Big Cut in American Navy Building Programme

Manawatu Times, Volume 70, Issue 190, 13 August 1945, Page 4

Big Cut in American Navy Building Programme

Received Sunday, 9.50 p.m. WASHINGTON, August 11. The War Mobilisation Director (Mr. Snyder) has ordered a 1,200,000,000 dollar cut in naval construction halting work on 95 ships including a battleship, two carriers and ten heavy cruisers. The Navy said the contracts were let many months ago when the prospect of heavy losses made it imperative to continue a big building programme. The losses had been less than anticipated and it was now possible to curtail expenditure. • Mr. Snyder said the Army was immediately sharply reducing its buying programme. TRAGEDY IN TAVERN. When the man in the white jacket said, "Have one on me,” Harold didn’t hear . . . his head was choked up with a cold. This calamity could have been averted if he’d popped a PULMONAS in his mouth previously. PULMONAS antiseptic vapours clear congested breathing passages . . . putting paid to cough and cold germs. 1/2, 1/9 and 2/9 at all chemists and stores. Made by Stacey Bros. Ltd., 385 Ivhyber Pass, Auckland.

the fast neutrons produced by the fission would have lost their energy by elastic collisions before initiating a further fission in uranium. The most suitable materials fulfilling all the conditions for the slowing down were heavy hydrogen or its compounds, heavy water, helium, beryllium and carbon.

Professor Chadwick Peirls independently in 1940 drew attention to the possibility of a fast neutron fission chain reaction being obtainable if pure or nearly pure U 235 was available. A committee was established in 1940 originally under the Air Ministry and later under the Ministry of Aircrait Production to examine the whole problem and co-ordinate the work. Experiments in England showed the possiDility of extracting U 235 and estimates were given for the cost and time of building a plant. The committee was convinced that an atomic bomb aepending on the fission of U 235 wa» feasible and its effect would be comparable to some thousands of tons of TNT, also that sufficient quantities of the material could be obtained. Another development occurred at the | time of the fall of Prance. Two French i physicists, Halvan and Kowarski, sent i by Joliot from Paris, arrived in England with 195 litres of heavy water obtained in Norway before the invasion. The Cavendish Laboratory provided facilities for experiments which provided strong evidence that using uran-ium-oxide or uranium metal with heavy water a divergent slow neutron fission chain of reaction could be realised if the system were of sufficient size. The committee concluded that this had great potential interest for power production but it was not likely to be developed in time to use in the war. Contact was maintained throughout with the Americans working on the fission. An organisation known as Tube Alloys for security reasons was established and every section of the Amext- | can programme was examined in detaiL It was clear that the American organisation intended to make the fullest use of the enormous resourced available in their universities and industries The programme chosen in Britain, though necessarily on a smaller scale, included the determination of essential nuclear physical data, theoretical investigation into the chain reaction Is the atomic bomb, dimensions and design of the bomb and its blast effect, also investigation of the diffusion of U 235 and the separation process. This included research on the process, design and construction of prototype machines, the manufacture of the materials needed, investigation of the flow of neutron and divergent systems especially with heavy water, the manufacture of uranium metal and the manufacture of heavy water. Imperial Chemical Industries was given a contract for the development of a diffusion plant and the manufacture of uranium metal was undertaken. As a result of the research on heavy water plant designs were produced which were of novel design and believed to be more simple and more efficient than any hitherto used or suggested. After investigation remarkable work was carried on in California University with the object of converting the mass spectrograph used for the separation of isotopes in minute quantities into a largescale production apparatus, but it was decided not to start corresponding research in Britain as the most suitable physicist, Professor Olipbant, was engaged on other war work. When he was released from that work in July, 1943, it was decided that the most efficient course in the general interest was that Professor Oliphant and liis team move to America and the British electro magnetic programme was therefore abandoned. When Professor Oliphant returned to Britain in March, 1945, it was decided to arrange for research to be started on some electrical engineering problems involved in this typq of plant and with this object research contracts have been placed with British companies.