The chilling document that traces nuclear weapons back to Britain – and the threat we now face
Eighty years ago today, an American B-29 bomber dropped an atomic bomb on the Japanese city of Hiroshima.
It was the dawn of the atomic age, but the birth of the bomb can be traced beyond the deserts of New Mexico to Britain, five years earlier.
A copy of a hand-typed document, now in the Bodleian library in Oxford, is the first description of an atom bomb small enough to use as a weapon.
The Frisch-Peierls Memorandum was written by two nuclear physicists at the University of Birmingham in 1940.
The memorandum is the first description of an atom bomb small enough to use as a weapon
Otto Frisch and Rudolf Peierls don’t feature in the film Oppenheimer, but their paper is credited with jump-starting the Manhattan Project that ultimately built the bomb.
Both Jewish scientists who had both fled Nazi Germany, they built on the latest understanding of uranium fission and nuclear chain reactions, to propose a bomb made from enriched uranium that was compact enough to be carried by an aircraft.
The document, so secret at the time only one copy was made, makes for chilling reading.
Not only does it detail how to build a bomb, but foretells the previously unimaginable power of its blast.
“Such an explosion would destroy life in a wide area,” they wrote.
“The size of this area is difficult to estimate, but it will probably cover the centre of a big city.”
Radioactive fallout would be inevitable “and even for days after the explosion any person entering the affected area will be killed”.
Both lethal properties of the bombs that would subsequently fall on Hiroshima and Nagasaki, killing around 100,000 instantly and more than 100,000 others in the years that followed – most of them civilians.
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The atomic bomb was dropped by parachute and exploded 580m (1,900ft) above Hiroshima
‘The most terrifying weapons ever created’
Those bombs had the explosive power of around 16 and 20 kilotonnes of TNT respectively – a force great enough to end the Second World War.
But compared to nuclear weapons of today, they were tiny.
“What we would now term as low yield nuclear weapons,” said Alexandra Bell, president of the Bulletin of Atomic Scientists, which campaigns for nuclear disarmament.
“We’re talking about city destroyers…these really are the most terrifying weapons ever created.”
The atomic bomb flattened Hiroshima – but is much less powerful than modern nuclear weapons
Many of these “high yield” nuclear weapons are thermonuclear designs first tested in the 1950s.
They use the power of nuclear fission that destroyed Hiroshima to harness yet more energy by fusing other atoms together.
Codenamed “Mike”, the first test of a fusion bomb in 1952 yielded at least 500 times more energy than those dropped on Japan.
Impractically devastating, but proof of lethal principle.
Variants of the W76 thermonuclear warhead currently deployed by the US and UK are around 100Kt, six times more powerful than the Hiroshima bomb.
Just one dropped on a city the size of London would result in more than a quarter of a million deaths.
The largest warhead in America’s current arsenal, the B83 has the explosive equivalent of 1.2 megatonnes (1.2 million tonnes of TNT) and would kill well over a million instantly.
But modern intercontinental ballistic missiles (ICBMs) are designed to carry multiple warheads.
Russia’s Sarmat 2, for example, is thought to be capable of carrying 10 megatonnes of nuclear payload.
They’re designed to strike multiple targets at once, but if all were dropped on a city like London most of its population of nine million would be killed or injured.
If that kind of power is incomprehensible, consider how many nuclear warheads there now are in the world.
Nine countries – the US, Russia, China, France, the UK, India, Pakistan, North Korea and Israel – have nuclear weapons.
Several others are interested in having them.
The US and Russia have around 4,000 nuclear warheads each – 90% of the global nuclear arsenal and more than enough to destroy civilisation.
According to analysis from the Stockholm International Peace Research Institute, China us thought to have around 600 warheads, but has indicated a desire to catch up.
Beijing is believed to be building up to 100 new warheads a year and the ICBMs to deliver them.
Five more nuclear powers, including the UK, plan to either increase or modernise their existing nuclear stockpiles.
The nuclear arms race that created this situation was one imagined by Frisch and Peierls in their 1940 memorandum.
Given the mass civilian casualties it would inevitably cause, the scientists questioned whether the bomb should ever be used by the Allies.
Chinese soldiers simulate nuclear combat
They wrote, however: “If one works on the assumption that Germany is, or will be, in the possession of this weapon… the most effective reply would be a counter-threat with a similar bomb.”
What they didn’t believe was that the bomb they proposed, and went on to help build at Los Alamos, would ever be used.
Devastated by its use on Japan, Peierls disavowed the bomb and later campaigned for disarmament.
But that work is now as unfinished as ever.
Non-proliferation treaties helped reduce the expensive and excessive nuclear arsenals of Russia and the US, and prevent more countries from building nuclear bombs.
A Russian airman on a nuclear-capable strategic bomber
‘Everything trending in the wrong direction’
But progress ground to a halt with the invasion of Ukraine, as nuclear tensions continued elsewhere.
“After all the extremely hard, tedious work that we did to reduce nuclear risks everything is now trending in the wrong direction,” said Alexandra Bell.
“The US and Russia refuse to talk to each other about strategic stability.
“China is building up its nuclear arsenal in an unprecedented fashion and the structures that were keeping non-proliferation in place stemming the spread of nuclear weapons are crumbling around us.”
The US president is always in reach of the ‘nuclear football’ , a bag which contains the codes and procedures needed to authorise a nuclear attack
‘New risks increasing the threat’
The world may have come closer to nuclear conflict during the Cuban missile crisis of 1963, but the fragmented and febrile state of geopolitics now is more dangerous, she argues.
Conflict regularly flares between nuclear armed India and Pakistan; Donald Trump’s foreign policy has sparked fears that South Korea might pursue the bomb to counter North Korea’s nuclear threat; some states in the Middle East are eyeing a nuclear deterrent to either nuclear-wannabe Iran or nuclear armed Israel.
Add to the mix the military use of AI and stressors like climate change, and the view of the Bulletin of Atomic Scientists is the situation is more precarious than in 1963.
“It’s more dangerous, but in a different way,” said Alexandra Bell. “The confluence of all these new existential risks are increasing the threat worldwide.”
World
It’s been four years since a US president met Putin – and Trump will have a lot of ice to break
Donald Trump and Vladimir Putin will meet where their countries brush shoulders.
But why Alaska and why now?
A US-Russia summit in Alaska is geography as metaphor and message.
Alaska physically bridges both countries across the polar expanse.
Follow latest: Ukraine war live updates
Choosing this location signals strategic parity – the US and Russian leaders face to face in a place where their interests literally meet.
Alaska has surged in geopolitical importance due to its untapped fossil fuels.
Trump has aggressively pushed for more control in the Arctic, plans for Greenland and oil access.
Holding talks there centres the conversation where global energy and territorial stakes are high, and the US president thrives on spectacle.
Reuters file pic
A dramatic summit in the rugged frontier of Alaska plays into his flair for the theatrical.
It is brand Trump – a stage that frames him as bold, unorthodox and in command.
It was 2021 when a US president last came face-to-face with a Russian president.
The leaders of the two countries haven’t met since Russia invaded Ukraine.
Pic: AP
But Trump is in touch with all sides – Russia, Ukraine and European leaders – and says they all, including Putin, want “to see peace”.
He’s even talking up the potential shape of any deal and how it might involve the “swapping of territory”.
Volodymyr Zelenskyy has repeatedly insisted he will not concede territory annexed by Russia.
Moscow has sent the White House a list of demands in return for a ceasefire.
Read more:
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‘I’m not against meeting Zelenskyy’
Trump is attempting to secure buy-in from Zelenskyy and other European leaders.
He styles himself as “peacemaker-in-chief” and claims credit for ending six wars since he returned to office 200 days ago.
There’s much ice to break if he’s to secure a coveted seventh one in Alaska.
The UK and four allies have criticised Israel’s decision to launch a new large-scale military operation in Gaza – warning it will “aggravate the catastrophic humanitarian situation” in the territory.
The foreign ministers of Britain, Australia, Germany, Italy and New Zealand said in a joint statement that the offensive will “endanger the lives of hostages” and “risk violating international humanitarian law”.
It comes a day after Israel’s security cabinet approved an operation to take military control of Gaza City – and concluded a full takeover of the enclave is required to end the conflict.
It marks another escalation in the war in Gaza, sparked by the Hamas attack of 7 October 2023.
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Can Netanyahu defeat Hamas ideology?
In their joint statement, the UK and its allies said they “strongly reject” the decision, adding: “It will endanger the lives of the hostages and further risk the mass displacement of civilians.
“The plans that the government of Israel has announced risk violating international humanitarian law. Any attempts at annexation or of settlement extension violate international law.”
The countries also called for a permanent ceasefire as “the worst-case scenario of famine is unfolding in Gaza”.
It comes as Sky News analysis has found that airdrops of aid are making little difference to Gaza’s hunger crisis, and pose serious risks to the population – with a father-of-two killed by a falling package.
A Palestinian boy after an Israeli strike on a house in Gaza City on Friday. Pic: Reuters
Meanwhile, France, Canada, Qatar, the United Arab Emirates and the United Nations all criticised Israel’s plan for a full occupation of Gaza.
Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu “expressed his disappointment” with German Chancellor Friedrich Merz’s in phone call on Friday after Berlin decided it would stop selling arms to Israel.
In a post on X, the Israeli prime minister’s office added: “Instead of supporting Israel’s just war against Hamas, which carried out the most horrific attack against the Jewish people since the Holocaust, Germany is rewarding Hamas terrorism by embargoing arms to Israel.”
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Inside plane dropping aid over Gaza
US ambassador hits out at Starmer
Earlier on Friday, the US Ambassador to Israel, Mike Huckabee, criticised Sir Keir Starmer after he said Israel’s decision to “escalate its offensive” in Gaza is “wrong”.
Mr Huckabee wrote on X: “So Israel is expected to surrender to Hamas & feed them even though Israeli hostages are being starved? Did UK surrender to Nazis and drop food to them? Ever heard of Dresden, PM Starmer? That wasn’t food you dropped. If you had been PM then UK would be speaking German!”
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In another post around an hour later Mr Huckabee wrote: “How much food has Starmer and the UK sent to Gaza?
“@IsraeliPM has already sent 2 MILLION TONS into Gaza & none of it even getting to hostages.”
Sir Keir has pledged to recognise a Palestinian state in September unless the Israeli government meets a series of conditions towards ending the war in Gaza.
The UK and its allies criticised Israel as US President JD Vance and UK Foreign Secretary David Lammy met at Chevening House in Kent on Friday.
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Lammy-Vance bromance: Will it last?
Mr Vance described a “disagreement” about how the US and UK could achieve their “common objectives” in the Middle East, and said the Trump administration had “no plans to recognise a Palestinian state”.
He said: “I don’t know what it would mean to really recognise a Palestinian state given the lack of functional government there.”
Mr Vance added: “There’s a lot of common objectives here. There is some, I think, disagreement about how exactly to accomplish those common objectives, but look, it’s a tough situation.”
The UN Security Council will meet on Saturday to discuss the situation in the Middle East.
Ambassador Riyad Mansour, permanent observer of the State of Palestine to the United Nations, said earlier on Friday that a number of countries would be requesting a meeting of the UN Security Council on Israel’s plans.
World
A father criticised the use of airdrops in Gaza. Five days later, he was killed by a falling pallet
Five days before he was killed by a falling aid package, father-of-two Uday al Qaraan called on world leaders to open Gaza’s borders to food – and criticised the use of airdrops.
“This isn’t aid delivery,” said the 32-year-old medic as a crowd of children rummaged through the remains of an airdrop behind him. “This is humiliation.”
Using footage from social media, satellite imagery, eyewitness testimony and flight tracking data, Sky News has examined the dangers posed by airdrops – and just how little difference they are making to Gaza’s hunger crisis.
A tangled parachute and a crowd in chaos
Based on six videos of the airdrop that killed Uday, we were able to locate the incident to a tent camp on the coast of central Gaza.
We determined that the drop occurred at approximately 11.50am on 4 August, based on metadata from these videos shared by three eyewitnesses.
Flight tracking data shows that only one aid plane, a UAE Armed Forces C-130 Hercules, was in the area at that time.
Footage from the ground shows 12 pallets falling from the plane. The four lowest parachutes soon become tangled, and begin to fall in pairs.
As a crowd surges towards the landing zone, a gunshot rings out. Nine more follow over a 90-second period.
Sakhr al Qaraan, an eyewitness and Uday’s neighbour, says that Uday was among those running after the first pallet to land.
“He didn’t see the other pallet it was tangled up with, and it fell on him moments later,” says Sakhr.
“People ran to collect the aid in cold blood, devoid of humanity, and he suffocated under that damned blanket – under the feet of people who had lost all humanity.”
The scene descended into chaos as Palestinians, some armed, tussled over the limited food available.
By the time Uday was pulled from the crowd and rushed to hospital, it was too late.
The UAE Ministry of Foreign Affairs did not respond to a request for comment.
Medic and father-of-two Uday al Qaraan, 32, was killed on 4 August by an aid package dropped from a UAE Armed Forces plane.
Parachutes failed in half of airdrops analysed
This was not the first time that airdrops at this location had posed a threat to those on the ground.
The day before Uday was killed, the same plane had dropped aid over the site.
The footage below, shared by the UAE Armed Forces, shows the view from inside the plane. Just before the footage ends, it shows that one of the parachutes was broken.
Hisham al Armi recorded the scene from the ground. His video shows the broken parachute, as well as another that had failed completely.
Military planes dropped aid at the site on eight consecutive days between 30 July and 6 August. Sky News verified footage showing parachute failures during four of those eight airdrops.
Flight tracking data shows that almost all of the 67 aid flights over that period followed a similar route along the coast, which is densely packed with tent camps.
An Israel Defence Forces (IDF) official told Sky News that the airdrops are routed along the coast, because this is where much of Gaza’s population is now concentrated.
An IDF spokesperson added the Israeli military “takes all possible measures to mitigate the harm to uninvolved civilians”.
Hisham al Armi told Sky News he is grateful to the countries that donated the aid, but “the negatives outweigh the positives”.
“Fighting occurs when aid is dropped, and some people are killed … due to the crush and parachutes.”
Other dangers are also posed by the airdrops.
The footage below, taken on 29 July, shows Palestinians venturing into the sea in order to chase aid that had drifted over the water. The IDF has banned Palestinians from entering the sea.
One woman, a relative of Uday who witnessed his death, described the airdrops as the “airborne humiliation of the people”.
“There is not enough aid for them,” she said. “It creates problems among the people, and some are killed just to obtain a little aid. And most people don’t receive any aid, they remain hungry for days.”
Between 27 July and 1 August, Gaza received an estimated 1,505 tonnes of food aid per day via land routes – 533 tonnes short of what the UN’s food security agency says is needed to meet basic needs.
Based on flight tracking data, we estimated that airdrops added just 38 tonnes daily, 7% of the shortfall.
“The quantities involved are minuscule in terms of the scale of the need,” says Sam Rose, Gaza director of UNRWA, the UN agency previously responsible for distributing food in the territory.
UNRWA claims it has enough food stationed outside of Gaza to feed the population for three months, but that Israel has not allowed the agency to bring in any food since 2 March.
“We should be dealing with that rather than introducing something else which is costly, dangerous, undignified and somehow legitimises … the access regime by suggesting that we found a way round it through airdrops,” Rose says.
COGAT, the Israeli agency responsible for coordinating aid deliveries, referred Sky News to a statement in which it said there is “no limit on the amount of aid” allowed into Gaza.
An IDF spokesperson also denied restricting aid, and said the Israeli military “will continue to work in order to improve the humanitarian response in the Gaza Strip, along with the international community”.
In his interview five days before he was killed, Uday al Qaraan appealed to world leaders to open Gaza’s borders.
“What would happen if they just let the aid in?” he asked. “If you can fly planes and drop aid from the sky then you can break the siege, you can open a land crossing.”
The Data and Forensics team is a multi-skilled unit dedicated to providing transparent journalism from Sky News. We gather, analyse and visualise data to tell data-driven stories. We combine traditional reporting skills with advanced analysis of satellite images, social media and other open source information. Through multimedia storytelling we aim to better explain the world while also showing how our journalism is done.
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