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Why are these details significant First, note the reference
to "incendiary oil shells." These shells are the indication
that unusual weaponry was deployed by the Germans at
Sevastopol and delivered through conventional - though
quite large - artillery pieces. The German Army did possess
such shells and deployed the frequently and with no little
effectiveness on the Eastern Front.
But might there have been an even more fearsome
weapon In subsequent chapters we will present evidence
that the Germans indeed developed an early version of a
modern "fuel-air" bomb, a conventional explosive with the
explosive power of a tactical nuclear weapon. Given the
great weight of such projectiles, and the German lack of
sufficient heavy-lift aircraft to deliver them, it is possible if
not likely that super-heavy artillery was used to deploy
them. This would also explain another curiosity in the
Japanese military attache's statement: the Germans
apparently did not deploy weapons of mass destruction
against cities, but only against military targets that would
have been within the range of such weapons. We may now
resume with the analysis of the Japanese statement.}
(2) The Germans may have been seriously pursuing the
hydrogen bomb, since reactions of the nuclei of heavy water
atoms - containing deuterium and tritium - are essential in
thermonuclear fusion reactions, a point highlighted by the
Japanese delegate(though he confuses these reactions with
fission reactions of atom bombs), and corroborated by Fritz
Houtermans' pre-war work in the thermonuclear fusion
process at work in stars;
massed heavy and super-heavy artillery that the German General Staff
estimated that over 500 rounds fell on Russian positions per second during the
five days' artillery and aerial bombardment, a massive expenditure of
ammunition. The rain of steel on the Russian positions pulverized Russian
morale and was often so thunderous that eardrums burst. At the end of the
battle, the city and environs of Sevastopol were ruined, two entire Soviet armies
had been obliterated, and over 90,000 prisoners were taken, (pp. 501-502, 511)
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