Fissionline 31

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Issue 31 International Bulletin of Nuclear Veterans and Children Dec 2014

fissionline

LET JUSTICE BE

DONE THOUGH

THE HEAVENS

SHOULD FALL... JOHN QUINCY ADAMS

fissionline Appeal to

The Prime Minister

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PAGE 2 FISSIONLINE 31

Britain’s nuclear veterans last

month won a stunning victory in

the courts. With the help of a bril-

liant legal team, backed by this

newspaper, they de-

feated the might of the

Ministry of Defence. In

a landmark ruling the

President of the Upper

Tribunal Administrative

Chamber Mr Justice

Charles overturned a

controversial decision by the First

Tier Tribunal under Judge Stubbs

to deny nuclear veterans access to

war pensions. It could mean relief

for hundreds of veterans and their

families who have been struggling

with illnesses caused by their par-

ticipation in the 1950s nuclear

bomb tests. This is a major step

forward and law firms Hogan Lov-

ells and Rosenblatts who have

given their services ‘Pro Bono’

backed by the British Legioin de-

serve great credit. But there is still

a long way to go. The Ministry of

Defence will fight tooth and nail to

prevent the veterans from making

f u r t h e r

gains. And

with al-

m o s t

unlimited

f u n d s ,

they can

afford to

do so. They have already spent

millions of pounds of public

money staving off legal challeng-

ers by the veterans. And be in no

doubt they will spend millions

more to defend their position.

Unfortunately the veterans’ legal

team can’t afford that luxury. It is

for this reason that fissionline to-

day begins a new ‘Let Justice Be

Done’ campaign with the aim of

putting pressure on the govern-

ment to supply funds so that the

veterans can process their claims

properly before an impartial judge

and jury. The provision of full legal

aid, which for obscure reasons was

withdrawn from the veterans some

years ago, might be one way. We

don’t know the ramifications of

such a move, but surely a way can

be found. Mr Cameron has said in

the Commons that he is deter-

mined so settle the nuclear veter-

ans issue. once and for all. This is

his chance to prove it. To allow

Britain’s nuclear veterans a level

playing field on which to take on

the Ministry of Defence is surely

the right and honourable thing to

do. Not only would justice be

served, but such a move would

also put an end to a problem that

has polluted political life of this

country for 60 years. It would also

show Mr Cameron to be a true

world statesman, no bad thing

with an election looming.

Inside Story Headline

Give Nuke Vets the

money and let

the courts decide

fissionline

LET JUSTICE

BE DONE

campaign

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Mr John Baron MP stood up in

Parliament for the third time to

beg for a £25million cash handout

to be administered to the nuclear

veterans by a charitable trust. I

presume he means the British

Nuclear Tests Veterans Associa-

tion Charity of which Mr Baron is

Patron. I admire his persistence.

But I have to question Mr Baron

on his suggestion that payment

would be ‘ex-gratia’ meaning the

government wouldn’t be liable for

the injuries servicemen received

at the bomb tests. This decision

was made without consultation

with myself or hundreds like me. I

never gave Mr Baron, or the

BNTVA Charity permission to

speak on my behalf. I have

fought for more than 30 years to

get justice not only for Britain’s

nuclear veterans, but also our

Commonwealth colleagues. I co-

founded the BNTVA in 1983 and

have witnessed the terrible toll in

death and ill health visited upon

nuclear veterans and their fami-

lies. I am not about to betray

them for what I can only de-

scribe as ‘hush money’ to be

doled out as an act of charity. I

stood down from the BNTVA in

2000, and it saddens me to see the

steady decline of a once great cam-

paigning organisation as its leaders

ruthlessly brush aside dissenters

with nasty letters, expulsions and

even threats to call the police if they

dare turn up at meetings. Mean-

while they kow-tow to the MoD and

fawn over MPs. I get letters and

phone calls all the time from dis-

gruntled members and ex-members

of the BNTVA expressing dismay at

revelations in fissionline about the

secrecy and back-room shenanigans

of the association leaders. I tell

them to sign up to the fissionline

project and join the real fight for

justice for the A-bomb test victims.

YOU DO NOT SPEAK

FOR ME, MR BARON

By Ken McGinley

Christmas Island veteran Ken McGinley in discussions with world-renowned physicists Doctors Rosalie

Bertell and Karl Morgan (top) and on a demonstration with former Minister for Disabled Jack Ashley.

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The fireball from Grapple Y was 6,000 ft in diameter; the surface temperature exceeded the surface temperature of the sun, gener-ating untold b i l l i ons o f BTUs. The immense heat from the explo-sion was hot enough to ‘boil’ the sea water 8,000-feet below and ignite vege-tation on the island. The pressure wave from the deto-nation caused the area under Ground Zero to form a large indented circu-lar concave on the surface of the ocean. As the shockwave bounced up-wards from the s u r f a c e , i t caused a large boiling water spout to rise. This superheated steam was pulled upward into the bottom of the liquid nuclear fire-ball causing it to be entrained into the detonation. The entrainment process reduces the heat of the light corona surrounding the detonation, making it darker. Eventually the entire base of the

nuclear fireball turns black. The sequence of events that fol-lowed is I believe still not under-

stood by the Ministry of Defense, AWE nor the Mandarins of White-hall. The detonation of Grapple Y caused the creation and develop-ment of a massive Pyrocumulo-nimbus Cloud. These cloud events are generally caused and created by major volcanic erup-tions, or other heat (pyro) sources,

such as forest fires. There is a great similarity between volcanic and nuclear pyrocumulonimbus

clouds. Volcanic eruptions can travel out at a speed of many hundreds of miles an hour. I meas-ured the Grapple Yankee cloud up-ward velocity at 193 mph. This created a unique local weather pat-tern that can be described as a nuclear weather bubble. Within this bubble there is an over-pressure and the air is dead. Only when t h e n u c l e a r weather bubble starts to dissipate, does the wind sheer return. This causes a huge up-per air inversion, when the upper air is hotter than the air at lower levels.

The heat that came roaring up-wards with the liquid nuclear plasma would have heated the entire air mass sitting under the spreading nuclear cloud to above the freezing point of water. This is why my aircraft encountered wet rain at 46,000 feet.

(Continued pg 5…)

RAINOUT CURSE OF

THE THUNDERNUKE Flt Lt Joe Pasquini was one of the elite RAF 76 squadron tasked with flying Canberra aircraft through the mush-room clouds of thermonuclear explosions. From his unique perspective he gives a compelling account of what it

was like to confront the biggest of all the UK’s H-bombs, the three megaton monster codenamed Grapple Y.

Joe Pasquini as a young airman, and today

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(From pg 4) The rain fell only from the edge of the cloud, where the temperature was cool enough for rain to form. The very edge of the nuclear cloud was roiling in-wards, sucking in the moist tropical air, mixing it with the irra-diated stardust to pro-duce the radioactive rain that fell and spread far and wide C u m u l o n i m b u s clouds, also known as Thunderheads, are tall towering clouds that climb high into the sky producing heavy drenching rain, large hailstones and thun-der and lightning. By comparison Pyrocu-mulonimbus clouds are in the same family, but their ‘Cause and Effect’ is different. The ‘Pyro’ version is caused, as the name implies, by fire. Whether it is a forest fire, volcano or nu-clear detonation. The heat from these events rises, creating a vio-lent updraft of heated air, sucking and draw-ing in ambient mois-ture, till the moisture reaches its Dew Point. Then it attaches to microscopic particles (star dust) to form rain. If the particles are radioactive, then the rain that falls will also be radioactive. These clouds will grow very tall, as the thermal heat from the source will cause a high altitude tempera-ture inversion. This is what happened when Grapple Y was deto-nated at Christmas Island April 28th, 1958.

Rain clouds form after Nuclear blast

Rain clouds after Volcanic eruption

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The science of health physics was vital to the safety of servicemen at the test sites. But the calibre of individuals performing these tasks fell woefully short of expectations, as was revealed in an internal government memo dated 28 June : I learnt only in October last year that the person acting as Health Phys-ics Adviser to succes-sive trial superinten-dents was not a quali-fied physicist or chem-ist but possessed quali-fications approximately equivalent to the school leaving certificate in Victoria. The responsi-bilities of the Health Physics Adviser appear to call for a person of higher qualifications.” The lack of expertise in the health physics area also emerged after Buffalo when the Range Com-mander (Colonel Durance) be-came aware that “Technical in-structions left by the Group Leader of the Health Physics Group give a different interpreta-tion to those quoted in Regula-tions” and reported this to the Secretary, Department of Supply

on 6 April 1957. In the same letter, Colonel Durance went on to say: “If the United Kingdom Scientific instructions are correct, then the

Yellow area, as shown, is correct and men may work in safety just south of it. However, if the Safety Regulations are correct, these men should be in protective cloth-ing, which would make their con-struction task nearly impossible.” Colonel Durance quoted an inci-dent that indicated his alarm at the consequences: “Work in the Test Area, shown as Gona and Tadje has been underway for some time, and recently a work-

man was admitted to Hospital, with serious vomiting of bright frothy blood. His X-rays showed no sign of tuberculosis, but the

degree and quantity of blood implied an ad-vanced case of T.B. or, I have been informed, a severe case of radio active exposure. Blood counts from Adelaide disproved the latter, and the man recovered and is back at work.” Another letter written by the Director Gen-eral of Medical Ser-vices, Department of Air to the Director General of Medical Services, Department of Army on 15 July 1957 (132/16/3) lists

the names of 13 Army personnel for whom blood examinations had been carried out. A blood count in the middle of a posting is highly suspicious, particularly so when none of these personnel appear in the dosage listings. There is a probability that this document escaped the sanitization process that is evident in many of the files that I have read and may be one of many.

(Continued on page 7)

Alan Batchelor was an Australian Army officer when he was sent to Maralinga in 1957 to

take part in A-bomb tests. In another brilliant dispatch he reveals alarming safety lapses

Alan Batchelor in Army days, and today

RADIATION SAFETY EXPERT

NO MORE THAN SCHOOBOY

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Providing further evidence of the covert removal of dosage informa-tion, is the record of “Radiation Doses Received by Participants during the month of May 1957. There are 40 names on this list, all except one have recorded gamma and (probably) estimated beta dosages. It is significant that 19 of these personnel were to become members of the Antler Engineer Troop. These 19 personnel all have dosages that do not appear in the Australian Government’s official dosage listings, despite work involving above average ex-posures to ionizing radiation. Confusion over which sites were safe to work in extended into the Antler work sites. Because of the extent of the disruption to already planned work schedules the Range Commander agreed to an ad hoc compromise. Health phys-ics control measures applied were not within Regulations and re-sulted in unauthorized exposures including potential inhalation and ingestion of contaminated mate-rial. The extent of the contami-nated area below the Buffalo Yel-

low boundary was inexplicably, not defined in official reports. This meant that the closely lo-cated Mina site, about 1,000 me-tres below the Buffalo Yellow boundary, was not physically marked as being inside or outside

this newly discovered contami-nated area. There was an in-creased possibility that it was well within the range of airborne con-tamination. The serving of meals however, was officially approved

in this potentially contaminated area and there were no barriers or Health Physics Facility to prevent workers from carrying their meals back to their contaminated work sites. The removal of the surface soil from Tadje (inside the Active area) was over a small area (about 100 metres in diameter) associated with the construction of the tower, and did not include other work-sites outside of this cleared area such as instrumentation lanes, survey lanes and instrument bun-kers. Colonel Durance stated that: “if Safety Regulations are correct, these men should be in protective clothing, which would make their construction task nearly impossi-ble.” Mr Turner described addi-tional problems: “it would be quite beyond the capabilities of the present Health Control facili-ties to cope with such an area.” The fact that work was well under way on Tadje and Gona, makes it obvious that flawed instructions provided a convenient answer to the problem. Those Australian officials who should have inter-ceded, sat on their hands.

Inside Story Headline

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Dudley Cook spent four years as

general manager of the Colonial

Service coconut plantation on

Christmas Island. He considered

it the most lonely posting

of all, and he was later

convinced the most sinis-

ter.

Cook took up the post in

1964 as part of his brief as

District Commissioner,

Line Islands. His name-

sake Captain James Cook

on sighting the atoll at

Christmas 1777 described

it as: “A narrow bank of land en-

closing the sea within. A few co-

conut trees were seen in two or

three places but in general the

land had a very barren appear-

ance.

Cook thought the landscape had

changed little when he took up his

post. He knew the island’s chief

claim to fame was its use as a

base for the British and American

nuclear weapons tests, initially off

Malden Island, 300 miles away.

Remoteness, and the fact there

was no indigenous population,

had seemed to qualify the atoll for

this purpose. After four years

Cook moved to the Solomon Is-

lands. He retired from the service

in 1978. At about this time, a

number of military personnel who

had been involved with the nu-

clear tests and had developed can-

cers sued, without much success,

for compensation. Cook became

convinced that many colonial staff

who had served on Christmas Is-

land were dying from unusual

cancers. He heard also that nu-

merous plantation workers, who

had been drafted in from

neighbouring islands, had died

young.

Although most of the tests had

taken place at

high altitudes

Cook believed

that contami-

nated rain-

water could

have seeped

into the water

table under

the atoll, the

only source of

fresh water. The Government en-

deavoured to take workers off the

island on ships during the tests,

but Cook heard talk of workers

sheltering in their huts, with addi-

tional canvas as protection.

This could not be substantiated,

because the population was ro-

tated, and the workers dispersed

across the Pacific. Little record

was made of their deaths. But the

matter nagged at Cook’s con-

scious. (Continued Page 9)...

The Loneliest Post

By Simon Barraclough

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In 1968 Dudley was posted to the

Solomon Islands where he served

until 1970 as secretary to the Cabi-

net and assistant secretary Inter-

nal Affairs. He was acting district

commissioner of Malaita until

1972.

After a year as district commis-

sioner of the Eastern Islands he

was Commissioner of Lands and

Surveys until 1975. His final post-

ing was as

chief execu-

tive of the

Malaita Pro-

vincial gov-

ernment.

He returned

to England

in 1978 where

he worked as an accountant and

devoted much of his time to vari-

ous charities.

In 1986 he was himself diagnosed

with Hodgkins lymphoma, which

he thought was more than coinci-

dental. With chemotherapy he

recovered; but he had had plenty

of time to think. Finally he came

to the conclusion that something

was very seriously amiss about

Christmas Island — and that

‘something’ was fallout contami-

nating the water shelf. He now

made it his duty to persuade the

government to undertake a survey

of the health of former plantation

workers. But it was an uphill

struggle with the government

showing the same intransgence

toward his campaign

as the nuclear veter-

ans.

Mr Cook decided to

go for the ‘soft op-

tion’ by not antago-

nizing the govern-

ment. He made it

clear he was not seek-

ing compensation, just medical

help for islanders who may have

suffered. He also decided to ac-

cept reassurances from the gov-

ernment that the precautions in

the 1950s and 1960s were the best

then considered necessary. But he

argued that if an injustice had

been done the same medical care

which had restored him to health

should be offered to others.

In 1988 , a Government -

commissioned report by the Na-

tional Radiological Protection

Board claimed that there was little

cause for concern about those

involved with the bomb tests.

Cook argued that the NRPB re-

port had little relevance for the

Christmas Island workers. But

without statistics, he could not

persuade the Government to carry

out a survey. And he had no way

of contacting those he wanted to

help. They were thousands of

miles away, and probably thought

little of the time when nuclear

mushroom clouds frequently

loomed over their island. And

when Cook contacted the Kiribati

Government, which Christmas

Island had become part of, they

were not interested in taking up

the cause: the atoll had no natives

to defend, and did not want a

reputation as a poisoned paradise.

Cook died in 1995 after he was

diagnosed with a brain tumour.

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An American scientist on Christ-mas Island sent a frantic cable to the mainland, ‘Get me off this f***ing island’ after winds blew the mushroom cloud from a 7-megaton H-bomb over the heads of thousands of troops. Ex-Sapper Gerry Rice who was sent to the island along with 300 British troops to take part in the US Dominic tests in 1962, grabbed his camera as the ominous mush-room cloud approached. The

stunning results can be seen op-posite on pg 11. Gerry said: “This great cloud was approaching and people started to panic. There was nothing I could do, so I just car-ried on clicking away. It was an awesome sight and passed right over our heads. I was told it was too high for us to be affected, but it would have been a different matter if it had rained. I realize how close we had been to disaster when I was shown the cable from

the scientist.” Gerry admits he ‘had a ball’ on the island. He went fishing and boat-ing nearly every day and generally enjoyed an idyllic lifestyle. Unlike most veterans he has stayed fairly healthy. Many of his pals fell sick, however, but they all find time to get together whenever the oppor-tunity arises, as can be seen in the pictures below. Gerry said: “They are a great bunch of people and we all support each other.”

GET ME OFF THIS EFFING ISLAND!

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Photos

Gerald

Rice

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Issue 31 International Bulletin of Nuclear Veterans and Children Dec 2014

ernment from its responsibilities.

But everyone knows this is just a

political fudge and Britain’s nu-

clear veterans are in no mood to

be bought off. Justice, according

to the Oxford English dictionary,

means: ‘The exercise of authority

in the maintenance of right.’

The only way that authority can

be exercised is through the courts.

*

Discerning readers may have no-

ticed that we have changed the

title on our masthead to the

‘International’ Bulletin of Nuclear

Veterans and Children. This is

We approach our second Christ-

mas together with a solid achieve-

ment under our belt. The court

victory over the MoD has given

everyone a spring in their step and

a feeling that after years of inac-

tion we might finally be getting

somewhere. But there is much

work still to be done before a set-

tlement is reached, and is seems

the only way to achieve that is

through the courts. Many are

pushing for a political settlement

on the basis that the provision of

a ‘benevolent pot’ without liability

would somehow absolve the gov-

because your fissionline has be-

come a truly global phenomenon

with thousands of readers world-

wide. New readers are flocking to

us every day. We welcome them

all.

*

Nuclear veterans stalwart Denis

Shaw is very poorly in hospital.

His devoted wife Ann says he

might be there for some time We

wish Denis a speedy recovery.

Finally, I would like to thank all

who have made fissionline an

amazing success. And a happy

and peaceful Christmas to you all.

They Are Not In The Mood To Be Bought Off

[email protected]

Join the fissionline Project and fight for justice for the victims of man-made radiation. Receive your own digital copy of

fissionline by emailing [email protected] Or you can access it on the web by googling: fissionline ISSUU It’s Free!

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