1958 Grapple Y & Z nuclear Tests by John Adams.

I was on Christmas Island for the nuclear tests in 1958. I was in the Royal Engineers working as a plant operator in the Quarry, which was basically bulldozing coral off the beach, to feed the stone crusher, to make aggregate for concrete and tarmac making, etc.

I did a variety of jobs, on the stone crusher, and a fowler tractor and scraper, which later proved to be my mishap of the year, as someone said, bet you couldn't drive that over the edge of the stockpile. So, never turning down a dare, over the edge I went. This pulled the ropes of the cable control winches, so on level ground at the bottom of the stockpile, I was refixing the ropes back onto the winch drums. Standing on the tracks of the tractor, as I was nearly finished, the last bit lifted the bowl of the scraper off the ground, and the tractor rolled forward, as the rear wheels of the scraper were still on a slight slope. This trapped my feet between the tracks and the battery housing over the tracks, like a mudguard. This crushed my feet edgeways, so I ended up in the camp hospital for a couple of weeks waiting for the swelling to go down, so that they could get my legs in plaster, so that I could get back to work.

Just a few broken bones in both feet, mainly little toes. But working in that heat with both legs in plaster up to my knees was agony. The itching that I couldn’t get at, and all the sand getting inside the plaster. Anyway, a couple of weeks and, the plasters came off, and all was back to normal.

Now we were living in the airfield camp, and our tent was right on the edge of the runway, so we had a great view of all the aircraft coming and going. Including the Valiant that dropped the bombs.

Now, when we first arrived on the Island, we had to have a medical. During which the medics enthused about my teeth. They wanted to know where I had lived and what water we drank, as they had not come across a better set of teeth for my age. The only thing that I could think of was that from the age of 7 till 11, I had lived near Droitwich Spa in Worcestershire, and our water came from a well in the garden. 

Anyway, after all the nuclear tests were over in 1959. I was posted to R E Bomb Disposal in Horsham. I was mainly digging for bombs with an armour-plated bulldozer, but occasionally helped with a steam cleaner to clean the explosives out of a bomb.

As I had only signed on for 3 years, after a year of bomb disposal, I was back in civvy street.

After getting married and a variety of jobs, I ended up working for an agricultural contractor, again driving various plant, dozers and diggers, until one day, as they had an explosives licence, mainly for blasting tree stumps on land clearance jobs.

But as I had been in bomb disposal, would I be interested in starting a demolition branch, as explosives were coming to the fore in demolition? This was the mid-60s. So began another chapter in my life. 

All went well until October 20th 1970. When we were blasting tree stumps in a park near Oxford. I was boring the holes under the stumps with a sledgehammer and crowbar, and my mate was following, placing the charges under the stumps. This involved breaking a small piece of gelignite off a stick, putting an electric detonator in it, and putting it in the hole, put a crowbar in the hole, and fire this charge to make a cavity under the stump about the size of a football, to put the main charge in to blast the stump out of the ground. We may do several of these per stump, depending on the size of the stump.

Anyway, I had just walked past him, looking for more stumps in the undergrowth. When there was an almighty blast. And I was thrown to the ground. I got up and started to run instinctively, and tripped over something. It was my mate's body. The blast had thrown him over me. I got to our van and sounded the alarm that we used before a blast, and the local farmer who was working in a nearby field came rushing over and sent someone to phone for an ambulance. (No mobile phones in those days) I had most of the clothes torn off my back and a perforated eardrum. The hammer and crowbar that I was carrying were found 2 meters away from the tree stump.

So, 2 meters from about 12 kilos of high explosives, and a large quantity of electric detonators. Most of which ended up ripping the clothes off my back. The wire from the detonators was demagnetised steel wire, which broke up into little pieces like little fish hooks, which I was digging out of my back for years afterwards. In fact, I still have a few. Luckily, the box of explosives was on top of the tree stump, so the blast didn’t go down, and I only got the blast from my knees up.

I was taken to the hospital, in an ambulance with a police escort and was there for about 2 weeks.

On getting out. The first thing did was to go to the site of the accident, and dig down under that stump to confirm my suspicions, that what had happened, was that he had put a detonator in the pop charge, and put that in the hole, and then put a detonator in the rest of the stick of gelignite and put that back in the box ready for the main charge. And wired up the wrong wires, instead of wiring the pop charge under the stump, he wired up the ones that he put back in the box of gelignite, and then fired that while virtually sitting on top of it.

He was killed outright. Anyway, I dug down under the stump. And after the explosio,n someone obviously had to make sure the site was safe, so they had put another charge in the hole under the stump and fired that. So when I dug down to that level, I found the remains of a detonator that had imploded. So it was still intact apart from being squashed from the outside in, not exploded. Which proved my theory.

So after a few weeks off to recover, I was back to work, but the company was no longer going to keep doing the demolition department.  So I left and started my own explosives company.  John Adams Blasting Specialists JABS.

I managed to rent an explosives store nearby, and get my own explosives licence, and as I already had contacts in the demolition world. I was away. I became a founding member of 

The Institute of Explosives Engineers. Specialising in land clearance and demolition.

And went on doing various jobs up and down the country, until on 30th November 1980. I managed to set the world record for controlled demolition, with 18 chimneys, at London Brick Co.

So that was my passport to most county councils for any explosives contracts. So after more than 20 years working with and handling gelignite, and suffered headaches from absorbing the nitroglycerin through my hands. ( I could never work with gloves on) I am still trying to get the answer as to why.

I have never had any cancers. Am I the only nuclear test vet to have got away scot free. I have had the odd scare. Prostate, bowel, lung, oesophagus, etc. But all have proved negative.

I am convinced that the use of nitroglycerin over the years has saved me from cancer.

Several studies over the years have proved that it can help in treating various cancers. Used in skin patches, it helps to break down cancers to enable chemotherapy to work. I cannot get anyone to take me seriously. I have written to Cancer Research and had no response.

There were several studies in 2012/15 that found that nitroglycerine skin patches helped to cure cancer and also prevent it. It alters the immune system to resist cancer. So I thank all my years working with it and absorbing it through my skin, from saving me from cancer. Touch wood.

Now, to change the subject. Those teeth that were so interesting to the medics on Christmas Island had all fallen out within 20 years of the tests. I had the last 3 or 4 in the front taken out and a set of false teeth for my eldest daughter's wedding. (didn’t want to spoil her wedding photos) But that was my first visit to a dentist. All the rest just came loose, and I pulled them out myself.

Now I know that I am not alone in that department. Talking to other vets at various meetings, it appears to be a common complaint amongst the nuclear community. So that's one more thing to investigate. 

23514769 Spr John Adams. Royal Engineers.