The Making of the Atomic Bomb: 25th Anniversary Edition

by Richard Rhodes

Allier slipped into Oslo under an assumed name and met with the general manager of Norsk Hydro at the beginning of March. The French officer was prepared to pay up to 1.5 million kroner for the water and even to leave half for the Germans, but once the Norwegian heard what military purpose the substance might serve he volunteered his entire stock and refused payment. The water, divided among twenty-six cans, left Vemork by car soon afterward on a dark midnight. From Oslo Allier’s team flew it to Edinburgh in two loads—German fighters forced down for inspection a decoy plane Allier had pretended to board at the time of the first loading—and then transported it by rail and Channel ferry to Paris, where Joliot prepared through the winter and spring of the phony war to use it in both homogeneous and heterogeneous uranium-oxide experiments.