pdf - WHALE

Of course we now know what was not known in October of 1944:
when an atomic or thermonuclear bomb is detonated, the extreme
electromagnetic pulse knocks out or interferes with electrical
equipment for miles from the detonation site, depending on the size
of the blast, the proximity of such equipment to it, and the degree
of "shielding" such equipment has. For the normal, non-military
phone lines in Berlin, the strange disruption of phone service is
explainable precisely as the result of such an electromagnetic pulse.
But this would imply that such a pulse, if the result of an atom
bomb test, be considerably closer to Berlin than Norway.
Presumably if telephone service in Berlin was affected by an atom
bomb test in Norway, similar disruptions would have occurred in
large cities that were much closer to the test, such as Oslo,
Copenhagen, or Stockholm. Yet, not such disruptions are
mentioned; only Berlin appears to have been affected. 7
Thus, if the atom bomb test mentioned in the 1945 London
Daily Telegraph article occurred, then one must look for a site
considerably closer to Berlin than Norway. The Daily Mail phone
service disruption article stands as clear corroboration of the
probable test of a German atom bomb sometime in October of
1944, the same time frame as Zinsser's affidavit, and within the
time frame mentioned in the Daily Telegraph article about a secret
alert in Britain from August of 1944, and continuing for "several
months."
But the Daily Mail's phone service disruption article does
more: it suggests why the Germans may have considered the test a
failure. At that time the effects of nuclear explosions -
electromagnetic pulse and disruption of electrical equipment,
radioactivity and fallout - were still largely unknown and not well
understood. The Berlin telephone service was one of the finest, if
not the finest, in the world at the time. 8 The Nazis may very well
7
There is another possibly, though extremely unlikely explanation, for the
lack of reports in other cities. Very simply, it may reflect a lack of intelligence
from those areas.
8
Up to the very end of the war, for example, the cable lines between Berlin
and Tokyo remained open, allowing the Japanese to send condolences to the
Nazi government even as Russian tanks were rolling over the streets of the city.
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