Destroyer of Worlds

By Joshua Harms

i

I am become death, the destroyer of worlds.

J. Robert Oppenheimerii

In the arms race between the West and the Soviet Union, the

drive to create larger and more destructive weapons was

paramount, the ability to destroy the planet many times over

was no longer the pipedream of science fiction, it had

become stark reality, following the bombings of Hiroshima

and Nagasaki during the Second World War, the capacity to

obliterate one enemies had become as easy as flipping a

switch. With the Soviet Union soon following the United

States in gaining the “Bomb”, thus triggering an arms race for

other US allied countries, British Atomic ambition was

triggered by Great Britain’s desire to remain relevant in a

world of increasing irrelevance, the Empire was crumbling,

Britannia no longer ruled the waves, Atomic weaponry was

seen as a way to maintain somewhat equal pegging with the

United States and the Soviet Union, as well as the old enemy

in France.

Between 1956 and 1963 the British Ministry of Defence

conducted nuclear testing at the Maralinga Test Site in

central South Australia approx. 800km north-west of

Adelaide, during these years a total of seven nuclear test

series were performed, with explosive yields ranging from 1

to 27 kilo-tonnes of TNT, In comparison the Little Boy Atomic

Bomb dropped on Hiroshima during World War 2 amounted

to approx. 15 Kilo-tonnes of TNT. The two major test series

conducted at the site were Operation Buffalo and Operation

Antler, the site also played host to hundreds of minor trials

into the effects of fire and non-nuclear explosions on atomic

devices.iii

To understand how black projects began, and how they

continue to function today, one must start with the creation

of the atomic bomb. The men who ran the Manhattan Project

wrote the rules about black operations. The atomic bomb was

the mother of all black projects, and it is the parent from

which all black operations have sprung.

Annie Jacobsen

On the 3rd of October 1952, the United Kingdom detonated

its first atomic weapon, codenamed “Hurricane” on the

Monte Bello Island off the North West coast of Western

Australia, a year after the first test a subsequent test was

carried out at Emu Field in the Great Victorian Desert, South

Australia, codenamed Totem 1 with an approx. yield of 9.1

kilo-tonnes of TNT, followed two weeks later with the

detonation of the Totem 2 weapon with a 7.1 Kilo-tonne TNT

yield. On the 30th of October 1953 the government of Great

Britain formally requested a permanent test facility on the

Australian Mainland, the facility at Emu Field was deemed

unsatisfactory due to inadequate infrastructure and water

supply, so the recently surveyed Maralinga site was selected

and was developed as a joint, co-funded facility between the

British and Australian governments. The Maralinga site was

inhabited by its traditional owners the Pitjanjatjara and

Yankunytjatjara Aboriginal people, for whom the land was of

great spiritual and societal significance, these people were

forcibly relocated to the new settlement at Yulata and

attempts were made to curtail access to the Maralinga Site,

although these were often unsuccessful.

iv

The Testing

The atomic bomb made the prospect of future war

unendurable. It has led us up those last few steps to the

mountain pass; and beyond there is a different country.

J. Robert Oppenheimer

The object of the Atomic testing was to curtail the growing

threat of perceived soviet ambition. The First significant test

to be carried out at Maralinga was Operation Buffalo, this

test series consisted of four atomic devices codenamed One

Tree, Marcoo, Kite and Breakaway, the method of detonation

varied between the four bombs, with two, Breakaway and

One Tree being exploded from Towers, Marcoo was

detonated at ground level and Kite was dropped from a Royal

Air Force (RAF) Vickers Valiant bomber from a height of

35,000 feet or 11,000 metres, this was the first British aircraft

to ever deliver a nuclear device.v

One Tree 12.9 Kilo-tonnes of TNT

Breakaway 10.8 Kilo-tonnes of TNT

Marcoo 1.4 Kilo-tonnes of TNT

Kite 2.9 Kilo-tonnes of TNT

vi

The fallout from these atomic tests were measured in a

variety of ways, using sticky paper, air sampling and water

obtained from rainfall and artesian bore water reservoirs.

The radioactive cloud, communally referred to as the

“mushroom cloud”, from the One Tree test reached a height

of 37,500 feet (8,500 metres) exceeding its predicted height

by 3,000 metres, with radioactivity detected in South

Australia, the Northern Territory, Western Australia, New

South Wales and Queensland. All four Buffalo test were

heavily criticised at the McClelland Royal Commission in

1985, the test were deemed to have been fired during

inappropriate conditions. In 2001 Dr Roff, of the University of

Dundee uncovered evidence that local troops were unduly

placed in circumstances of high radioactive contact when

required to run, walk and crawl across areas of

contamination in the subsequent days following the

detonations. Dr Roff stated that "it puts the lie to the British

government's claim that they never used humans for guinea

pig-type experiments in nuclear weapons trials in Australia."

Operation Antler was the codename of the tests conducted

in 1957, these were tests to learn the efficacy of the new

thermo-nuclear components, particularly trigger

mechanisms. Thermo-nuclear weapons taking over from the

less sophisticated and rudimentary atomic devices. Three

tests began in September 1957, these tests were codenamed

Tadje, Biak, and Taranaki. The first two tests were detonated

from towers and the last was suspended from balloons. The

yields from the weapons ranged 0.93 kilo-tonnes (Tadje),

5.67 kilo-tonnes (Biak) and 26.6 kilo-tonnes (Taranaki). The

Royal Commission later found that personnel handling the

Tadje bomb were exposed to active Cobalt 60, a synthetic

radioactive isotope which is used to irradiate food and blood

samples today. Although the Antler series were better

organised and planned than the Buffalo series, the fallout

from testing from the Taranaki test exceeded predictions.

vii

As well as the Buffalo and Antler tests, four series of minor

trials were conducted, codenamed “Kittens”,”Tims”, “Rats”

and “Vixens”. These trials included up to 700 tests using

devices made with plutonium, uranium and beryllium cores.

Operation Kittens involved 99 tests at the Maralinga and Emu

Fields sites from 1953 to 1961, these tests using uranium and

polonium generated "relatively large amounts of radioactive

contamination". Operation Tims 1955-1963 involved the

detonation of 321 trials of uranium and beryllium devices, as

well as studies of uranium compression and Operation Rats

involved investigation into the explosive dispersal of

uranium, those trials took place between 1956-1960.

The Vixen minor trials were devised to investigate what

would happen if a nuclear device were subject to a non-

nuclear explosion or fire. The Vixen A trials occurred between

1959-1961 and investigated accidental fire on a nuclear

weapon and involved 1kg of plutonium, the Vixen B trials

from 1960-1963 and involved the non-nuclear explosion of

radioactive materials, but managed to irradiate the area

around Maralinga.

The Australian Radiation Detection Unit (ARDU) used four

equipped Land Rovers to monitor and sample and measure

radiation levels from Maralinga north to Alice Springs, The

Land Rovers were based at Mt Clarence and were directed by

radio to go to the fallout area predicted by the Theoretical

Predictions Group. Monitoring Equipment were set up at

seven locations along the expected path of the fallout cloud

these included monitoring stations for the gathering of data

on beta and gamma radiation. The ARDU was also

responsible for gathering samples from flora and Faena, in

particular sheep thyroids. After the test cloud had passed, an

aerial survey was dispatched to follow the cloud and monitor

the radioactive particulates, these monitoring grew more and

more sophisticated as the test went forward as a system of

trial and error was common.

Atomic Legacies

The Royal Commission into British Nuclear Tests in Australia

was chaired by Jim McClelland between 1984-1985 and was

an inquiry by the Australian government to investigate the

conduct of the British and the then Australian government

during the course of the weapons testing. Following the

Atomic tests the site was contaminated with radioactive and

hazardous materials and an initial clean-up was attempted in

late 1967. The McClelland Royal Commission examined the

effects of the tests, delivered its report in 1985, finding

significant radiological hazards across the test site, the

commission recommended another clean-up which was

completed in the year 200 at the cost of 108 million dollars,

debate continues to this day as to the long term health

effects for the traditional Aboriginal owners and former

personnel of the test site. In 1994 the Australian Government

paid compensation to the local Maralinga Tjarutja people

amounting to 13.5 million dollars

The Royal Commission into the nuclear tests was informed of

the dumping of radiological waste into the ocean off the

West Australian coast, as well as the mass movement of

indigenous peoples off the land leading to a large payout to

the original inhabitants, with the commission being told of

one hundred aboriginal people walking barefoot over

irradiated soil because their issued boots did not fit. The

1953 testing caused severe fallout in South Australia as the

fallout was three times the expected severity, with readings

on Geiger counters registering off the scale in radioactivity

particularly at Marble Bar, not far from Maralinga.

In the book Maralinga: Australia’s Nuclear Waste Cover-up by

Alan Parkinson, covers the attempts by the Australian

government in trying to clean up the testing sites and the

systemic failures to do so efficiently, Parkinson a nuclear

Engineer explains that cost cutting compromised the clean-

up of the Maralinga site and the haphazard ways that

radioactive material was simply dumped and forgotten in

shallow holes in the outback, Parkinson states in his book

"What was done at Maralinga was a cheap and nasty solution

that wouldn't be adopted on white-fellas land."

Due to the nature of radioactive substances found at

Maralinga following the tests and the half-lives of these

materials, some material like Uranium 236 have a half-life of

1.5 million years, have led to the site to be permanently off

limits to the general public to this day, while not nearly as

radioactive as Chernobyl or Fukushima, the equivalent

radiation is more than is healthy over prolonged periods of

time.

Conclusions from the McClelland Royal Commission state

that the Australian Government made no decision on the

early tests allowed levels of contamination from fallout, it

was left to the safety committee at the site to determine

minimum levels of radiation, each test was only monitored

from the air for 30 minutes following each detonation using a

Canberra class aircraft with monitoring equipment on board,

it was believed at the time that the fallout would not be so

widespread or severe and the British believed that the

isolation of the site would allow for testing of larger and

more sophisticated weapons, whether this ignorance was

malicious or not remains a debate within academia.

In the quest to remain relevant in an increasingly changing

world Great Britain allowed itself to commit grievous sins

upon its own peoples within the Commonwealth of Australia,

Britain used and abused its relationship with Australia to turn

the outback around Maralinga into a radioactive waste-land

devoid of worth, it with the tacit approval of the Australian

government at the time forcibly evicted the traditional

owners and irradiated their sacred land in the name of

progress, the concept of mutually assured destruction paid

little heed to the indigenous peoples and the personnel at

the Maralinga site as they were exposed to innumerable

toxic, hazardous and radioactive substances, irradiated

plumes of cloud descended upon the eastern and western

seaboard with impunity, causing unknown damage and

destruction along its path, with two failed clean-ups that

followed as botched as the tests themselves. The tests were

seen as ground breaking research into the effects of atomic

and then thermonuclear weapons on atmospheric currents,

flora and fauna, and ground water, but it beggars belief at

the cavalier attitude taken by the researchers, in a simplistic

view the researchers were children playing with fire, granted

fire that could scour and destroy all life.

The only use for an atomic bomb is to keep somebody else

from using one.

George Wald

Bibliography

Arnold, Lorna (1987). A Very Special Relationship: British

Atomic Weapons Trials in Australia. London: Her Majesty's

Stationery Office

Arnold, Lorna and Smith, Mark (2006). Britain, Australia and

the Bomb: The Nuclear Tests and their Aftermath. Palgrave

Macmillan.

Walker, Frank (2014). Maralinga. Hachette Australia.

Yalata & Oak Communities with Mattingley, Christobel

(2009). Maralinga: The Anangu Story. Allen & Unwin.

Maralinga: Australia’s Nuclear Waste Cover-up Parkinson,

Alan ABC Books (2007)

The Report of the Royal Commission into British Nuclear

Tests in Australia Vol 1

i http://www.sbs.com.au/news/article/2014/11/05/backgrounder-why-was-maralinga-used-secret-nuclear-tests ii J Robert Oppenheimer, reminiscing on the Manhattan Project iii Walker, Frank (2014) Maralinga pp 11-17 iv The Report of the Royal Commission into British Nuclear Tests in Australia Vol 1 pg 312 v The Report of the Royal Commission into British Nuclear Tests in Australia Vol 1 pp 64-90 vi The Report of the Royal Commission into British Nuclear Tests in Australia Vol 1 pg 366 vii The Report of the Royal Commission into British Nuclear Tests in Australia Vol 1 pg 401