September 25, 1999
By Eugene Bingham
[Original article available on New Zealand Herald website at this link]
Top-secret wartime experiments were conducted off the coast of Auckland to perfect a tidal wave bomb, declassified files reveal.
An Auckland University professor seconded to the Army set off a series of underwater explosions triggering mini-tidal waves at Whangaparaoa in 1944 and 1945.
Professor Thomas Leech's work was considered so significant that United States defence chiefs said that if the project had been completed before the end of the war it could have played a role as effective as that of the atom bomb.
Details of the tsunami bomb, known as Project Seal, are contained in 53-year-old documents released by the Ministry of Foreign Affairs and Trade.
Papers stamped "top secret" show the US and British military were eager for Seal to be developed in the post-war years too. They even considered sending Professor Leech to Bikini Atoll to view the US nuclear tests and see if they had any application to his work.
He did not make the visit, although a member of the US board of assessors of atomic tests, Dr Karl Compton, was sent to New Zealand.
"Dr Compton is impressed with Professor Leech's deductions on the Seal project and is prepared to recommend to the Joint Chiefs of Staff that all technical data from the test relevant to the Seal project should be made available to the New Zealand Government for further study by Professor Leech," said a July 1946 letter from Washington to Wellington.
Professor Leech, who died in his native Australia in 1973, was the university's dean of engineering from 1940 to 1950.
News of his being awarded a CBE ["Commander of the Order of the British Empire", a grade in the Order of the British Empire] in 1947 for research on a weapon led to speculation in newspapers around the world about what was being developed.
Though high-ranking New Zealand and US officers spoke out in support of the research, no details of it were released because the work was on-going.
A former colleague of Professor Leech, Neil Kirton, told the Weekend Herald that the experiments involved laying a pattern of explosives underwater to create a tsunami.
Small-scale explosions were carried out in the Pacific and off Whangaparaoa, which at the time was controlled by the Army.
It is unclear what happened to Project Seal once the final report was forwarded to Wellington Defence Headquarters late in the 1940s.
The bomb was never tested on a full scale, and Mr Kirton doubts that Aucklanders would have noticed the trials.
"Whether it could ever be resurrected ... Under some circumstances I think it could be devastating."
The article is reproduced in accordance with Section 107 of title 17 of the Copyright Law of the United States relating to fair-use and is for the purposes of criticism, comment, news reporting, teaching, scholarship, and research.
The Russians perfected the technique and developed VERY heavy hydrogenbombs for this (tsunami)purpose. I read the scenario of WWIII, they will use them against Great Brittain.
ReplyDeleteE-bee The Netherlands
Well, the real question is with all the tsunami's done over the past 5 years,who is really doing this? So far, we, the USA under the control of our foreign handlers, the Israelis, are the only ones with a history of using weapons in an unfair manner that murders innocent people who are not combatants.
ReplyDeleteWho had a history of doing exactly that for decades now??? Israel, not the US, but now we are under their control as a foreign occupying force, therefore we are beginning to look and act like it. As they used Jews for centuries as a cover for their horrific evil, they are now using us likewise. No different, just a different front for their evil work. Now its time to expose them from behind the curtain. They are using our wealth to develop that tech and since we have used such weapons in the past, its very likely we are using them now. No firm evidence, but then murder is like that. Its why so many are in jail through conviction by "circumstantial evidence". Just because they are rich doesn't mean they deserve or should get a bigger break than someone lesser in stature.