Question: on 10 October 1946, the Washington Post unveiled that the US had A-bombs stockpiled in Northern England. On 7 December 1946, this was confirmed by a member of the US Senate. The White House vigorously denied the report of October. The report of 7 December (which also gave details of the nature of the stockpiled nuclear material) was not. The only 'US base' in Nothern England at that time was RAF Burtonwood, right? Who knows what the story is?
RAF Burtonwood A-bomb stockpile location?
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This story does ot stack up on a number of levels.
From 1 Dec 1945 Burtonwood was reduced to a holding depot for USAAF supplies in the UK. But from July 1946 it was an RAF MU.
In Nov 1946 it was briefly used by a training flight of B-29s from the USA passing through to bases in Germany. From mid-1947 these operations became a regular feature leading in 1948 to a permanent US presence at Burtonwood again. But it was 1947 before bases in East Anglia began to upgraded to handle B-29s on a regular basis (one of the YB-29s had visited during WW2)
The USA passed the Atomic Energy Act in Aug 1946 which did not allow the sharing of any nuclear technology with any other country including Britain. In 1946 the only nuclear capable USAAF unit was the 509th BG which was firmly based in the USA. It was 1949 before it visited Britain. There were only 17 nuclear capable B-29 Silverplate bombers in existence at the beginning of 1947, down from 22 at the start of 1946. The next nuclear capable bomb group didn't receive aircraft until 1949. And nuclear bombs were still not that numerous in 1946 (estimate of 9 in 1946 growing to 13 in 1947 & 50 in 1948, only growing to about 300 in 1950).
Just doesn't ring true to me.
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That is all true. And that makes it so interesting! See the piece from the Washington Post by Drew Pearson. Too much detail for a fake story, I would say. I do not want to speculate, and search only for source material (such as the Washington Post story). In October 1946 Drew Pearson broke the news. The day after (11/10) Truman denied it . After the weekend on 14/10 the White House again denied it and said the story was untrue. After Pearson published the statement of Senator Connally the White House remained silent. And what about sending Silverplate B-29 to England in 1948 as part of the Berlin Blockade deployments. In 2nd, 28th of 207th Markings...who would know? Do you know whether YC-97 Chickenpox laboratories ever visited the UK?
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Clement Attlee, the British Prime Minister, only approved the deployment of B-29s to the UK in July 1948. The article suggests that the US was stockpiling nuclear weapons in the UK almost 2 years beforehand. Why on earth would the US deploy weapons to a place where it had no means of employing them?
As E EwenS noted, there weren't many nuclear weapons in 1946 and only one squadron capable of dropping them. The idea of a stockpile of such weapons overseas just doesn't make sense.
This account gives more details on how closely nuclear weapons were controlled in the 1940s. It further highlights there were only 13 weapons in 1948, all of which were stored in the US:
The B-29's dispatched to Britain and Germany in 1948 were intended to
remind the Soviets of the American nuclear capability, to signal the
American intent to hold Berlin, and to bolster the resolve of the Western
Allies in the face of the crisis. The threat was indeed hollow (the U.S.
possessed but thirteen operational atomic bombs in 1948, after all), but
until the material in the former Soviet archives is opened, it will never
be known if the Soviets understood this or not. (It has been speculated
that Stalin was aware of the miniscule size of the U.S. stockpile due to
the efforts of Donald McLean. McLean had access to the AEC offices at this
time and was left unattended on numerous occasions in the course of
diplomatic discussions on atomic cooperation matters.)
Non-SLIVERPLATE B-29's were not dispatched for a number of reasons. All of
the existing atomic bombs were stored at Sandia Base, near Albuquerque, New
Mexico, and were all in the custody of the Atomic Energy Commission (AEC).
Transferring the bombs from the AEC to the Air Force required a
presidential directive. Truman refused a direct request by Defense
Secretary James Forrestal for transfer of the nuclear stockpile to military
custody in July 1948, so the bombs remained in New Mexico.
Given all of this info, it seems impossible that there would be any stockpile of nuclear weapons at Burtonwood in 1946.
I've done a bit more digging and found some information that may explain the story.
Note the linked article refers to "basic portions of the atomic bomb" and "fissionable materials" being sent to the north west of England not complete atomic bombs. This is important in understanding what I've now found.
Turn the clock back to 1944. The Combined Development Trust, later the Combined Development Agency, was the joint US/U.K. body charged with finding uranium oxide ores for use in the Manhattan Project. One major source was the Belgian Congo and 3 way agreements were signed in 1944/45, Belgium, U.K. & US, for its supply. Some of the raw ore available to the CDT came to Britain and was used in Britain's atomic programmes until 1953. The following article specifically notes that in 1946 some 1,350 tons of uranium oxide ores were supplied under CDT agreements to a plant at Springfield in North West England. That was a new processing facility created to support Britain's civil & military nuclear programmes.
This article sets out the background to what was going on.
From "Churchill's Bomb" by Graham Farmelo, it seems Britain had 5 nuclear sites in the early post-war period:-
Harwell in Oxfordshire - home of a small nuclear reactor and the science of physics, chemistry and metallurgy research.
And 4 plants in North West England including:-
Springfields in Lancashire - extraction of uranium from ores to be turned into reactor fuel.
Capenhurst in Cheshire - enrichment of the fuel produced at Springfields where necessary.
Windscale (later renamed Sellafield) in Cumbria - home to the main reactors and the plutonium extraction facilities to produce weapons grade nuclear materials.
So the Washington Post reports have nothing to do with stockpiling atomic bombs in Britain in 1946. Given that the origin of the reports was a US Senator, Tom Connally, Chairman of the Senate Foreign Relations Committee, I suspect that this was more to do with US internal politics surrounding the passing of the McMahon Act earlier in the year. Was he trying to flag up what he considered to be a breach of it?
Note the linked article refers to "basic portions of the atomic bomb" and "fissionable materials" being sent to the north west of England not complete atomic bombs. This is important in understanding what I've now found.
Turn the clock back to 1944. The Combined Development Trust, later the Combined Development Agency, was the joint US/U.K. body charged with finding uranium oxide ores for use in the Manhattan Project. One major source was the Belgian Congo and 3 way agreements were signed in 1944/45, Belgium, U.K. & US, for its supply. Some of the raw ore available to the CDT came to Britain and was used in Britain's atomic programmes until 1953. The following article specifically notes that in 1946 some 1,350 tons of uranium oxide ores were supplied under CDT agreements to a plant at Springfield in North West England. That was a new processing facility created to support Britain's civil & military nuclear programmes.
This article sets out the background to what was going on.
From "Churchill's Bomb" by Graham Farmelo, it seems Britain had 5 nuclear sites in the early post-war period:-
Harwell in Oxfordshire - home of a small nuclear reactor and the science of physics, chemistry and metallurgy research.
And 4 plants in North West England including:-
Springfields in Lancashire - extraction of uranium from ores to be turned into reactor fuel.
Capenhurst in Cheshire - enrichment of the fuel produced at Springfields where necessary.
Windscale (later renamed Sellafield) in Cumbria - home to the main reactors and the plutonium extraction facilities to produce weapons grade nuclear materials.
So the Washington Post reports have nothing to do with stockpiling atomic bombs in Britain in 1946. Given that the origin of the reports was a US Senator, Tom Connally, Chairman of the Senate Foreign Relations Committee, I suspect that this was more to do with US internal politics surrounding the passing of the McMahon Act earlier in the year. Was he trying to flag up what he considered to be a breach of it?
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Thanks for this! Pieces fall together. I attached the 10 October 1946 column of Pearson. What would your conclusion be?
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I think you need to go back and study this period in atomic history more closely.
By passing the McMahon Act into law Congress & President Truman effectively tore up the Churchill/Roosevelt agreement dating from 1943 on the sharing of atomic knowledge, despite British diplomats drawing it to their attention. When Atlee complained, Truman did not reply. British scientists were then immediately sent home without copies of any of the papers that had been writing. While there was little discussion of nuclear matters in the British press it seems to have been a hot topic in the US press and one that was highly charged politically. Matters were not helped by failing Western (and US particularly) relations with the USSR as well as the some of the first post-war atomic spies starting to be uncovered.
The only problems in the Near East that I can think of in 1946 was that of Jewish immigration into Palestine which was tying up RN assets in intercepting the vessels involved and an increase in terrorist activities that had been going on for some time. Frankly, the idea that Britain wanted to use an A-bomb to resolve such problems is ridiculous. It is one however that I can see being thrown out there to get the large US Jewish community onside to support measures like the McMahon Act.
In May 1946 (i.e. Spring 1946) Air Marshall Viscount Portal as Chairman of the Controller of Production (Atomic Energy) toured atomic establishments in the USA during which he was left in no doubt that US attitudes to sharing atomic information with anyone were hardening. By then the British Chiefs of Staff had recommended as early as late 1945 that not only should Britain have the bomb, but that it should be made in Britain. Final go-ahead for that was not taken until 8 Jan 1947. With that feeling amongst the British decision makers, it would seem odd that Atlee would need to approach Truman to request such weapons. At that time, while Western / USSR relations might be going downhill, no one was talking about a war with them until the mid-1950s. So there was no immediate requirement to rush to acquire such weapons.
I've not read anything to suggest that Britain was seeking A-bombs from the USA, then the only manufacturer, in the early part of 1946. All the signs were that they wanted a bomb, but that it had to be British made.
You now seem to be at the point of accepting whatever was written in a US newspaper as gospel while asking for everyone to prove a negative.
It seems to me that a few "facts" have been taken out of context and woven into some great conspiracy theory to suit US hearts and minds. Problem is that so many of the facts were not known to the US press and public, like the true size of the US nuclear stockpile. Given its limited size I really don't see how the US could afford to build any kind of a nuclear stockpile overseas.
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Your conclusion is spot on! To me, the U.S. greatly scandalized Great Britain with the McMahon Act, notwithstanding its staunchest ally, which, moreover, made significant contributions to the Manhattan project - even the bomb hoist, shackle, and rack system big enough to hold the American atomic bomb were bought in Britain.... Without GB, the Manhattan project to produce the A-bomb would undoubtedly have lasted longer. Now the British were effectively sidelined and were kindly asked to fend for themselves nuclearly.
The two countries' nuclear paths parted, and before it came to that, the U.S. and Britain agreed in July 1946 to divide the existing uranium reserves in the US roughly equally between them: 1,350 tons each.* The British share went to 'Northern England' where there were the British nuclear plants. And Person? These days we call it framing, spinning, and fake news. Pearson was definitely wrong about the A-bombs delivery to Britain in 1946. At the same time, he provided his readers with an insight into the international nuclear chess game, in which vague agreements, intrigue, ignorance, and deception were the main strands.
*Berkemeier, M., Bowen, W.Q., Hobbs, C. and Moran M., Governing Uranium in the United Kingdom (Copenhagen: Danish Institute for International Studies, 2014), p.9
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And here is the book ON THE EDGE - Turning point Berlin - with a few time references to Burtonwood On the Edge - Part One - Aviation History
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