Remembering Britain’s nuclear weapons tests

I joined with veterans and members of the Royal British Legion on Saturday 31st August, at the parish church in Sidmouth to lay a wreath at the town’s war memorial. More than two months early, you might suppose? Yet we were there to pay tribute to nuclear test veterans.

Over 22,000 service personnel were nuclear test veterans, who observed in the 1950s and 1960s detonations of nuclear weapons by the UK, in the Pacific.  Four of them were represented at the service last Saturday.    

Maria from Axmouth was there for her late husband Tony, who served in the Royal Navy. Tony died in 2022 without knowing that he would receive recognition. Maria was awarded a medal at Axminster in January this year on behalf of her late husband. 

I met also with Brian from Honiton. Brian served in the Royal Engineers and was tasked to extend the runway at Christmas Island to accommodate the bomber aircraft that dispatched the hydrogen bomb over an island in the Pacific.

There are some fascinating accounts available online of what it was like to observe the detonations. One veteran describes how, despite being asked to turn away from the blast and cover his eyes, he could see his finger bones through his skin when an incredibly bright flash followed the detonation.

Personally, I have mixed feelings about Operation Grapple, in which they were engaged. 

I defy you to meet the veterans and their spouses and fail to be impressed by their fortitude. Yet some of them served through no choice of their own, as national servicemen. Most were kept in the dark about what would be required of them; many were ignorant of the fact that they would be observing the detonation of a thermonuclear device until it happened. Some suffered from illness in later life that has been attributed to the fallout.

With ever fewer people having served in our dwindling Armed Forces, it is vital that this generation of politicians and the public is educated about the scale of the devastation that could be wreaked. I am grateful to those surviving veterans who saw the detonation of a hydrogen bomb saw fit to remind the rest of us of what they observed of these awesome, awful weapons.