British nuclear tests at Maralinga Totally Explained

Everything about Operation Antler totally explained

British nuclear tests at Maralinga occurred between 1955 and 1963 at the Maralinga site, part of the Woomera Prohibited Area, in South Australia. A total of seven major nuclear tests were performed, with approximate yields ranging from 1 to 27 kilotons. The site was also used for hundreds of minor trials, many of which were intended to investigate the effects of fire or non-nuclear explosions on atomic weapons.
The site was contaminated with radioactive materials and an initial cleanup was attempted in 1967. The McClelland Royal Commission into the tests delivered its report in 1985, and found that significant radiation hazards still existed at many of the Maralinga test areas. It recommended another cleanup, which was completed in 2000 at a cost of $108 million. Debate continued over the safety of the site and the long-term health effects on the traditional Aboriginal owners of the land and former personnel. In 1994, the Australian Government paid compensation amounting to $13.5 million to the local Maralinga Tjarutja people.

Historical context

On 3 October 1952, the United Kingdom tested its first atomic weapon, named "Hurricane", at the Montebello Islands off the coast of Western Australia. A year later the first atomic test on the Australian mainland was Totem 1 (9.1 kilotons) at Emu Field in the Great Victoria Desert, South Australia, on 15 October 1953. Totem 2 (7.1 kilotons) followed two weeks later on 27 October.
The British government formally requested a permanent test facility on 30 October 1953. Due to concerns about fallout from the previous tests at Emu Field, the recently-surveyed Maralinga site was selected for this purpose. The new site was announced in May 1955. It was developed as a joint, co-funded facility between the British and Australian governments.
Prior to selection, the Maralinga site was inhabited by the Pitjantjatjara and Yankunytjatjara Aboriginal peoples, for whom it had a "great spiritual significance". Many were relocated to a new settlement at Yulata, and attempts were made to curtail access to the Maralinga site. These were often unsuccessful.

Major tests

Two major test series were conducted at the Maralinga site: Operation Buffalo and Operation Antler. Operation Buffalo commenced on 27 September 1956. The operation consisted of the testing of four nuclear devices, codenamed One Tree, Marcoo, Kite and Breakaway respectively. One Tree (12.9 kilotons) and Breakaway (10.8 kilotons) were exploded from towers, Marcoo (1.4 kilotons) was exploded at ground level, and Kite (2.9 kilotons) was released by a Royal Air Force Vickers Valiant bomber from a height of 35,000 feet. This was the first launching of a British atomic weapon from an aircraft.
   The fallout from these tests was measured using sticky paper, air sampling devices, and water sampled from rainfall and reservoirs. The radioactive cloud from Buffalo 1 (One Tree) reached a height of 37,500ft, exceeding the predicted 27,900ft, and radioactivity was detected in South Australia, Northern Territory, New South Wales, and Queensland. All four Buffalo tests were criticised by the 1985 McClelland Royal Commission, which concluded that they were fired under inappropriate conditions.
   In 2001, Dr Sue Rabbit Roff, a researcher from the University of Dundee, uncovered documentary evidence that troops had been ordered to run, walk and crawl across areas contaminated by the Buffalo tests in the days immediately following the detonations; a fact that the British government later admitted. 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 followed in 1957. Antler was designed to test components for thermonuclear weapons, with particular emphasis on triggering mechanisms. Three tests began in September, codenamed Tadje, Biak and Taranaki. The first two tests were conducted from towers, the last was suspended from balloons. ! style="background:#efefef;" | Type They were to leave the most dangerous legacy at Maralinga.
   The four series of minor trials were codenamed Kittens, Tims, Rats and Vixen. Operation Kittens involved 99 trials, performed at both Maralinga and Emu Field in 1953-1961. Twelve Vixen B trials, between 1960 and 1963, attempted to discover the effects of high explosives detonating a nuclear weapon, and involved 22kg of plutonium. It was the subsequent disposal of the waste plutonium from these minor trials – Vixen B especially – which created the major radiation problems at the site.
   A Department of Veterans' Affairs study concluded that "Overall, the doses received by Australian participants were small. ... Only 2% of participants received more than the current Australian annual dose limit for occupationally exposed persons (20 mSv)." However, such findings are contested. Terry Toon of the Atomic Ex-Serviceman's Association stated that out of 10,700 personnel who worked in the area over a 10 year period in the 1950s and 1960s there were over 9,000 persons who had died by 2005 and approximately 75-80 percent of those were from cancer.
   One author suggests that the resettlement and denial of aboriginal access to their homelands "contributed significantly to the social disintegration which characterises the community to this day. Petrol sniffing, juvenile crime, alcoholism and chronic friction between residents and the South Australian police have become facts of life."

References in popular music

"Maralinga" is a song on the 1983 album 10, 9, 8, 7, 6, 5, 4, 3, 2, 1 of Australian political rock group Midnight Oil whose lyrics paint a bleak picture of the grim reality faced by the aborigines of the area.
"Birthright" is the title of a song by Yes' spinoff progressive rock supergroup Anderson Bruford Wakeman Howe, released in their 1989 eponymous album, that has been inspired by the facts of nuclear tests in Woomera. An introduction to song lyrics, as printed in album sleeve, reads as follows: "In 1954 the British government, in order to maintain the balance of power between east and west, exploded their first atom bomb at Woomera. they failed to contact all of the aborigine peoples at the time. the aborigines still call this ’the day of the cloud.’ ".

Footnotes

Further Information

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