Fields of Thunders – Nuclear testing in Australia

Oily, Hi,
My involvement came from being at the V-Bomber Station, in UK, where were based the a/c that dropped some of the bombs.
At that time the routing of the a/c out to Oz was so TOP SECRET that you could have been executed in the Tower of London for even thinking about it! We discovered which way they were going (and, remember, we had to prepare their flight forecasts!) when the Boss found out from his bank in Stamford that they’d just had a big delivery of a large amount of Canadian dollars!
The ‘perceived truth’ was that ‘the colonials’ in Oz were not up (technically and/or scientifically) to the job. It becomes obvious, after reading a large amount of the Oz papers, that ‘the Brits’ arrived in what they thought was ‘darkest Oz’! There were, clearly, some considerable frictions which the Oz papers do tend to gloss over with a ‘sang froid’ not normally associated with your average ‘okker’!
Clearly, senior politicians in UK were prepared to go to any lengths to make sure “We” had “The Bomb”!
HTH
Resmoroh

Hope you had your fingers in your ears…!!!

Fair point. Just came across very parsimonious (maybe he IS a parson!) – he could have worded it better.

“Blast the Bush” by Lenny Beadell. Very interesting story. He was a surveyor/explorer/bushman who went, armed with a theodolite and a Land Rover, into the outback from South Australia and basically mapped and made the road structure for the test sites.

David,
I would hope that you are right. But my experiences with UK Govt/Air Min/Mod in the years since then have led me to believe that my suspicious mind is probably nearer to the truth than your altruistic approach.
Nuclear Bomb engineering/poilitics is/are not won by considering individual people.
And, Oily, I was on duty at a V-Bomber base when the Cuban Missile crisis erupted! Seen it from the beginning to (nearly!!!) the end.
HTH
Resmoroh

To be considered ‘expendable’ as you put it indicates a deliberate disregard to the personnel’s welfare . I would suggest that ignorance of the dangers of what they were exposed to by themselves and in the orders from their superiors is far more likely.

There was a good book called “Blast the bush” I forget the authors name, I THINK he was called Len Bates. He was a surveyor who found the site for the tests.
The scientists did some risky things with the servicemen back then and the various governments since have messed the poor vets about so that they would die off and cost them less in compo.

Rgds Cking

Oily,
I can understand your frustration, but I think you have been a bit harsh.
Daniel may have come across this for the first time. Many of my colleagues (some no longer with us!) were on the various tests. I have (with the expert co-operations of various Australian Depts) assembled some of the info that Daniel may be looking for.
It is clear that some aircrews were made to fly through post detonation clouds on sampling missions without adequate protective clothing.
It is clear that some Australian airframes became so heavily contaminated that they had to be buried. It is clear that the ground crews were over-exposed whilst in the process of ‘washing’ post detonation sampling a/c.
It is also clear that – AT THAT TIME – the local indigenous populations in the detonation (or fall-out) areas were not regarded as being important – i.e. they were expendable! In the same way that aircrews without proper protective clothing, or ground-crews doing the a/c washing, were considered expendable (either by ignorance (hopefully), or – worse – deliberately.).
One can make one’s own decisions. I know where my current information takes me!!
HTH
Resmoroh

And…???

What’s your point?

If you are twelve years old, I can understand.

If not, then you may be surprised to hear that they didn’t have the computers nor undertsanding we now have (mainly because they conducted tests such as these). The only way of increasing the knowledge base was to actually ‘trial’ the weapons.

E.G. “What will happen if an aeroplane crashes on take-off, bursts into flames – will the device detonate?”

Take one small (One kT) device, place in a vat of aviation fuel, set alight and retire to a safe distance.

(bang!)

(Note, a ‘little’ bang, the explosive initiator only.)

Result: The main device will not detonate.

Tick!

And, before you ask, I was at Maralinga. Now Go-Google and do some research.

🙂

Daniel, Hi,
So what is the question you want answered? Much of this (and a great deal more) is already in the public domain – and has been for some time!

Peter,
Very likely – but no more than the US, USSR, French, etc, bomb tests. And no more, probably, than the “nasties” spewed into the atmosphere at Windscale, 3 Mile Island, Chernobyl, etc, and a whole host of other inadvertent releases that never made the international media!

HTH
Resmoroh

Makes you wonder if this has caused alot of cancer worldwide….