 The Alsos Mission set out on 20 April and rendezvoused with the 1269th Engineer Combat Battalion at Freudenstadt. The intact bridge over the Neckar River at Horb was crossed and Haigerloch was occupied without opposition on 22 April. The main body of Task Force A arrived on 23 April. In a laboratory in a cellar they found a German experimental nuclear reactor shaped like a cylinder and made of graphite blocks, but the uranium and heavy water were missing. The scientists immediately began dismantling it. Pash left Hambro in charge, while he led troops of Task Force A to Bisingen, and then on to Hechingen, where 25 scientists were captured, including von Weizsäcker, von Laue, Karl Wirtz, Horst Korsching and Erich Bagge. At Tailfingen they took Otto Hahn and nine members of his staff into custody. At Haigerloch, a sealed drum of documents was retrieved from a cesspool, and three drums of heavy water and 1.5 tons of uranium ingots were found buried in a field. The uranium and heavy water were loaded onto trucks. The apertures in the cellar were blown up with minor explosions to prevent their capture by the French.
