutral neutrons (hydrogen is an exception – its nucleus is just one proton). Neutrons and protons have almost equal masses, and each is about 2,000 times more massive than the electron. It is also important to note that like electric charges repel and the closer they are the stronger the repulsion. How is it then that the protons are packed (alongside neutrons) in a tiny core? This requires the existence of an attractive force involving both protons and neutrons, which has a much shorter range compared to the electrical force, but is much more powerful than it. This is known as the strong nuclear force and is responsible for keeping the nuclear particles (neutrons and protons) confined to the nucleus. 

The explanation of fission was furnished by two Jewish German physicists, both of whom had left Germany on account of Nazi policies. They were Lise Meitner and her nephew Otto Frisch. In two papers published in January and February 1939, they pointed out that the break-up of a uranium nucleus by a neutron into two comparable halves would be accompanied by the release of a few more neutrons as well as a huge amount of electromagnetic energy in the form of very high energy photons. This opened up the possibility of the neutrons released by fission in turn breaking up further uranium nuclei, again releasing more neutrons and more electromagnetic energy. Thus one would have a chain reaction of fissions each fission releasing massive amounts of electromagnetic energy. And the release of a massive amount of energy in a short time is a bomb of great power, the atom bomb.

Could one actually transform the above theoretical possibility into reality? Could an atomic bomb be built? Einstein, who had moved the U.S. in 1933, originally thought that the actual building of such a bomb would not be feasible. However two East European Jewish emigres Leo Szilard and Eugene Wigner (who went on to win the 1963 Nobel prize in physics) met him and told him that it was feasible to build an atom bomb. “I never thought of it” Einstein is said to have exclaimed after talking to them. Einstein became deeply concerned when he heard that the Germans might be working on the atom bomb. He, therefore, agreed to warn the U.S. government in this regard, even if the warning turned out to be a false alarm.

Physicist and historian of physics, the late Abraham Pais, states that Einstein then dictated a letter in German to Wigner, who then translated it into English. This letter, signed by Einstein on August 2, 1939, was then handed over to Alexander Sachs, an informal advisor to President Roosevelt. Eustace Mullins has stated: “Sachs was Russian Jew who listed his profession as ‘economist’ but was actually a bagman for the Rothschilds, who regularly delivered large sums of cash to Roosevelt in the White House.” President Roosevelt saw Einstein’s letter two months later, on October 3, 1939.

In the letter Einstein had written:” “Some recent work of E. Fermi and L. Szilard, which has been communicated to me in manuscript, leads me to expect that the element uranium may be turned into a new and important source of energy in the immediate future. Certain aspects of the situation which has arisen seem to call for watchfulness and, if necessary, quick action on the part of the administration. I believe therefore that it is my duty to bring to your attention the following facts and recommendations: In the course of last four months it has been made probable – through the work of Joliot in France as well as of Fermi and Szilard in America – that it may be possible to set up a nuclear chain reaction in a large mass of uranium, by which vast amounts of power and large quantities of new radium-like element would be generated. Now it appears certain that this would be achieved in the immediate future.”

After stating the above Einstein then wrote: “This new phenomenon would lead to the construction of bombs, and it is conceivable - though much less certain – that extremely powerful bombs of a new type may be constructed. A single bomb of this type, carried by boat and exploded in a port, might very well destroy the whole port together with some surrounding territory. However, such bombs might very well prove to be too heavy for transportation by air.” After this the Einstein letter mentions Congo! “The United States has only very poor ores of uranium in moderate quantities. There is some good ore in Canada and the former Czechoslovakia, while the most important source of uranium is Belgian Congo.” What was then Belgian Congo is today’s Democratic Republic of Congo. And it had the very good uranium ore in considerable quantities!

Uranium is prone to fission and therefore ideal for making an atom bomb. And it was Belgian Congo that had the best ore of uranium in the world. The letter pointed out that Germany had stopped the sale of uranium from Czechoslovakian mines that it had taken over. It also mentioned von Weizsacker, son of the German Under-Secretary of State, who was associated with the Kaiser Wilhelm Institute “where some of the American work on uranium is now being repeated.” The letter proposed permanent contact between those physicists in the U.S, who were engaged in research on chain reaction, and the government departments.  It also urged provision of government funds to relevant researchers in order to speed up chain reaction work - these researcherss were, at the time, operating on meager university funding.

President Roosevelt responded to Einstein’s letter on October 19, 1939, thanking him for his suggestions and informing him that he had convened a meeting of the Bureau of Standards with representatives from the Army and the Navy “to thoroughly investigate” the possibilities suggested in Einstein’s  letter. However, the Uranium Committee set up by President Roosevelt lacked individuals of stature, and a mere $6,000 was allocated for the entire year. This was peanuts or such an important project.  Einstein, therefore, wrote a follow up letter to the President on March 7, 1940. In June,1940, Belgium was run over by Germany.

The source of uranium ore in Belgian Congo was in a mine known as Shinkolobwe mine. It was located in the southern-most part of the Eastern half of Belgian Congo in Katanga province. The mine was owned by UMHK (Union Miniere du Haut Katanaga), a Belgian mining company. Belgians were not aware of the bomb potential of uranium – they used uranium for its by product radium at the time. The uranium ore was normally shipped to a refinery in Belgium. The mine had been closed in 1937, had fallen into disrepair, even getting flooded. But a large quantity of ore was still there. Once Belgium was occupied by Germany, the Uranium Committee talked to Edgar Sengier, the Managing Director of UMHK, to ship its ore to the U.S. for safekeeping! Sengier, who already had concerns about the safety of the ore in Katanga, after the German occupation of Belgium, agreed to this. 

Towards the end of 1940, about 1200 tons of stockpiled uranium ore was shipped to the U.S., where a firm, Afrimet (African Metals Coprporation), was set up in New York, as the sole agent of UMHK. Sengier was a qualified engineer who had been working for UMHK since 1911, becoming its Director in 1932. He told an author in the mid-1950s that it was entirely his idea to ship the ore to New York and that he did this “without telling anything to anybody.”  It is almost certain that, at the time he took the decision to ship the ore to USA, Sengier had no idea of its bomb potential. He just wanted it in safe hands. The ore shipped to the U.S. was stored in Staten Island in New York.

It was Abraham Pais, who pointed out that contrary to popular belief, it were not the Einstein-Roosevelt communications that provided the real impetus for the Atom Bomb project, known in literature as the Manhattan Project. He points out that only when the matter came to the notice of the Secretary of War, Henry Stimson, that the project took off.  Eustace Mullins points out that Stimson was a member of the Yale secret society, the Order of Skull and Bones, a branch of German Illuminati, who had played a “prominent role in organizing wars and revolutions.”

 As a result, it was only in October 1941, that President Roosevelt decided to go ahead full scale with the development of the atomic bomb. In September 1941 Gen. Leslie R. Groves had been appointed as head of the Manhattan Project. An initial amount of over $37 million was secretly allocated for the project. One dollar in 1941 is equal to $21.37 in 2024. Therefore, in today’s value the amount allocated was slightly over 760 million dollars. The amount was put in a secret dummy account to avoid detection by foreign agencies. Another reason for this was to avoid seeking approval of the Congress since such a step would have exposed a program for which secrecy was of utmost importance. Eventually the Manhattan Project cost about $2 billion, which today would be over $42 billion!

Once the money was available Gen. Groves sent his second-in-command, Kenneth Nichols, to talk to Sengier for the sale of the 1200 tons of uranium ore stored in Staten Island. In addition, the U.S. also wanted to purchase the additional 1,000 tons of uranium ore stored at the Shinkolowbe mine. The ore at Staten Island was bought and transferred to the Corps of Engineers of the U.S. Army. Nichols was astonished at the quality of the ore from Congo. He told an interviewer: “They were hand sorting this damn stuff, because it came out of Shinkolowbe to 65% U3O8 [uranium oxide]. To give you an idea of it, we think we have got a good mine out in the west if it is three-tenths of one percent.” One may note that this is 0.003% - just compare it with 65%! Nichols also stated: “They were hand sorting it to 65% and their waste piles were 20% uranium U3O8. They had that stored just outdoors over in Shinkolowbe.” The U.S. has stumbled upon incredibly rich uranium ore in Belgian Congo. Another 950 tons of 70% ore and 160 tons of 20% ore was eventually shipped to the U.S. The miners worked round the clock in the open pit mine under searchlights at night to make this possible.

In her book “Spies in the Congo”, Susan Williams writes: “The miners sorted and packed up the uranium ore by hand and, according to estimates, they could have been exposed to a year’s worth of radiation in about two weeks. Some of their Belgian overseers believed that the miners did not know what they were handling. The mine polluted the entire area, affecting the ground and water supply, an many of the miners’ homes were constructed from radioactive materials.” The white man did not care for the life and health of the black Africans – their lives had no value whatsoever.

The transportation of the ore from the mine to the U.S. was a problem that had to be tackled. Initially the ore was sent by rail to the port of Lobito Bay in Angola. Lobito Bay was almost exactly to the west of Likasi (then known as Jadotville), which was the town or city closest to the Shinkolowbe mine. From Lobito Bay the ore was transported by sea to the U.S. This was the route taken for the year 1942 for transporting the ore. By December 1942 almost half of the ore had arrived in the U.S. from Congo. Angola however was neutral in the war and was teeming with German spies. It was therefore decided to send the ore from Likasi to the port of Matadi in the south-east of Belgian Congo, via a lengthy and complex route covering approximately 1500 miles, but lying entirely within Belgian Congo. 

From Shinkolowbe, the ore was sent by train to the city of Port Francqui (now known as Ilebio). Port Francqui was a terminal point of the rail and from there the ore was offloaded and then loaded onto barges that sailed downstream in Kasai River, until the Kasai River merges into the Congo River till Leopoldville (currently known as Kinshasa, the capital of the country). From there the ore, in sealed barrels labeled “Special Cobalt”,  was put on train and traveled to the port of Matadi in the Atlantic Ocean. Thus, to get to the sea, the ore made two train journeys and one journey by river. From Matadi the ore was first sent by sea to coatal areas of Brazil, because that was the closest point from across the African coast, and from thereon to the U.S  It was decided to employ what were known as 16-knot boats managed by the American West African Line known as the Barber Line that operated between New York and Matadi. Two shipments were lost in the process – one to enemy action and one to an accident. A total of 200 tons of ore was lost as a result.

In addition to shipping the uranium ore by sea, the U.S. also transported the ore by air. An aerodrome was developed in the city of Elisabethville, the capital of Katanga. An airport was also rapidly built at Leopoldville. Both facilities were ready by July 1942. The Pan American Airways clipper service was employed for transporting uranium from the Congo to the U.S. The flights transporting uranium had orders to stop only for fuel. The pilot was told that it was a top secret mission, that he would ask no questions, and there would be no passengers!

The United States wanted to ensure that not only did it get hold of all the Congolese uranium ore, it should also prevent Germany from acquiring uranium from Congo. It turned out that Congo had more reserves of uranium than any place else in the world, and that too of exceptionally high quality. The uranium in Czechoslovak mines was not in great quantity and the Americans were satisfied that in addition to the Congolese uranium deposits, the U.S. and Canada had more uranium than any other place where Germany had access. The American bomb was eventually built, tested in Nevada desert and then exploded over Hiroshima and Nagasaki. The bomb would not have been built in time without the high quality uranium ore from Belgian Congo.