Operation Harborage was an operation to capture German nuclear energy program scientists, materiel and facilities in southwestern Germany in the waning days of World War II.

History

Part of the Allied

Alsos Mission The Alsos Mission was an organized effort by a team of British and United States military, scientific, and intelligence personnel to discover enemy scientific developments during World War II. Its chief focus was on the German nuclear energy pro ...

,Atomic Heritage Foundatio
The Alsos Mission
/ref> Operation Harborage was led by

Manhattan Project The Manhattan Project was a research and development undertaking during World War II that produced the first nuclear weapons. It was led by the United States with the support of the United Kingdom and Canada. From 1942 to 1946, the project w ...

intelligence division chief Col. John Lansdale, Jr. on behalf of project head General

Leslie Groves Lieutenant General Leslie Richard Groves Jr. (17 August 1896 – 13 July 1970) was a United States Army Corps of Engineers officer who oversaw the construction of the Pentagon and directed the Manhattan Project, a top secret research project ...

,''Die Bombe'', a documentary by Klaus H. Hein
(c)NDR/arte 1996 (accessed 2014-10-24) under the direction of Alsos commander Col.

Boris Pash Boris Theodore Pash (born ''Boris Fedorovich Pashkovsky'', Russian: Борис Фёдорович Пашковский; 20 June 1900 – 11 May 1995) was a United States Army military intelligence officer. He commanded the Alsos Mission during Wo ...

. It was carried out by Alsos team members assisted by combat engineers from the

1269th Engineer Combat Battalion The 1269th Engineer Combat Battalion was an engineer combat battalion that served in the United States Army in the European Theater of Operations during World War II. It saw action in France and Germany, serving notably with the Army's T-Force ...

, the

U.S. Sixth Army Sixth Army is a theater army of the United States Army. The Army service component command of United States Southern Command, its area of responsibility includes 31 countries and 15 areas of special sovereignty in Central and South America and ...

T-Force T-Force was the operational arm of a joint US Army–British Army mission to secure German scientific and industrial technology before it could be destroyed by retreating German forces or looters during the final stages of the Second World War an ...

intelligence assault force. Shortly after the

liberation of Paris The liberation of Paris (french: Libération de Paris) was a military battle that took place during World War II from 19 August 1944 until the German garrison surrendered the French capital on 25 August 1944. Paris had been occupied by Nazi Germ ...

it was decided to bomb German nuclear facilities wherever they lay in order to deprive the Soviet Union of their technology and personnel, unless American troops could get to them first. In late April 1945 Harborage teams were directed toward the

Black Forest The Black Forest (german: Schwarzwald ) is a large forested mountain range in the state of Baden-Württemberg in southwest Germany, bounded by the Rhine Valley to the west and south and close to the borders with France and Switzerland. It is t ...

cities of

Hechingen Hechingen ( Swabian: ''Hächenga'') is a town in central Baden-Württemberg, Germany. It is situated about south of the state capital of Stuttgart and north of Lake Constance and the Swiss border. Geography The town lies at the foot of the ...

Bisingen Bisingen is a municipality in the Zollernalbkreis district of Baden-Württemberg, Germany. History Bisingen is one of the oldest settlements of the area, verified by several findings of the Neolithic Age, the Bronze Age, the early Iron Age and ...

and

Haigerloch Haigerloch is a town in the north-western part of the Swabian Alb in Germany. Geography Geographical location Haigerloch lies at between 430 and 550 metres elevation in the valley of the Eyach river, which forms two loops in a steep shelly limest ...

. These centers of the relocated German effort were all scheduled to be seized by the French and occupied by them post-war. By cutting ahead of the

French First Army The First Army (french: 1re Armée) was a field army of France that fought during World War I and World War II. It was also active during the Cold War. First World War On mobilization in August 1914, General Auguste Dubail was put in the ...

's forward troops and operating behind enemy lines American technical intelligence units swept the area clean, seizing and transporting off what they could and destroying the rest. The result left the French deprived of a share of the boost German technology and brainpower provided other Allies through the

Cold War The Cold War is a term commonly used to refer to a period of geopolitical tension between the United States and the Soviet Union and their respective allies, the Western Bloc and the Eastern Bloc. The term '' cold war'' is used because the ...

; these ended up divided among the U.S. (which reaped the

lion's share The lion's share is an idiomatic expression which now refers to the major share of something. The phrase derives from the plot of a number of fables ascribed to Aesop and is used here as their generic title. There are two main types of story, wh ...

), Soviet Union, and Britain.

Notes

Footnotes

References

{{coord missing, Germany Harborage Nuclear program of Nazi Germany

History

See also

Notes

References