THE SMOKESCREEN AT CHRISTMAS ISLAND

How the MOD Covered Up Missing Radiation Data and Rewrote History

For decades, Nuclear Test Veterans have fought for justice, seeking recognition for the illnesses they suffered after being stationed at Christmas Island (Kiritimati) during the UK’s atmospheric nuclear testing programme in 1957 and 1958.

For years, the Ministry of Defence (MOD) relied on a single, "definitive" document to deny veterans' claims: The 1993 Clare Report (SDTN 16/93). This report claimed to prove there was no radioactive fallout on Christmas Island and that "in no case was reportable activity found on, or in, any fish."

But newly unclassified documents reveal a shocking story of internal whistleblowing, suppressed draft reports, and a calculated shift in legal strategy designed to keep veterans from winning their war pension tribunals. These documents were deposited by the Minister for Veterans' and People (Calvin Bailey MP) along with the Missing Medical Records Report. You can download the documents by clicking the button below:

Read and Download Documents

Background: The Clare Report

The original Clare Report (compiled by the AWE in 1993) asserted that there was zero evidence of widespread environmental contamination or human exposure on Kiritimati (Christmas Island). The 2014 review, however, uncovered severe flaws, gaps, and hidden data from the original instrumentation:

• The Port Camp Omission: The review found that during the evening of the Grapple X thermonuclear detonation, radiation monitoring instruments at Port Camp (where Royal Navy personnel were stationed) explicitly recorded a threefold spike in natural background radiation levels. The original Clare Report completely left this out, and the data went unrecorded in any public document for decades.

• Sevenfold Radiation Spikes: Instrument readings taken post-blast elsewhere on the island actually increased by a factor of up to seven compared to normal baseline background levels. 

• Contaminated Marine Life: The review confirmed archived data showing radioactive contamination in fish swimming in the island's waters. Servicemen routinely caught and ate these fish, unknowingly ingesting localized radiation. 

• Absent Monitoring Equipment: While the MoD historically claimed that personnel were carefully monitored, the 2014 paper notes that monitoring systems were erratic and incomplete. Crucially, large swathes of servicemen living in these high-reading areas were never even issued personal film badges to track their actual dose exposure. 

For reference, the original Clare Report has never been formally updated or revised by the UK government

1. The Whistleblowers: The Suppressed "AWE1" Report (2014)

In mid-2014, a Freedom of Information (FOI) request forced the Atomic Weapons Establishment (AWE) to look back into its archives. Two AWE employees self-initiated an internal review of the "Merlin" environmental monitoring database.

What they found blew the official narrative wide open. They drafted an internal report, known as AWE1, which concluded that the Clare Report was "incomplete and, in some cases, factually inaccurate."

Most damningly, the AWE1 draft highlighted:

• Elevated radiation readings recorded by the Royal Navy (RN) Lab at Port London during routine fish monitoring right after the Grapple X bomb test on November 8, 1957.

• The authors suggested this could indicate radioactive fallout on Christmas Island—directly refuting the government’s long-held stance that "there was no fallout on Christmas Island" after Grapple X.

• They concluded that the fish sampling data raised a "reasonable doubt" and provided "reliable evidence" of exposure to ionising radiation.

2. The Sanitised Revision: "AWE2" (2015)

The truth was too dangerous. Senior management at AWE grew concerned about the personal opinions and interpretations in AWE1.

Titled "Review of SDTN No. 16/93: Environmental Monitoring Data for Christmas Island 1957-58", this superseded the AWE1 document authored by a couple of non-specialist personnel at AWE. It is believed that a senior manager tasked the drafting locally as they had concerns about the AWE1 document.

By early 2015, a revised version—AWE2—was drafted. While AWE2 kept the facts about the newly discovered data and recommended updating the Clare Report, it stripped out all detailed analysis and interpretation of the data. It was assigned a formal reference number, but internal investigations later revealed it was never declared an official AWE company record. It was buried.

The content of the document is similar to that of the AWE1 document in that it sets out the facts around the additional data discovered and recommends an update to the Clare Report. The main difference between this document and the AWE1 document is that it avoids any detailed analysis or interpretation of the new data.

3. Ken Johnston’s Peer Reviews

To neutralise the threat of the AWE1 draft, the government turned to Ken Johnston, an independent expert witness and former AWE physicist.

In Peer Review 1 (February 2015), Johnston launched a fierce attack on the AWE1 authors. He rejected the fallout claims entirely, arguing:

1. The elevated readings on November 8, 1957, decayed too quickly (with a half-life of 10 to 20 minutes) to be fission products from Grapple X, which decay much more slowly.

2. He claimed the readings were likely caused by "minimally-trained operators" handling discrete portable gamma sources, like radium-luminised watches, compasses, or unshielded calibration sources.

3. He declared that the fish sampling database lacked the quality needed for scientific analysis and "rejected completely" that it raised a reasonable doubt.

Yet, in Peer Review 2 (March 2015), when reviewing the sanitised AWE2 draft, Johnston was suddenly much less critical, agreeing that a new report should be produced—provided any assessment was carefully controlled.

4. The Legal Pivot: "Deliberately Exaggerated" Modelling

By late 2015, the MOD realised that relying solely on historical data was a losing battle. The newly discovered gaps in the Clare Report made their evidence vulnerable.

So, ahead of the 2016 War Pension Appeal Tribunal, the MOD completely changed its strategy. They commissioned health physicist Richard Hallard to write the MOD1 and MOD2 reports.

Instead of proving there was no fallout, Hallard used a data-modelling approach. He assumed that widespread fallout did occur up to the absolute maximum permissible limits tolerated at the time.

The Tribunal fell for this tactic hook, line, and sinker. In their findings, they noted:

"We are sure that Mr Hallard's deliberately exaggerated estimations of possible dose amply accommodate every potential uncertainty... Mr Hallard was indeed using figures for the maximum conceptually possible degree of contamination... that was very considerably greater to anything that could actually have been there."

By "deliberately exaggerating" the potential doses and showing they were still technically "safe," the MOD successfully bypassed the messy, incomplete, and contradictory historical records.

5. The Timeline of Silence

• July 2014: The MOD releases the Clare Report under FOI.

• Late 2014: AWE employees discover the missing data and draft the explosive AWE1 report.

• January 2015: MOD legal advisers quietly receive and review AWE1.

• February–March 2015: Ken Johnston is brought in to discredit AWE1 and approve the watered-down AWE2.

• December 2015 – May 2016: The MOD1 and MOD2 "exaggerated dose" reports are completed to defeat the veterans at the tribunal.

• December 2025: Government Ministers claim they only became aware of the AWE1 document's existence "eleven years" after it was written.

• February 2026: AWE is finally forced to publicly release AWE1 following an Environmental Interest Request.

Conclusion

For decades, our veterans have been told that the science was settled, that the records were complete, and that there was no fallout. Now we know the truth: the government's own scientists knew the Clare Report was incomplete and inaccurate.

When faced with evidence of elevated radiation readings, the MOD chose to discredit its own workers, sanitise its reports, and construct "deliberately exaggerated" models to defeat sick veterans in court.

For reference, K Johnston is a highly respected nuclear safety expert and the former Chief Scientist at the UK's Atomic Weapons Establishment (AWE). He spent much of his prominent career at AWE Aldermaston, contributing significantly to the early development, safety protocols, and subsequent analysis of the UK's atmospheric nuclear testing programme.

Even after his active tenure, Johnston's formal scientific assessments remained critical in public policy and legal reviews. His peer reviews and analytical notes concerning the 1957–1958 environmental monitoring data at Christmas Island (Kiritimati) have served as vital evidence in landmark Ionising Radiation Appeals and official Nuclear Test Veterans Reports presented to the UK Parliament. These documents help reconstruct accurate historical radiation dose levels to evaluate the claims of military test veterans.

These documents have never been subject to external scrutiny or peer reviewed by any independent scientists.