fissionline 39

fissionline Issue 39

International Bulletin of Nuclear Veterans and Children Dec 2015

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FISSIONLINE

STORM CLOUD CA STORM-CLOUD

Meteorological Office report nails decades of lies and c THOUSANDS of troops may have been exposed to deadly radioactive rainfall, known as rainout, following H-bomb tests on Christmas Island, according to an official Meteorological Office report.

Rain ‘possibly caused by the bombs’ fell after three huge H-bomb tests in 1957-58, according to the report.

It makes a mockery of repeated denials by successive governments which insist there was no radioactive contamination on Christmas Island The 10-page document, released to fissionline under freedom of information laws, also casts serious doubts on statements made by two former defence ministers who in separate statements flatly denied there was any contamination on Christmas Island following the bomb tests.

The Met Office report was written in 1985 in response to an enquiry by an official from the Atomic Weapons Research Establishment.

Entitled Weather and Winds During Christmas Island Nuclear Tests, it states that rainfall occurred at the island’s Main camp after Grapple X on November 8, 1957, and after Grapple Z on Aug 22, 1958.

But the real shock comes with the a d m i s s i o n t h a t “precipitation” (rain) reached the surface in a shower possibly caused by the bomb..” The revelation is

MOD MINISTERS’ Misleading Answers Over Rainfall Reports repeated in an appendix which states:Precipitation in sight more than 5km from station, reaching surface. Cumulonimbus from bomb.

At least two former government ministers, in answers to questions, have stated there was no rainout contamination after the bomb tests.

Former Labour Defence Minister Dr (now Lord) Lewis Moonie said in a parliamentary reply in 2003: “...there was no rainfall…AWE Aldermaston has no evidence to show that water contaminated with radiation was precipitated out over the island.”

Defence Minister Archie Hamilton went further. He told parliament after a shock Dispatches TV documentary claimed there was heavy rain after the Grapply Y explosion:“The unfounded allegations (about rainfall) are based on a series of factual in-

accuracies. All that I can say is that shortly after the test(s) extensive environmental monitoring did not measure any deposition of radioactive materials from the detonation(s).”

This statement directly contradicts another report, this time from the Atomic Weapons Research Establishment, which specifically states there WAS radioactive contamination after H-Bomb tests.

This document, obtained by fissionline under freedom of information laws, is entitled: Environmental Monitoring at Christmas Island 1957-58 . It states:A few very high values (of radioactive contamination) were recorded from the southern part of the island, none of which was nearer than 8km from the nearest inhabited area…

In fact scientists and weathermen were so worried about contamination

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FISSIONLINE

AUSED BY H-BOMB

cover-ups by the British Government over H-bomb tests

The damning evidence proving that contamination hit Christmas island after H-Bomb tests that they calculated how long it would take the fallout to reach the Main camp, where thousands of troops were based. There was mass

panic among the boffins after measurements showed the wind shifted unexpectedly after the Grapple Y blast blowing particles toward the camp.

Deadly Menace of Rainout Rainout is a particularly pernicious form of radioactive contamination. It was first observed after the Hiroshima bomb when ‘black rain’ loaded with particles of ash from burning wood structures fell about 30 minutes after the blast. Medics noted that people hit by the rain suffered from burns to their skin and were later more prone to blood cancers. Rainout has the ability to hold its strength and not to be dissipated like dry fallout. Another notorious example occurred over the township of Troy in upstate New York in 1953. Rainout which had travelled across the continent from an A-bomb blast caused widespread contamination. It has been blamed for a leukaemia cluster discovered in the area.

The Met office report states:...assuming particles were released at 2,4 km to the south east of the camp, they could have reached the camp at 1200 local time. Heavier particles released from the thermonuclear cloud at greater altitudes could have arrived at the camp later..

The shock reports were written in the 1980s not long after the scandal of what happened at the nuclear bomb tests hit the headlines.

But it was decided not to release them because the Atomic Weapons Establishment wanted to keep them ‘in house’.

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FISSIONLINE

LEUKAEMIA

Huge toll of blood cancer incidences among tr

By Alan Rimmer MORE THAN 100 servicemen were hit by leukaemia and other blood cancers after witnessing ‘rainout’ HBomb tests.

The shocking toll is revealed in medical and service records supplied by nuclear veterans over a 40 year period between 1958 and 1999.

The records detail the suffering of more than 3,500 servicemen who took part in British nuclear bomb testing in the 1950s.

They show men were hit by rates of cancers and other crippling illnesses far above the norm. They also reveal a terrible catalogue of injuries among their offspring.

But the most startling finding was that those most affected were servicemen who witnessed three Hbomb tests on Christmas Island in 1957-58.

They suffered far more than men present at other tests, with a staggering 113 men reporting incidents of leukaemia and other blood cancers associated with radiation expo-

causing a thunderstorm followed by rain.

An astonishing 84 servicemen present at Grapple Y were hit by leukaemia and other blood canc e r s i n c lu d ing mult iple m y e l o m a a n d aplastic anaemia. All h a v e b e e n linked to radiation exposure.

A total of 17 servicemen contracted similar diseases following the November 8, 1957 explosion, codenamed Grapple X, while 12 men were affected after the August 22, 1958 blast, codenamed Grapple Z. Shockingly military chiefs decided to explode Grapple Y, the biggest of the bombs, and the one that has caused most health

Leukaemia Toll of Doom Grapple X...17 Grapple Y...84 Grapple Z...12

sure.

The rogue bomb tests took place on 8 Nov 1957, April 28 1958, and 22 August 1958...the three tests identified in an official meteorological report as being associated with rainfall.

As revealed in fissionline, the Met Office report identifies the April 28 explosion, codenamed Grapple Y, as

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FISSIONLINE

TIMEBOMB

roops who witnessed ‘rainout’ H-Bomb Tests

Braving the storm: Plucky servicemen carry on their duties as torrential rain floods their camp after the bomb tests problems in April, which is slap in the middle of the rainy season on Christmas Island. Weather stations monitored precipitation (rainfall) ‘reaching

Graph shows April as peak of rainy season

the surface’ near where thousands of troops were mustered to witness the blast.

Many later spoke of being soaked in black rain, the size of 10p pieces, from a huge storm cloud that swept in from the sea.

Scientists and senior officers in protective clothing frantically ordered troops in the open to get under cover from the torrential

rain. *Thousands of American servicemen won compensation when just nine cases of leukaemia occurred among 3,224 men who participated in military maneuvers during the 1957 nuclear test explosion “Smoky” in the Nevada desert.

This represented a significant increase over the expected incidence of 3.5 cases.

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FISSIONLINE

SO SAD ABOUT SUE Sue Lloyd Roberts, who sadly died on 13 October of leukaemia, was a

By Ken McGinley

brilliant journalist and one of the

Scottish brogue. But she had the common touch and she had us hoary old veterans eating out of

very first people from the media

first constitution which called for

her hand whenever she came to

to recognise the importance of the

justice and compensation for nu-

see us.

story we nuclear veterans have to

clear veterans.

When I was in London once she

tell.

Sue had a special affection for the

invited me to her house for a bite

When we first hit the headlines in

nuclear veterans and in the early

to eat. I was a bit reluctant be-

1983 she hot-footed it up to Scot-

days often attended our meetings.

cause I imagined we’d be having

land to meet with myself and Phil

She was not averse to ticking us

muesli or tofu or other ‘healthy’

Munn, another Christmas Island

off, however! I remember she at-

stuff. Not a bit of it! When I ar-

veteran, to get the scoop.

tended one meeting in Blackpool

rived she linked my arm and took

Well,

did that.

when she was heavily pregnant.

me down to her local shop for fish

Thanks to her, BBC Nationwide

she certainly

She stood at the back of the

and chips, and we ate them

broadcast a stunning expose of

crowded hall and gave us a right

straight out of the paper all the

what went on at the nuclear bomb

royal telling off because we were

way back.

tests which frightened the life out

all smoking.

Sue went on to achieve many

of a Thatcher government desper-

Sue wrote a brilliant book Fields of

great things in her life. I often saw

ately trying to keep a lid on the

Thunder about the Maralinga tests

her amazing broadcasts from some

scandal.

which was instrumental in the

of the most inhospitable parts of

The programme inspired thou-

Australian Government setting up

the world and marvelled at her

sands of nuclear veterans to come

a Royal Commission to inquire into

ingenuity in getting the stories.

forward and tell their stories re-

the bomb tests.

I wasn’t surprised that she won so

sulting in the setting up of the Brit-

Sue was one classy lady. She was

many media awards, and was de-

ish Nuclear Tests Veterans’ Asso-

educated at a private girls school

lighted when she picked up a CBE

ciation in late 1983.

and spoke with a cut-glass accent.

for her work.

Sue, together with legendary nu-

She often said she needed an in-

We all have a lot to thank Sue for.

clear expert Dr Alice Stewart, were

terpreter to translate my broad

If it wasn’t for her our story would

instrumental in drawing up the

still be largely untold.

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FISSIONLINE

I’M NOT TELLING YOU! Many of the trustees myself included get frequent queries or requests for information from members. Some of the queries are well meaning and genuine. Some unfortunately are not. It is for that reason that I have chosen to personally adopt a simple and perhaps blunt approach to dealing with queries. I do not deal with them if I do not believe that the investigation will benefit the charity in some way. In short I do not deal with queries from members of the charity that I consider to be either malicious or which are made simply out of curiosity. My role does not extend to providing individual members with information or answers to questions.

Ian Greenhalgh BNTVA Financial Controller (In response to members who queried the accounts)

Ace Susie Joins fissionline FLEET Street legend Susie Boniface has joined fissionline — and she’s already made her mark by backing our campaign for pension rights for Britain’s nuclear veterans.

In a hard-hitting article in the Sunday Mirror Susie reports how the forthcoming pension appeals tribunals could hand the veterans a much-needed cash windfall in

the form of war pensions. Last

year a fissionline campaign was successful in overturning a previous

ruling not to grant nuclear veterans war pensions. A High Court judge sent the case back to the Upper Tier Tribunal after he ruled the law had been ’misapplied.’

Victory at the new hearing could pave the way for a sensational High Court trial which could hand the veterans a multi-million pound compensation bonanza.

Susie, dubbed the Fleet Street Fox, is known for her brilliantly acerbic articles which regularly have the Ministry of Defence diving for cover. She has been a longtime supporter of Britain’s nuclear veterans.

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Five years ago last month, the Redfern Inquiry Report into the shocking removal of tissue samples from the bodies of nuclear workers without informing their families, was published. No-one has ever been prosecuted and the families have been left feeling their loved ones had been viewed as just another piece of laboratory equipment.

Michael Redfern QC considered that families had been let down. and had seen no evidence that Sellafield had considered any of the legal or ethical issues involved. The Government chose a ‘good, bad-news day’ to publish the Redfern Report. Also on 16th November 2010 came the announcement of the engagement of Prince William to Kate Middleton which dominated all media headlines.

The scandal only came to light when BNFL’s Medical Officer expressed concerns when asked to re-examine data obtained from organ analysis from former nuclear workers by his predecessor, the late Dr. Geoffrey Schofield. He discovered that in many cases there was no evidence of death being related to radiation, nor that consent had been ob-

FISSIONLINE

organs. The range of body parts removed for analysis, including liver, ribs, kidney as well as testes, brain, heart and tongue, had been extraordinary. The report concluded that although Dr Schofield and his colleagues had made no attempts to conceal their research, there was no suggestion that they considered their actions to be untoward and neither did they appear to have given any consideration to the ethical implications of their work. For the families, one of the hardest parts of the process had Cumbrians Opposed to a Radioactive Environment been that each person affected had felt as if they had retained. He also considered it odd experienced bereavements at differthat the coroner appeared frequently ent stages of the Inquiry as and to have notified Sellafield of employwhen the true facts had come to ees’ deaths. light. According to the Inquiry legal The issue was leaked to the press team, CORE’s archived papers had and attracted the attention of the given them ‘a valuable lead into government. The Inquiry found that everything at an early stage’. CORE an informal arrangement had existed had also raised funds enabling Selbetween Dr. Schofield, the driving lafield workers or their families to force behind the analytical work at access legal advice and secure comSellafield, and the pathologists at pensation for work-related cancers.

West Cumberland Hospital, which One of the shocking case studies of meant that he was told when a posta included a claim by the son of a mortem was to take place on the Sellafield worker that the plant was body of a former Sellafield worker. responsible for halting his father’s In cases of particular interest to him, funeral so that they had more time Schofield appeared to have taken to study removed organs. somewhat dubious steps to obtain

By Martin Forwood

FISSIONLINE

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MY FATHER, Wing Commander KenVicki neth Wallis, a wartime Wallis was bomber pilot who flew 28 missions over Germany. Among other things, he flew B-36s laden with nuclear bombs over the North Pole; hunted Lord Lucan over the Sussex Downs; scanned the deep waters of Loch Ness for the “monster” and advised the designers of Concorde on how to reduce engine noise. But he became better known after the war as a key figure in the development of the autogyro, which, most famously, he flew as Sean Connery’s stunt double in the 1967 James Bond film You Only Live Twice.

The James Bond thing made him a household name and he did very well out of it. He used to do some hairy things at times.

When this came out about little Nellie my ex-husband and I were hitching around Yugoslavia and that was in the time of Tito and it upset the security people back here. We were in our 20s and we were just hitch-hiking around. It was amazing

By

and very, very interesting. We had just got married and we were only just out of university.

The film had just come out and there was one or two places were it was being shown in Yugoslavia. People

what he was going to do before he did it. There is a picture of me somewhere riding pillion on the autogyro with him.

Pa was still active and getting positively vetted for quite a long time

Wing Commander Ken Wallis at the controls of Little Nellie found out who I was and suddenly we had security people following us around. It was very exciting and I was so proud of Pa. But there was so much else that he did that was so much more interesting. He was so clever and inventive, but he took everything in his stride.

I was very close to my dad. I did the odd air show with him on demonstrations and so on. I knew exactly

after he came out of the RAF. In his spare time he made some marvellous inventions. He went to the States and then he invented the auto-gyro.

He spent all his time in his workshop.

My first memory of him is in his workshop in Hove where we lived. *Ken Wallis was a member of the Anglia branch of the BNTVA before his sad death in 2013. Vicki has now proudly taken his place.

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I FLEW with 76 Squadron RAF, during the Grapple tests on Christmas Island. Being an aviator and flying, I had been ‘grounded’ and given a Medical classification of A4G7. This was caused by a massive overdose of radiation received flying through nuclear clouds.

At the end of Grapple Zulu, all units started making preparation to return to their home bases. Our Squadron received an offer for berths that would take two of us from Christmas Island to Auckland, on Pukaki, one of two New Zealand ships that patrolled the waters round Christmas Island during the tests.

Having been ‘fried’ by the radiation in the two biggest Hydrogen bombs detonated at Christmas Island, I was offered the trip, and was granted a ‘Leave of Absence’ to make the adventure. Embarking onto Pukaki, I was given the Captains Sea Cabin, which was located just behind the bridge, and close to the Radio Shack.

It was the first sea trip I had ever taken. Christmas Island to Fiji, then on to Auckland. Across the Tasman to Sydney. Then by Rail to Adelaide.

A lot of things happened at Christmas Island, and sailing on Pukaki, which at the time I did not under-

FISSIONLINE

stand. Most people were told nothing. It was strictly on A NEED TO KNOW BASIS. We were discouraged in asking questions or to question what was going on. Many things were swept under the carpet, and just hidden by quoting THE OFFICIAL SECRETS ACT. So don’t ask! During Grapple Yankee I was flying as Navigator on Sniff Boss. It was the first aircraft to enter the cloud, and we made two cuts through it to assess the radiation levels, and dangers of flying through the cloud. Prior to detonation we were flying a ‘racecourse’ circuit about 25 miles from Ground Zero.

After detonation, we swung around to see the incredible sight of the explosion. Then we watched as the white hot plasma of the nuclear detonation ball turned red, then orange then eventually white from the condensed water particles in the warm humid tropical maritime air mass.

Flying at 46,000 feet (9 miles high), looking down we watched as the cloud started to rise, and we were

flying in a circle around it, 15 miles out from the cloud.

Closer in to the cloud we were picking up Radiation, so we kept as close as we could. Basically the

By Joe P

Joe Pasquini discussing the impact of Grapple Y with cloud was a Radiation Beacon, and it was irradiating everything within a 10 mile diameter.

FISSIONLINE

A maritime patrol Shackleton, flying at low level flew though more radioactive rain miles away from the island, and had to be put into the Decontamination Pans when it returned to the airfield.

Pasquini

the widow of another Canberra pilot Shirley Denson Heavy rain fell at Port London.

Was that radioactive as well? AWE knows, but wont tell. Back to Pu-

Page 11

kaki, while the ship was steaming through and around the Ground Zero area, they were well within the 10 mile radiation rain circle. I would suggest that the crew were inhaling radioactive Cosmic Dust when they were on station. Even though they didn’t experience any rain, they could not see the Cosmic Dust. The Cosmic Dust contaminated by the Nuclear Cloud would have drizzled down, over a 100 square mile circle, around Ground Zero. Based on the calculations and estimates I made on April 24th, 1958. I have further estimated that there would have been a minimum of 1000 cubic miles of irradiated Cosmic Dust contaminated and generated by Grapple Yankee, just hanging in the air, and gently drizzling to Earth. After Grapple Yankee was detonated, Pukaki was ordered to sail underneath Ground Zero, possibly to take water samples and perform other tasks. I don’t know because I wasn’t there. At that time I was flying

9 miles above in a circle around the Cloud. Measuring, monitoring and recording. However, my radia-

tion measuring instruments showed that everything from sea level up to the Tropopause (10 miles high), and beyond was being irradiated by the Cloud.

This would mean that all the Cosmic Dust (microscopic nuclei) within a 10 mile range would become contaminated by radiation from the Cloud itself. This also explains why there was Radioactive Rain in the first place. It was all the way around Christmas Island after Grapple Yankee was fired. I flew a distance through a heavy shower of Radioactive Rain, while measuring the diameter of the Cloud Stem. All of my radiation detectors lit up and maxed out.

Fissionline

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Back Page Story Headline

FISSIONLINE DIRECTORS

Ken McGinley

Roy Sefton

Derek Chappell

Barbara Penney

Dr Ian Gibson

Contributions, Comments. Contact: fissionline@gmail.com

50 years

BNTVA

So long

of lies

accounts

Archie

For more than five dec-

If you want to know what

Hundreds of friends, fam-

ades the British Govern-

happens

hard-

ily and nuclear veterans

ment has maintained the

earned money when you

attended a moving cere-

fiction

that

in-

pay your subs to the Brit-

mony to celebrate the life

volved

in

nuclear bomb

ish Nuclear Tests Veter-

of Nuke Vet hero Archie

testing were not harmed

ans’

don’t

Ross who died on Septem-

by fallout. Now an official

bother to ask. They have

ber 6 of leukaemia. There

weather report has come

issued a statement saying

was hardly a dry eye in

to light that explodes the

they won’t reply unless

the Chapel at Bretby Cre-

myth. It’s time the Govern-

they deem it necessary.

matorium as his son Stu-

ment stopped lying and

‘Financial Controller’ Ian

art spoke about his dad’s

caught up with the rest of

Greenhalgh says: “My role

life

the world in compensating

does not extend to provid-

Archie, a fissionline direc-

its nuclear veterans.

ing information.”

tor, will be sorely missed.

troops

to

your

Association,

and

achievements.