lled “Miracle Weapon”. However, even the destructive force of 5000 V2s launched at the same time would have less destructive power than that of a bomb load from a single raid of 1000 bombers, and raids of this magnitude were becoming more of a common occurrence over Germany. A real miracle weapon would have to come in the form of a chemical or nuclear weapon. By 1943, Germany still lacked any real nuclear capabilities, so an alternative would have to be found. Two of the possibilities considered included using nerve gas such as Tabun or Sarin, and/or equipping rockets with radioactive isotopes that would that would make a nuclear wasteland out of any area in which it landed. Since Tabun and Sarin remained active for sometime, plans for any attacks using them were never seriously considered since a shift in winds could lead to the toxic gas back over Germany. To achieve a radioactive missile strike, work had to be done both in nuclear research, and also in the rockets. A modified V2 rocket capable of delivering the radioactive dust began development in 1943. In the nuclear field, research had been underway in developing a large enough quantity of enriched uranium oxide for either a nuclear bomb or equally devastating radioactive material. However, by 1942-43, the chances of building a working reactor were becoming remote primarily because of discrepancies as to how to go about obtaining enriched uranium, and a shortage of essential products such as hard water and uranium oxide. By the end of the war in 1945, Germany had yet to build a working reactor, however there is substantial evidence that they had plans for launching a limited radioactive strike with Japan on the west coast of the United States. At the time of Germany’s surrender in May 1945, the U-234 submarine had been on the way to Japan carrying lead boxes hypothesized to hold nuclear material that would be used to bombard the west coast of the Unite...
