by Alan Rimmer
REVELATIONS
It was 30 years before the burgeoning scandal of the victims of British nuclear bomb testing burst on the public consciousness.
It started with a simple letter to a local newspaper in 1983 from Ken McGinley a former private in the royal engineers who had spent a year on Christmas Island in 1958. McGinley had vivid memories of Grapple Y, but at that time he had no idea of its significance; to him it was just another bomb test.
For a long time he had suffered flashbacks of the time he woke up in his tent to find himself covered in large blisters. Later his stomach ruptured and he coughed up blood for days. He reported to the sick bay and was told he had an ulcer. He was just 20 years old.
McGinley was later discharged from the army and returned home to Johnstone, west of Glasgow. He hailed from a staunchly Catholic working class family and was soon absorbed back into the close-knit community where he grew up. Alice, his childhood sweetheart with whom he had corresponded throughout his tenure on Christmas Island was waiting for him.
They married and the couple looked forward to starting a family. Unfortunately it was not to be. After tests Mr McGinley was told he was impotent. When he asked ‘why?’ a doctor examined his notes and told him cryptically: “You’ll rue the day you ever stepped foot on Christmas Island…” He would not elaborate, and the McGinley’s were too upset for questions.
It was a bitter blow, but the couple settled down to a more or less normal life. McGinley obtained various jobs, mainly as an administrator and book-keeper and the couple saved enough money to open a small guesthouse. It was a good life, living in their little B&B in the picturesque town of Dunoon nestling on the banks of the Clyde, a couple of miles from Holy Loch. At the time Holy Loch was home to a large United States nuclear submarine base. The business prospered, with a large proportion of the guests being US Navy personnel.
The McGinley’s got on well with the Americans, and they were frequently asked to attend dances and other functions at the naval base. They became honorary members of the Sergeants Club, the social hub of the base where the dollar was the currency and US law prevailed.
Ken and Alice, like most Scots, remained close to their family roots and made frequent trips back across the Clyde to Johnstone to catch up with relatives and friends. It was on one of these trips that Ken met the mother of an old school pal who had joined the Army at the same time as him. He was shocked to learn his friend had died.
Cancer had taken him at the age of just 32. She told him her son had also been sent to Christmas Island to witness the bomb tests and came back very sick; he never recovered, she said. The woman went on to tell him there were four or five other young ‘Johnstone boys’ who had returned from Christmas Island with incurable cancers.
McGinley was consumed by curiosity and decided to track the families down. He was shocked by what he discovered: there were at least eight other local lads all sent to Christmas Island at about the same time. Three had died, while the others were suffering chronic illnesses.
Thoroughly intrigued, McGinley contacted the letters page of Daily Record newspaper asking anyone who had been to Christmas Island at the time of the bomb tests to contact him. A sharp-eyed news editor recognised a potential scoop and dispatched a reporter to interview him.
The subsequent story, spread over two pages of the newspaper, caused a sensation. Scores of men from Scotland contacted the newspaper complaining of cancers and other illnesses. They had all been out to the Pacific and witnessed nuclear bomb testing.
The story was picked up by newspapers and TV stations in the rest of the UK, and it was soon apparent that a hornet’s nest had been kicked over. The wires and the ether buzzed with hundreds, then thousands of complaints from every corner of the UK.
Over and over again the story was told: the men recalled how they had been lined up with nothing but shorts, sandals and coconut palms for protection, while gigantic bombs were exploded scarce miles away. They talked of an intense light in which they could see the bones of their fingers through clenched fists; they told of an unbearable heat, huge blast waves and towering mushroom clouds.
And then, of course, there were the health consequences. The sheer numbers of ex-servicemen now complaining of illness was translated into a wave of protest which swept the country finally, washing up in Whitehall and Downing Street. The Thatcher Government had to do something to stem the flow.
Ministry of Defence mandarins stalled for time and commissioned the National Radiological Protection Board, a quasi-official nuclear watchdog agency, to look into the men’s claims. Sir Richard Doll, an eminent epidemiologist, was chosen to head the study team. The research would take two years, he said, adding that everyone should just calm down and wait for the results.
McGinley wasn’t about to wait two years or even a single day. He was a man in a hurry, and with a mission. By now, the quiet book-keeper had morphed into a full-blown, anti-nuclear campaigner, becoming something of an international celebrity into the bargain.
He was a media ‘natural’, quick-witted and always ready with a newsworthy quote. McGinley found he was in demand from TV stations, newspapers and other media outlets from all over the world. Greenpeace, the international environment group, recognised his propaganda value and whisked him off on a whistle-stop tour of the United States.
These were heady and exciting days for McGinley, and he embraced his destiny with all the fervour of the true convert.
In the New Mexico desert, at the site of the world’s first atomic bomb blast, he defied a phalanx of armed soldiers guarding the Trinity site at Alamogordo as he railed against nuclear imperialism. On the Yucca Flats and in the Utah desert, (accompanied by an ever-growing media pack) he spoke with the ‘Down-winders’, a vociferous community of farming folk who believed they were cursed by radiation from the hundreds of atomic bomb tests the US carried out a few miles from their homes.
He later met with Loretta King, the outspoken widow of the peace campaigner Martin Luther King, and even had a meeting with John Wayne’s widow Pilar who was convinced the great screen cowboy had died as a result of making the movie, The Conqueror, on location in Nevada, downwind from the bomb tests in 1956.
McGinley rounded off his triumphal six-week tour with a peace rally near the Lincoln Memorial and a personal meeting in Washington with Senator Edward Kennedy, and other members of the famous political dynasty.
Returning home he threw himself into a whirlwind round of meetings with MPs, doctors, peace campaigners and various anti-nuclear groups as he pushed the profile of his army of nuclear veterans ever higher up the political agenda. As the pressure mounted, the opposition Labour Party seized the initiative and launched a spirited attack on the Government in the House of Commons. A Private Members Bill brought by a North East MP called Bob Clay, gained support from both Tory and Labour members and looked set to hand a famous victory to McGinley and his veterans.
But the hand of the all-powerful Ministry of Defence reached into the political bear pit and activated a caucus of Tory MPs with historical links to the armed forces. Amid a cacophony of protest from the Labour benches, several MPs took turns to pour scorn on the proposed Bill.
They said all the evidence showed that no serviceman had been harmed at the bomb tests. They conjured every conceivable excuse. Each point was talked about in minute detail in a classic filibuster manoeuvre; the debate descended into farce. Despite outraged protests the Speaker announced he had no option but to call ‘time out’ and the Bill failed.
McGinley and a contingent of nuclear veterans watched the proceedings from their vantage point in the public gallery. As the House rose for the night, McGinley stared down at the MPs who had so cynically scuttled the veterans’ chance of justice. One of the MPs, an Eton educated son of a former Army General, met McGinley’s eyes. The two gazed at each other across the chasm, and for the first time McGinley realised the extent of the uphill fight he faced.
McGinley, his faith in the democratic proc
ess shredded, determined to carry on the fight with renewed vigour. He resumed his travels the length and breadth of the country attending inquests, public meetings, inquiries and pension tribunals.
At home he burned the midnight oil compiling and tabulating medical and service records of the three thousand-plus nuclear veterans that had now joined his protest campaign. His book-keeping skills were brought to good use for this work, and he kept detailed records of every member.
Even a cursory examination of these records revealed evidence that the rates of cancers among test participants were far higher than was normal. Several illustrious scientists including Alice Stewart from Birmingham University who discovered the dangers of X-rays on unborn children agreed and piled on the pressure for official action.
While the scientists and the politicians argued, disturbing new allegations added to the feverish atmosphere. Newly-discovered government documents suggested nuclear servicemen were deliberately used as ‘guinea pigs’ to see what the effects the bombs would have on them. These claims opened up a whole new territory for McGinley and his veterans to exploit.
NUCLEAR GUINEA PIGS
Were servicemen deliberately exposed to radiation for the purposes of scientific experimentation? It is a question that has been bitterly argued about for decades. It all started with the release in 1983 of a ‘Top Secret’ document from the government’s Defence Research Policy Committee, dated May 20, 1953, which contained the statement:-
The army must discover the detailed effects of various types of explosion on equipment, stores and men with and without various types of protection.
This oft-quoted document was clear proof, according to McGinley and his supporters that servicemen had been used as human guinea pigs during the atomic tests.
The government disagreed, arguing that dummies in various uniforms had been used to test the effects and it was wrong to suggest that men had been used as laboratory animals.
At first the government line held sway as historian Lorna Arnold and others with privileged access to government archives provided supporting evidence in the form of photographs which showed that dummies had been placed strategically on the firing ranges.
Armed with this information, the Ministry of Defence went on the attack. Supporters in parliament spoke of their ‘utter conviction’ that the twenty thousand servicemen at the bomb tests were not exposed to any danger whatsoever.
Statement after statement declared no British troops received a measurable radiation dose; British troops were not affected by blast or heat; British troops were stationed so far away from the blasts that they stood more chance of getting a radiation dose sitting at home in England than on the bomb sites in the Pacific. They made witnessing a nuclear bomb test sound like a routine training exercise.
Curiously, the other nuclear weapon nations took a different view. They openly admitted that men were, indeed, deliberately exposed to see how troops would react in battlefield conditions during a nuclear war. They saw it as a patriotic duty for their men to be shown in the frontline of a nuclear attack.
Photographs and newsreels were released of soldiers marching through fallout, and even charging through ground zero within seconds of the explosions. American GIs were pictured unfurling the Stars and Stripes in nuclear bomb craters, and Soviet Special Forces were depicted parachuting from aircraft flying through the mushroom clouds. The Chinese used the novel approach of dispatching 100 sword-brandishing horsemen in a cavalry charge toward the towering explosions.
The British government remained in denial even though more declassified documents emerged from the Public Records office at Kew Gardens declaring that servicemen were indeed used to study the effects of blast and fallout.
One particular document set out in graphic detail how at least 250 servicemen were ordered into positions, some just two miles from an atomic explosion.
The report refers to a series of tests, codenamed Buffalo, at Maralinga in 1956. Headed “Indoctrination of Service Personnel,” it tells of a plan to use servicemen in an experiment to ‘discover the effects of atomic weapons.’ Detailed planning arrangements are discussed, including the problems of transporting the ‘indoctrinees’ to the bomb sites and how they would be deployed once they got there.
Lectures and general instruction were to be given the men, and there were to be conducted tours of the range areas prior to the explosions. When the big moment came, the men were taken to between two and four miles from the blast and ‘exposed to flash, heat and blast effects.’ What protection the luckless indoctrinees were to be given during this stage of the operation is not made clear.
Later the servicemen were required to pass through a health control unit and don protective clothing to enter the contaminated areas. On their return the men passed through decontamination centres and finally underwent monitoring by doctors.
After their ‘indoctrination’ the men were to be dispersed back to their units. No official records have yet been released to indicate what happened to these men. A few of the survivors, however, emerged in the mid-1980s to tell their stories.
Under oath, Colonel Peter Anthony Lowe of the Royal Horse Artillery, told an Australian royal commission how he had been stationed in Munster, West Germany, when he got a phone call from his commanding officer.
His statement read: “The phone call came out of the blue and he asked me if I would like to go on a trip to Australia for three weeks. I said that of course I would. Within a few days I had discovered from talking with fellow officers that there were atomic trials in the offing and observers were required.”
Colonel Lowe was sent to the proving grounds at Maralinga and watched an explosion from a hillside about five miles from ground zero. Later he went into the target area wearing gas masks, boots and protective clothing. He recalled he did not suffer undue trauma from his first encounter with an atomic explosion.
The second was different: “I observed the second blast stationed in a closed down tank. This was very scary indeed. I do not know exactly how far the tank was from ground zero, but the blast moved the tank about ten feet sideways. I was watching through a periscope and it went opaque straight away because of the sand blasting effect which ruined the optics. For this exercise I was wearing ordinary military gear with no film badge. After a decent interval I was told to evacuate the tank and return by truck to the camp.”
Colonel Lowe suffered serious health consequences which he blamed on his atomic experiences. He developed duodenal ulcers soon after returning home and then he contracted cancer which required his stomach to be removed.
The Australian Royal Commission threw up many similar examples. It heard how servicemen were deliberately exposed to radiation by being ordered to ‘crawl, lie, walk and run’ in radioactive dust after each nuclear test. The purpose of this was not explained to the hundreds of men involved. Admittedly, much of this evidence was anecdotal, but the sheer number of veterans who came forward to tell similar stories was compelling.
Other experiments were more clinical in their use of servicemen as human guinea pigs during the bomb tests. One of these included the deliberate blinding of ‘volunteers’ during an A-bomb test in 1956. A secret document, written by a Captain C.D.B Bridges of the Royal Army Medical Corps, discusses the ‘visual incapacity in human beings following exposure to a nuclear explosion.’
Bridges reports that rabbits could be blinded by a nuclear explosion 42 miles away and that scientists had calculated that human beings would receive burns to their eyes at comparable distances. Bridges goes on to report exactly what happened to three of these servicemen:-
Case 1: In daylight, he viewed the latter part of the flash from a distance of six miles from an atomic weapon. The left eye viewed through the optical system of a camera, the right eye viewed it directly through the open window. There was immediate dazzle, blurring and haziness. Extreme photophobia developed later.
Case 2: The left eye was covered and the patient viewed the flash with his righ
t eye from a distance of five miles. He was blinded for 15 seconds, and had only a hazy view of his instruments after 25 seconds. This lasted for 8-10 minutes. Seven months later a paracentral scotoma was found in the upper temporal quadrant of the right visual field.
Case 3: The patient viewed the explosion with both eyes from a distance of 10 miles. Subjective visual difficulties lasted for five minutes. Five days later a paracentral scotoma was found in the left eye. A blanched area was found nasel to the fovea, adjacent to the branch of the inferior temporal artery leading to the paramacular area. The artery appeared blocked, and was bloodless distal to the lesion. The area was surrounded by oedema, although this disappeared after about one month.’
What all this means, of course, is that the unfortunate victims of this experiment suffered varying degrees of blindness after being ordered to gaze upon a nuclear fireball. It is interesting to note the use of the word ‘patient’ in the context of the experiment and also the fact that medical examinations were carried out upon them many months after the event. It would be harder to imagine a clearer definition of the term ‘human guinea pig.’
The Royal Navy was also playing its part in finding out the effects of radiation on men and equipment. And as befits the ‘senior service’, it did it in a big way.
In early 1956, HMS Diana, a Daring class destroyer slipped its moorings and set sail for the Indian ocean. She was bound for the Monte Bello islands off the Australian coast where Britain’s first atomic bomb was exploded four years earlier
She was to take part in two atomic experiments and her mission was top secret and potentially deadly. Diana was fated to be the first manned warship to deliberately steam through the radioactive cloud created by an atomic bomb.