Cool thread
History is my hobby, specially militar history, and in a way the reason why I will never be trully happy in profissional, I've choosen to be an accountant instead of an academic career in History, the only one possible.
About Petain and the heavy water, he didn't had anything to do with the sending of the 150 liters (app 40 US gallons) the French had at the time.
Actually France had bought to the Norwegien all their stock, for their own nuclear program, that's why the Germans had to wait until 1943, when the factory was destroyed by the
British Commandos. The Norwegien factory was open back in 1930 about then years before the French defeat by the nazis.
During the chaos that followed the fall of France 1n940, it was two French scientists from the Radium Institute with the help of a few military that took all the French heavy water back back to England.
It’s the kind of history that would give a good script for a film, instead of the usual super heroes stuff.
And if you think about it’s real a crucial part, a very significant event of WWII, without heavy water no nuclear bomb could be produced, and the French had all the world stock at the time, so just imagine what could had happened if the Nazis had got their hands on it back in 1940.
The French were the one’s with most advance nuclear programme at the time, way ahead of the US or Nazi German.
I think the question isn’t if Petain would deliver the heavy water to the nazis, the thing is he wouldn’t had a choice, the only thing Vichy could do was to destroy it before the Nazis could reach it. Would they do it ? Well we will never know. But still back in 1940 world leaders already knew the importance of heavy water.
Here’s some importante links to know more about interresting bit of WWII history.
http://stochasticreview.blogspot.pt/2013/11/the-heavy-water-coup-of-1940.html