Originally published in 1985 by Collins Harvill
Testimonies from Witnesses
Strictly speaking, the first three explosions in the Christmas Island series didn’t take place at Christmas Island; they happened at Malden Island, a very small atoll 480 miles to the south. Brian Gillman was one of 49 men of the Royal Engineers who went there early in 1957 to prepare for the blasts.
Malden Island was very … oh, nobody lived there at all, just two or three trees. It was an atoll. Five miles around, water in the centre. And the boffins told us that obviously it grew over the years of coral and the bomb went off they even anticipated that the stem would break and possibly the atoll would slip off its stem (which never did happen). Basically we cut a small airstrip to get a tiny, well an old Dakota so they could get in there. Grub was dropped every ten days, dehydrated grub. We could either work through the day or through the night, you had the choice.
You just was working, you wasn’t sort of doing parades, you wasn’t in the Army, you just … didn’t shave very much, in other words you was just working-force. They had things to do: we had to dig things and bury things and machinery slowly came out there which we dug and buried, these fantastic great holes and … The cargo boats came out there, such as the Wave Prince and the Ben Wyvis and a few other of that, and we unloaded them out at sea, outside the coral reef, on … um … platforms, they was, floating platforms … Some gear we lost, others we got ashore, I mean I can remember a brand new D8 bulldozer come over the side on the platform and it capsized and sunk, and that was the end of that.
GILLMAN
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One way of getting men and equipment to and from Malden Islands was in a Duck, the name given to a 7-ton six-wheeled amphibious vehicle.
Well when you came in with a Duck, you … It was a bit like surfing, you had to pick your wave and you couldn’t hesitate, you chose your wave and whichever one you chose, and when it came you give it full revs. In you went, and you surfed in on that wave, and you pulled the lever to inflate the wheels at the same time, hit the shelf, the water gripped and up you went. And is was great! But … if you was buggered and you hit the shelf and you didn’t go up with the wave, the next one came on your arse-end and tipped you up, you see. So it was all a case of judgement, luck, everything going all right – in on the surf, pull the lever, inflate the wheels, full revs with your wheels, full revs behind on your prop, hit the shelf, up the beach and you’d got away with it.
GILLMAN
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I was given the task of packing up a small portable radio station and radio beacon and packed off to Malden Island (the target). One RAF corporal (self), 40 Royal Engineers and six met men now found ourselves the most unwelcome passengers on another LCT, HMS Messina. We dragged off down to Malden Island and on arrival the 47 of us set to and unloaded her with a speed no Port Authority would believe. Ship standing off the shore, bow doors open, ramp down, LCM (two of which we brought with us) LCM races for the ramp, rides up into the LCT, keeps engine on full throttle, step out of ow door, pass up chain to crewman of LCM, he hooks on, cut engines, LCM slides back, chains ‘twang’ taut, lower LCM ramp and load, reverse process, race for shore and is unloaded. Build new camp, build runway, set up radio station and five weeks later I am relived.
BARNES
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We had a guy on the beach, he was called Lieutenant Jasper Baker, Royal Marines – ex Marine wrestling and boxing champion. He was a great guy – but he only told you once. He told you once, very polite man, very well-spoken. He told you once. And even if you said, ‘Sorry, sir? Pardon?’, he’d literally give you a righthander. True. We knew this to be facts.
GILLMAN
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The sappers usually unloaded cargo ships onto landing-craft. When one of these craft hit the beach and the drawbridge came down it was essential to make fast quickly, before it swung round and got sand up the intake pipe.
This particular day … Hit the beach, and a newcomer was on board, I suppose he was in the Marines, or Navy, poor guy, and I chucked the rope to him, he stood there, he didn’t know what to do with it. I tried to shout to him, to tell him what to do. They made fast the other one, the LCM’s swinging round, and this Jasper Baker, he climbed this thing like a big spider. He did, he climbed up this thing like a big spider, and he got on there and he hit this poor guy whoof! A rightnader, knocked him straight in the oggin. He was a ‘eller, I tell you, this bloke Baker. A great guy! Like I can remember a Geordie falling over the side, couldn’t swim, drowning! In went this bloomin’ Jasper Baker, out he went like Garth, swam right … got hold, ‘Come ‘ere, you bugger,’ he said. ‘E was a great guy! Being all in together on the island, in close contact, you was all one big team. There was no … You respected the captain, lieutenant, sergeant, but you was all working-force you know?
Things started shaping up, and they said that, y’know, they’re gonna do these tests. And then we had so many lectures what was going to happen, regards to … um … they didn’t really know, expect blast and … winds hundred mile an hour, things like that.
GILLMAN
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Before the first test, as a precaution against blast and heat, the sappers buried all their equipment – mounted cranes, bulldozers, scrapers and all their personal belongings. The scientists and most of the sappers were taken off the island on Ducks the day before the explosion. Five men, including Gillman, stayed behind and worked all night, fuelling and switching on the machinery installed by the scientists. The explosion was scheduled for 1000 hrs. At 0900 they were picked up by a helicopter (which was two hours late) and flown to HMS Warrior, an aircraft carrier. After a quick meal the five sappers were ordered to the flight deck, where they found the rest of their unit as well as large numbers of sailors, airmen and some Royal Marines. All those who could be spared from their duties below were on deck.
The Tannoy’s going away – ‘Yeah, he’s gone in, he’s done a dummy run, it’s all go, it’s all systems go this time,’ and we’re all getting tensed and I dunno, there was hosepipe on the deck, not being used, I picked it up, tied it round meself and said to me mate, ‘Well, I ain’t gonna go over the bloody side at least I’m making fast,’ anticipating that some … Because, on the flight deck there’s no rails, there’s just a flat top, there’s nothing! You can’t even put your knees on nothing. And anticipating, expecting wind hundred mile an hour, or blast, I mean … Instinct … And so to me, there we was, bomb gone, countdown and … sitting there with our backs to the blast. Hosepipe wrapped round me. Hands over the goggles. And like everybody says, yes, fair enough, you could see the bone structure in the hands. This crack, rumbling like thunder. We turned round, still with the goggles on and looked and I can remember – people got different versions, but I can remember a black bubble which I was told was the sun, and then this sort of deeply reddy fireball still erupting … and slowly that died, the colour died out … and the stem starts to grow up to the dome. And then finally, we’re told to clear the flight deck. No wind, no blast, I was a little bit disappointed, really.
GILLMAN
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The first time they dropped the bomb at Malden Island, we came back from Malden Island the day after, and I can remember people at Christmas Island saying that they’d seen the flash and could tell us exactly what time this bomb went off, and bearing in mind that this is in bright sunlight at half-past ten in the morning in the tropics, and people 480 miles away had seen the flash …
JACKSON
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I remember the noise it made. If you can imagine standing under a bridge, with an express train going over the top, only going two or three hundred time louder – that’s the sort of noise the first one made. And … well, in fact the second one was a very similar noise but a bit more compact and a bit louder. The third one: that went with a bang. That was a big bang.
JACKSON
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I was on the Messina, just off Malden Island. The first time in fact there was only, I believe, three on the upper deck. We were the wheelhouse crew and the engine room crew, and we sat on the engine room cowlings in a pair of white shorts, for all the number eights and anti-flash gear and that that they reckon everybody had, we didn’t. I can remember three of us sat on the engine room cowling, just outside the wheelhouse door, while this bomb went off, with nothing else other than that on.
The ship was battened down, everything was shut down, for at least six hours. I can remember going down – I was on the morning watch, well the forenoon, which is eight till twelve – and I can remember going down off watch at twelve o-clock to get lunch in the dining room, and in the mess deck, where blokes had been laid, because all the ventilator fans had been switched off all the scuttles were closed, all the hatches, deck-doors, everything was all shut down. And these poor buggers has been rolling out of them. Absolutely pouring out of them. And I remember it was al over the floor, everywhere. Like walking in half-inch water … Just … nothing but sweat! I was an amazing sight, really. And that was simply and purely because nobody seemed to be knowing what we should e doing. We hadn’t had any instruction from Narvik, what instruction we had had, somebody had got mixed up. And it turns out after that nobody was supposed to be downstairs, they was all supposed to be on the uppe rdeck, watching this thing go off. And nobody actually saw it go off, other than those on the upper deck, and I was one of the three. And I remember that everyone else was sweating it out while I was – what I thought at the time – was enjoying myself, you know!
JACKSON
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We laid odd all night, and then in the morning we was all back on the island by ten o’clock … shovels out, digging out, because we’d buried 26-ton mounted cranes, the bulldozer, everything we owned, the crapers … I mean, bloody great holes we dug to bury them all … Every bit of machinery we owned was buried. We had to get it all out. Get the canvas out, tents for the night time, things like getting the cookhouse rigged up and the toilets and things, and just getting straightened up in general …
GILLMAN
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Two weeks later the sappers had to bury everything again, before the second test, and then dig it up again. Another two weeks passed, and then they buried everything again, and after the third test they dug it all up again.
Ernest Cox was an Assistant Trials Planning Officer in the Atomic Weapons Research Establishment (AWRE). A helicopter took him from HMS Warrior to Malden Island about fifteen hours after the explosion of the H-bomb.
There were eight of us being taken. Before the lift off I did ask if we had had clearance from Health Physics, the answer came back, yes it had been monitored. I thought then that has been damn quick. We were approaching the island, I didn’t even have a film badge, and we hadn’t a monitor between us. However I thought it must be clean. Soon after we landed at the old camp site, then some engineers from the army arrived. They immediately dug out some of the equipment from the dug-outs and Land-Rover which we had to use. However, after a while an Army Sergeant, my helper and myself took off up the island to retrieve some of my instruments, but before I did this I did ask a principal Scientific Officer if he had seen any of the Health Physic Team about it, and he said it was rather strange, no … By late evening two showers had been erected so I went and had a good shower. Next day, back up the island again; in the evening I went for another shower which was very welcome. I had just taken off my shorts etc., when a chap came in with a monitor and he said let me run it over you. He did and to his amazement I had a reading of 3.80Rs and another chap with me had a reading of 4,20Rs so the Health Physics chap said what the hell could it have been yesterday – we would liked to have known. This was a contaminated area and we should have been issued with the protective clothing – we didn’t see any, not even a film badge.
I worried no more about that, but a few days after, I has another worry. Two-thirds of my body was covered in blisters, so thick you couldn’t put a pin between them. It was horrible and frightening. The Medical Officer on HMS Warrior just stared at me and said, ‘Bloody hell, I’ve never seen anything like this before.’ He thought it may be the water, then decided it couldn’t be.
Ernest Cox was flown to Christmas Island for examination, test and X-rays; eventually he was flown back to England. By then about half the blisters had vanished.
They never did clear 100%, and I never did have a medical on my return [to Aldermaston]. That surprised me. No-one seemed to be bothered. Everyone seemed more excited about the last explosion, which was a 5-megaton, the largest one ever … I could understand all of us being excited, but there were other things going on in the area of the explosion I was deeply concerned about …
The safety precautions, as far a I was concerned, the precautions were not strict. I wasn’t spoken to once about safety, so I just got on with my work, not thinking of the dangers I could have been in.
COX
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We had these so-called film badges. All we had on was bush hats, shorts and boots, and we just pinned it onto our waist, onto our shorts. It was a thing about … oh … two inches long by an inch wide, metal case, with a little tiny strip open at the top on the front and a square at the bottom; and it was orange in colour. And we was told, we was definitely told, that if you pass anything radioactive, that will change to the colour of yellow. And if you did you would be flown back by the fastest means possible to the UK. We was told by a captain in charge of us 49 Royal Engineers, who was informed and had lectures from boffins. And so we sort of believed in these badges, if you like. We kept them with us. They say they was collected but I can assure you ours wasn’t collected. (And also nobody’s changed yellow.) In fact I brought mine home and gave it to Mother …
GILLMAN
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Absolute wonder, that something so beautiful could be so devastating and so destructive. It’s as simple as that. You see the shock-wave coming out from it, and … It’s a terrific sight, beautiful. In the middle it varies from … oh … all sorts of colours … like fire-glow colours, y’know … right through the range, right through the spectrum. You have the red colour to an outside of pure white which even clouds in the sky don’t seem to possess the same whiteness. And yet it’s so devastating and so destroying.
JACKSON
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Malden Island, the water supply was obviously nil. The [desalination] plant on the beach was a very tiny thing, and when you’re really gasping for a drink, the first mouthful was all right, the second was a bit bitter, and the third was ‘orrible, you just couldn’t drink the third one, you know? We’d got some beer ashore, canned beer, so we was drinking the canned beer. We used to bury it in the sand to keep it cold for the evening time, but then, time the tide had been washing around, you could never find half the cans, so I expect there’s still thousands of cans buried there now …
GILLMAN
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