KIRIBATI

CHRISTMAS ISLAND - NUCLEAR TESTS

CHAPTER THREE

The TT Dunera wasn't the most luxurious of vessels and, as you might expect, any home comforts on board were conspicuous only by their absence. Our beds consisted of hammocks in the berths downstairs and wee Frank and myself made sure we were beside each other. Two other men called Harry and Chuck joined us.

The TT Dunera carried over 1000 British soldiers to Christmas Island

departing on New Year's eve, 1957.

A tall solidly-built soldier appeared through the wee door dragging his kit-bag and scratching his head. He promptly plonked himself down on another hammock nearby. We looked at one another in silence. Our huge companion slowly rubbed his face then said:

"Why don't us Scots all stick together?"

We weren't going to disagree with such a big guy so we just nodded in agreement. Then wee Frank walked over, stood on his tip-toes and squinted into the big fella's eyes:

"Okay, Tiny," he laughed, "join the clan!"

There was a moment's silence before the big guy laughed out loud. The name stuck to him and from that moment on he was known as Alan "Tiny" Robinson.

Chuck, meanwhile, was examining his watch. He said he'd bought it the last time he was back home in Paisley but some of us were convinced he'd nicked it as he certainly didn't have it when we'd left Ripon. He held the watch up to his ear to make sure it was ticking, then took a good look at the dial.

"It's Hogmanay," he drawled. "This is bad. We're stuck on a big boat out in the middle of nowhere. Jesus, this is really bad ...."

We shrugged our shoulders in agreement. Even if we'd had any drink to celebrate with, we couldn't have got near it wince all our small bedside lockers were locked up. We'd also been ordered to have lights out at eleven o-clock sharp, so we reluctantly got into our pyjamas then climbed into bed. I think we were all feeling a wee bit sorry for ourselves at the time.

Forty-five minutes later, still dressed in our pyjamas, we jumped out if bed and headed for the toilets. We knew that we would never be discovered since all the officers were having a high old time of it in their quarters. I got out my harmonica and played "Scotland the Brave" at midnight while the rest of the boys belted out the words with glorious passion. Alcohol appeared from somewhere and we passed round a few bottles of whisky and some beer. The party was broken up by a couple of officers who had wandered downstairs but they were half-drunk themselves so they never reported us. As they walked out the door, wee Frank shouted after them:

"Happy New Year and I hope you both catch VD." (The cartoon-film we'd seen at Ripon, with the Hawaiian woman wearing a grass-skirt, had obviously not been wasted on Frank. Anyone who annoyed him was now liable to be told he hoped they caught VD. It was clearly the worst thing he could think of.)

A few days later the ship reached the Azores and by that time everyone on board had been sick at least once. Sometimes I couldn't make it to the railing in time and threw up all over the deck. I started to realise why decks were always being swabbed every time I saw a film at the pictures about the navy.

The galley was where the meals were served. There were over a thousand troops on board our ship so you can imagine the massive queues which soon built up at breakfast, lunch and dinner time. The crew were all Indian and they took a perverse delight in saying things which they knew would make young, queasy soldiers throw up. to be asked if you would like a runny fried-egg with greasy gravy poured over in first thing in the morning was not the most pleasant way to start the day. Later on we would always be given a plate of oxtail soup. The next day, once they'd sliced a few week-old onions into it, they would give us the same stuff back only this time it was called French-onion soup. That's what I call typical military improvisation. The five of us very rarely ate the soup but we always took it so we could spill some on to the floor. Then we would sit at the end of the long tables and have a laugh at all the other guys as they tried to keep their balance on the floor which had begun to resemble a murky skating rink as the ship lurched from side to side. Okay, it was cruel but at least it passed the time for us and I don't think anyone really got hurt - well there was that one poor English devil ....

The weather had begun to improve, the skies were cloudless day after day and the wind on deck lost that chilly edge which even the warmest of summer breezes always seem to have back home in Scotland. The five of us wanted to play football on the main deck and the sergeant said that he didn't mind as long as we "didn't use a ball:. Ha, ha, very funny .... When he heard this remark Tiny Robinson sloped off to our berths and returned with a home-made football manufactured out of rolled-up, smelly socks that he  kept under lock and key in his bedside locker. This practice caught on and we spent the next few days playing our hearts out on deck. Obviously a few problems arose if the "ball" went out the "park" and we soon started to go through more socks than we had intended to. The game was eventually abandoned when the rest of the troops noticed their hosiery supplies were diminishing as those "bloody jocks" played football day after day.

The weather became warm enough for us to sunbath on the decks and we used to throw water over each other to cool down if the temperature was really unbearable. I was lying with the rest of the boys one day when suddenly a message came over the public-address system request Mr Ken McGinley to report to the duty-room. The voice which made this announcement was unfamiliar and it didn't belong to the small-arsed disk-jocky who usually played the records. "Maybe somebody6's kicked the bucket back home," said wee Frank as he screwed up his face and squinted his eyes against the sun. Somebody else grunted something about them finding out it was me who ran over the NAAFI cat at Ripon. "Tanks for the moral support boys," I thought as I headed for the duty-room.

Suddenly the orderly-sergeant appeared behind me with two other escorts and I was frog-marched into the captain's HQ.

"Are you, eh ..." asked the captain, glancing down at a sheet of paper in front of him," ... Mr Ken McGinley?"

"Yes, sir," I replied quickly.

"Ah, so you're the gentlemen who carved his monica on my ship's hand-rail ....? he snapped.

The captain droned on and on about defacing the ship but I wasn't really paying any attention, I was just relieved that it wasn't any serious news from home. I was given extra guard duty and confined to ship as punishment. To be honest I couldn't have cared less. I was becoming used to landing in trouble and surviving.

Within the next few days we reached the Panama Canal. I can remember passing through the world-famous Milaflores Locks which lifted the ship up towards Panama City itself. As we neared them we were issued with our tropical kit which was to be worn when we left the ship at Panama City. As the TT Dunera went through the locks I looked up at the banks and watched a group of little black children. All these cute kids had a transistor radio which played a rock-and-roll tune at full volume and as they listened to it they danced and giggled all over the place. We all laughed and waved at them and they returned our greetingw with huge smiles and more energetic dancing. Apart from the films, they were the first black people that I'd ever seen in my life. 

The TT Dunera arrived in Panama the following day and everyone received a pass for shore-leave and some extra money. Everyone except me that is. I was still in the dog-house for carving my name on the captain's much-loved hand-rail. But I managed to find one man who didn't want to go ashore so I asked him if he would loan me his pass for the duration of our stay in port. He immediately and he'd be delighted to help, the only problem for me was that this man was a half-cast. I decided to take the risk so I walked off the ship with as much confidence as I could muster and I flashed the pass at the officer at the end of the gang-plank. He never even noticed the photograph on the pass and simply waved me off on my way. If he had queried the snap, I had prepaed a story aboutr having a particularly dark tan on the day the photograph was taken.

When we stepped on the shore at Panama we were greeted by all the colourful locals, who came in every size, shape and bust-measurement that you can possibly imagine. Each native had their pitch meticulously rehearsed for our arrival and they seemed to presume we were all very rich.

"You like to see my mamma or sister, man ... only two dollars! Yeah, that's right, two dollars for you ..." or "You wanna see a real special show ... all nudes ... no clothes, only one dollar! Just for you soldier, very special lady one dollar!" they purred.

We were more interested in finding the first pub to get a drink of decent beer or buying some postcards to send home, so we headed stra8ight for the town centre on a little bus which had been sitting at the end of the pier. It took twenty minutes to reach the centre of Panama City ... and what a city it was! It was like something out of a spaghetti Western. The culture shock was profound and we strolled around for hours with our youthful jaws hanging open. We found a pub with swinging doors like the type we'd all seen in cowboy saloons so we walked through them a few times for a laugh. It was far too hot to stay inside for very long so we bought a few bottles of beer then went on our way again. One of the guys decided to throw caution to the wind and sow a few wild oats so we had a whip round and gave him some US dollars and sent him on his way. Wee Frank was disgusted and reminded him about the film we'd seen at Ripon but the guy had had enough of living on a ship so he shrugged his shoulders and slunk off to see some wee Panamanian's sister or mother. Within a few hours we had no money left so we headed back to the ship. All four of us were beginning to regret not having bought any good souvenirs from the little man who had tailed us throughout our journey, waving his suitcase full of wares under our noses. By the time we reached the gang-plank we'd decided that enough was enough, so while two of us kept watch, the other two mugged the vendor and hoped off with a few handfuls of trinkets. Goodbye Panama.

The ship hit the sea again on 15 January for another couple of nights and our next port of call was Curacao in the Dutch West Indies. The Dunera stopped here because our captain had accepted a challenge from locals to put up a cricket team from the ship against their First XI. We, as Scotsmen, couldn't have given a damn about cricket but we were grateful for the chance to stretch our legs again so we kept our mouths shut and acted like true criekt6 fans when the ship docked. As i9t tu5rned out, the match was called off so we didn't have to endure the sight of our third-rate team being walloped by a bunch of wicket-hungry English exiles. Instead, we headed to a nearby beach where we found a lovely local lady had set up a wooden-shack which opened out into an idyllic-looking beach-bar. Wee Frank rubbed his hands together at the sight of the beer which was laid out on a bed of ice.

"This is free for all you soldiers," said the woman in faltering English.

"Well in that case," said Frank, "we'll take two."

The lady passed him two bottles of beer and smiled. Frank frowned at her and leaned over the wooden counter:

"I meant two cases!" he growled.

After finishing off the beer we hired a wee fishing boat from another native. The sun and the beer got the better of us while we f3ell asleep and drifted out to sea, basking in the midday heat. Frank soon took control of the situation and we began heading back into the land. I woke up when the beach eventually came back into view.

"There's the shore!" roared a delighted Frank.

But I thought he said that we were on the shore, so I stood up like lightning and hopped off the side of the boat - straight into the sea in a drunken stupor. I couldn't even swim. Within minutes I was unceremoniously fished out and hauled back aboard the boat. That's what friends are for I suppose.

At the end of along and eventful day we were gathered up by a couple of trucks which the captain had sent down for us. The journey back wasn't very pleasant. Everyone got sick at least once and some poor bugger shat himself. A brawl fired up as we boarded the ship and wee Frank ended up being slung into the Dunera's jail. I was too drunk to visit him that night so I looked in on him the following morning when I'd sobered up a bit. He was lying in the cell trying not to throw up on the floor which was already awash with a sea of vomit. He was barely able to reply to my concerned questions so I left him alone in the darkness while I headed upstairs to the heat and the blinding brightness of the open deck. I wrote a letter home describing my life on the ship as it sailed toward Christmas Island:  

To be continued ...

*     *     *

It was four o'clock in the morning when I heard someone shout that land had been sighted. I dressed as quickly as I could and immediately made my way up to the deck. A sight second to none greeted my bleary eyes which soon adjusted to the half-light of the dawn. In the distance I could see the outline of the island. rows of lights, similar to those you might see on an airport runway, ran the length of and breadth of the strip of land. Between us and the shoreline I could see the waves breaking in a foamy crescendo as they exploded against the coral-reef. The TT Dunera slipped through the water towards her anchoring point and, as the dawn sun slithered high into the sky, I began to see the outlines of palm trees swaying in the morning breeze. As the shoreline came closer and the sun shone like a white diamond in the sky, I looked in astonishment at the water below us. this wasn't the muddy, freezing and treacherous North Sea, the water was transparent and sparkling in the sunshine which allowed us to view all the marine life. Before long the ship was close enough for me and the rest of the excited soldiers who'd arrived on deck to pick out long rows of light-brown tents dotted along the coastline. Some small, matchstick-like figures, dressed in tropical combat gear, flitted in and around the shoreline. Some LCMs (landing craft) began to skip across the waves towards the ship where they would form our welcoming committee. I took one last look at this scene before going down to the berths and preparing for disembarking. Christmas Island looked like a bit of a paradise which had fallen off and landed on earth. It was too good to be true.

Accommodation on Christmas Island

before the blast of 28th April 1958.

The island had been discovered on Christmas Eve 1777, hence the name. When viewed from an aircraft it takes the shape of a gigantic lobster's claw. At its highest point it stands only ten feet above sea-level, it is only two degrees north of the Equator, 3,600 miles from California (the nearest mainland) and 4,000 miles from Australia. The temperature never falls below 75 degrees F at night and frequently rises to 120 degrees F during the day. All in all, it is a long way from Johnstone.

Accommodation on Christmas Island after the blast of 28th April 1958

The LCMs came alongside the TT Dunera and we had to shin down a rope ladder to board them. I was a non-swimmer and since my drunken escapades in the Dutch West Indies I was apprehensive of water. The landing craft bobbed wildly and there was a considerable gap between them and the side of the boat as I tried to jump to safety. Eventually I made it in one piece and I can't remember any accidents during the whole operation. We were soon on the beach and the officers sent us to our designated areas.

I was stationed at an area officially known as Port London, although we just called it Port Cam. It was run by the navy so it was also referred to as HMS Resolution. There were a couple of dozen soldiers from the RAF stationed there, as well as marines and a detachment from the Fijian army. The Fijians were the most friendly bunch that you could ever meet and they were really easy to get along with. They weren't allowed any alcohol from the NAAFI so we always bought them a couple of cases of beer and they, in turn, taught us how to catch crayfish and lobster. Sometimes they would come over to our tents and sing a few songs for us while one of them strummed a guitar. Later on, when I got to know some of them really well, they gave me an honourary Fijian title; they called me "SonaLekaLeka". Every time I walked by the camp, the large Fijian soldiers would shout this name at me and I would smile and salute them. (Nearly thirty years later I would be told that this meant "Little Scottish Short-arse"!)

The roads around this location were made from hard-drying mud from the numerous beautiful lagoons which were dotted around various parts of the island. Our camp had some buildings which had been constructed from prefabricated material brought from Britain. There was a fuel storage depot, refrigeration plant, cookhouses and other bits and pieces, including a beach cinema, for our use. There was also a NAAFI canteen and bar, along with a small village where the native Gilbertese islanders lived. My tent was about two hundred yards from this little village and I had about five Gilbertese men working with me in Port Camp. They did mostly labouring for the services and they worked damn hard. I became very good friends with one of them who was called April McDonald. He told me his grandfather was Scottish, which was highly unlikely given the fact that April was as black as the night, and he was always trying to impersonate my Glaswegian accent.

Tiny Robinson was given the same tent as myself along with six other guys. Wee Frank, Chuck and the other boys were sent to Port Paris, which was about five miles along the mud-road. It didn't take long to settle into the camp and we were soon given our duties and told what we were expected to do during our year-long stay. I now had my very own bulldozer, a Fowler model, which I decided to name the Ann-Marie after my little niece back home. She was delighted to see a picture of me sitting astride the machine with her name painted in large capitals along one side. I was responsible for loading and unloading the landing crafts which brought the supplies into the island from the three merchant navy ships which were named The Wave Ruler, The Wave Crest and The Wave Sovereign. As I started my first morning's work I noticed that the TT Dunera was pulling away from the shore where she had been anchored for a few days. I watched all the people who were standing on her decks as they waved to us. The majority of those who waved with the greatest enthusiasm were soldiers who were on their way home. Every one of them had put in time on the island and they knew what we were in for. They all stood there, waving and shouting, as the ship sailed over the horizon. I was glad to see the back of it.

I had already started to write home to Alice, the young girl who I'd met before I left Scotland. In one letter dated the 5 February 1958 I described my new surroundings:

In another letter sent some ten days later I'm already beginning to feel quite at home:

Ken McGinley with a Fijian soldier

named Wammi, Christmas Island 1958

Discipline on Christmas Island was very lax. If we did a late shift, for example, then it was very common to see men working on their equipment with a six-pack of beer beside them. Even if an officer or sergeant approached, they made no effort to hide the fact they were having a drink. The tents were sufficient for eight men with a small locker at the side of each bed for personal effects. The bed itself was a small canvas camp-bed which folded up and you also had a mosquito-net over it. Because of the heat we only needed a couple of sheets for bedding. We hung our clothes up wherever we could. The food was awful and we never saw anything that was remotely fresh. When anybody went on leave to Hawaii they used to bring back three or four pints of milk which would subsequently be raffled among the men. We were always given powdered eggs for breakfast which tasted of chalk. In fact, I believe most of our food actually dated back to the last war, so we were fed on Second World War rations. We actually survived on the food which could be purchased in the NAAFI canteen; at least we could spend our wages there on real food like chips and the odd sausage.

Ken McGinley with an injury that did not exist according

to British Government officials, Christmas Island, 1958.

Because the quality of the good was so irregular we often suffered from stomach complaints like diarrhoea or constipation. To combat these illnesses a lot of us used to buy tins of Del Monte fruit-slices or fruit-cocktail from the NAAFI. After we'd eaten two or three tins of fruit we would finish the night off by downing the diluted beer which could also be purchased on the island. We weren't allowed to buy any spirits though - that was reserved for the higher ranks. So while the officers got drunk on a better class of liquid, the rest of us from the swinish multitude got stoned on third-rate shandy. This class difference was rather silly in my opinion since whatever way you look at it we were all trying to reach the same destination as quickly as possible . . . oblivion.

Entertainment facilities on the island were extremely basic. Most free nights were spent watching films which were down in the Port Camp cinema. I've always been a great film fan and I really enjoyed all the pictures which were laid on for us. The "cinema" consisted of rows and rows of wooden planks which were arranged in front of a simple projector screen. Night after night we would all dutifully line up and watch whatever was on offer. Usually the selection wasn't too bad. I remember watching a young unknown actor called Paul Newman play a boxer in a film called Somebody Up There Likes Me. A couple of guys got carried away after that one and a few fist-fights broke out. Nobody meant any harm. It was just their way of killing time, which really dragged. I can also remember seeing a Marilyn Monroe flick during a really hot period in the height of the summer of 1958. Everyone was sweaty and uncomfortable, a condition not helped by the large land-crabs which crawled all over the place and the sight of the delicious Marilyn. )Don't forget there were over ten thousand men in one place at one time.) Halfway through the picture, the beautiful Ms Monroe appeared on screen wearing very little in the way of clothes. This brought all the usual wolf whistles and cat-calls from the young crowd. But just at the moment, it all got too much for one guy. The explosive cocktail of heat, beer and Marilyn's cleavage, pushed the guy to the edge of insanity. He bounded over every plank in the beach-cinema, stepping on countless heads on the way, before he finally took a flying-leap straight through the screen and into the outstretched arms of the Hollywood star. We were going to kill him. the pictures got cancelled for a week. The poor guy never lived it down and every one ribbed him about it for days. I think we were all secretly jealous.

I was always a great footballer and I regularly took part in the matches which were organised there. The pitch was a mixture of fine coral and sand which gave you a hell of a burn if you took a sliding tackle at another player. In fact, I still carry two bad scars from this sort of play during my stay on the island. I managed to play for my regiment, the army and even my "country" when we organised England v Scotland games to kill the time. Everyone took things seriously when these matches wer held and the odd brawl after the fixture wasn't unheard of.

Every Sunday we would all troop off to hear Mass said in a little makeshift chapel. I actually looked forward to this since it broke the monotony and allowed everyone a few moments peace. 'there was never any problem about religion whilst I was on Christmas Island apart from the odd bit of harmless fun now and again. One of the boys from Govan, for example, heard me sing a few Irish Rebel songs during one of the hottest nights of July 1958. The next morning, while I nursed a hangover, a small crowd began to parade up and down the beach banging a drum like hell and trying to squeeze a tune out of a flute they'd stolen. the English troops didn't have a clue what was going on. I suddenly realised what tune they were playing ... "The sash"! The half-wits had organised a wee "Orange Walk" on 12 July to get their own back at me. When it dawned on me what they were doing I laughed and laugh4ed. What else could I do but applaud their ingenuity? The whole lot of us got legless in the NAAFI that night.

With hindsight I've always felt a bit sorry for the guys on the island who found it a wee bit difficult to mix. I was the complete opposite, of course, and I really enjoyed the company of my friends who played a big part in helping me complete my stay. Some men, however, really got it bad and it must have been awfully difficult for them to kee going. I spent most free nights, after the pictures or football, down in the NAAFI where I got drunk with the other guys. I was never a great drinker or smoker before I was posted there but I soon got going when I arrived. There was simply little else to do to pass the time. I suppose I thought of the trip as nothing more than one big, innocent adventure. My skin turned chocolate brown from the sun and my dark hair turned an unbelievable shade of blonde. I was at the peak of my physical fitness, a state I would never reach again. Some of the other guys, especially the married men, really got it tough during during their stay. Some would receive a letter from the wife and family, perhaps containing a little snapshot, and they w9ould just sit and stare at it for hours and hours. The rest of us always left them alone to their thoughts. sometimes all hell would break loose when someone received a "Dear John" letter from the girlfriend who'd decided to call it a day. That happened a few times and it was more to be pitied than laughed at. We kept our mouths shut on such occasions knowing our own turn could come with the next post.

I grew up quite a bit during the first six months on the island. I was definitely at my best then. I had something pure and special inside me. I can't explain it in words. Whatever "it" was it soon went and I never found the time to appreciat4 and cherish it. I had to let go of the gift that money can't buy ... youth. A person or persons unknown to me had decided that I was ready to watch the bombs. As far as the scientists were concerned the show as only starting but for me, and God knows how many others, it had already ended. 

Anticipation and tension mounted steadily when we realised the first bomb test was imminent. The official date for the test was towards the end of April but preparations were well underway when I put pen to paper in a letter to Alice dated Monday, 23 February 1968:

By the time I wrote back to Alice on Thursday, 17 April at 10.30 p.m., I was already beginning to worry about the implications of these tests. The officers didn't tell us much about them; they probably just didn't have any information and a noticeable aura of trepidation begins to invade my correspondence:

Before I recount the experience of my first nuclear bomb test which took place 28 April 1958, I would like you to read a brief article which appeared in the Soldier magazine. This piece was published in the March 1959 edition, some eleven months after my first bomb test in April 1958. Although the article does not specifically refer to the 28 April test it still infers that its author was present at one of the tests that year. I find this article highly intriguing for several reasons which I will mention later but for the moment let us examine the description of a bomb test in 1958 which the article's un-named author reputedly witnessed:

If I didn't know better I would think that this was a very full and graphic description of a nuclear bomb test in the Pacific Ocean, written by a member of the armed forces who was actually resent when the tests took place in the 1950s. I do know better and from personal experience I can assure you that witnessing a H-bomb test was nothing like the events described in this magazine article. This is what happened to another twenty-year-old sapper from 38 Corps Engineer Regiment who was also stationed on Christmas Island in 1958, his name was Ken McGinley.

A glorious dawn broke over Christmas Island on 18 April 1958. I stuck my head out of our squat little tent on that morning along with hundreds of other servicemen who were taking part in Operation Grapple. Even at that early hour the tropical sun's rays were hot enough for us to move around shirtless and the sky was full of ugly cormorant sea-birds whose image decorated the operation's emblem. As I watched them flying around I never guessed for a moment hat later the same day I would shovel up hundreds of their corpses with the eyes burned out of their pointed-heads after they too had witnessed a megaton nuclear explosion.

We were given a single white cotton suit to pull on over our shorts and shirts while others just stood with their long trousers and khaki jackets. The sailors and the marines were, for the most part, dressed in normal gear with no special protection. This was to be the first nuclear bomb test which I'd ever witnessed and it would be the one and only time I'd ever be issued with any form of protective clothing. People claim we were issued with scientific equipment in the form of little badges or dosimeters which measured the levels of radiation we were exposed to but in my personal experience this did not take place. To this day I've still to wear one of these metering devices. I've also seen photographs of men wearing futuristic-looking goggles with hoods, raped-up seams and special boots who were reputedly stationed on Christmas Island during the nuclear bomb tests. Yet, in the year0long period I was on the island and throughout the five nuclear tests I witnessed, I never once clapped eyes on any such equipment nor, for that matter, any individual from the services wearing it.

On the morning of that test all the military personnel were gathered on to the main beach. We were told to sit down, relax and wait for further instructions from our commanding officers. The heat of the early morning sun made us very uncomfortable so we asked for permission to remove our cotton suits. but they told us to "Shut up and be quiet".

As I sat on the beach I started to become increasingly worried and all sorts of crazy thoughts raced through my mind. Two days previously I'd helped the Gilbertese villagers, mot of the Fijians and the two WVS ladies, aboard the "safety-ship" HMS Messima. The Gilbertese couldn't wait to board the ship since they'd been promised the chance to go below decks during the test to watch Donald Duck and Mickey Mouse cartoons. As I helped one of the little WVS women to disembark from the landing craft she turned to me and said sweetly:

"We will pay for you all, God Bless."

These words had hit me like a slap on the face. I had never thought we were in any sort of danger until that very moment. but, as the date of the bomb test neared, lots of other soldiers who were brave than I ever was also started to get worried. I wrote home to Alice and outlined my fears in no uncertain terms:

This illustrates the psychological condition I was in as the tension mounted minutes before the test took place. Suddenly, before I could have any more misgivings, a voice came through the tannoy:

"This could be a live run," it said dramatically. "Five ... Four ... Three ... Two ... One ... Zero ..."

There was a moment's pause. Then it happened.

"Cover your eyes!" bawled the voice from the loudspeakers.

I had my fists shoved into my eyes and my back to the area where the bomb was going off. At the moment of detonation there was a flash. At that instant I was able to see straight through my hands. I could see the veins, I could see the blood, I could see all the skin tissue, I could see the bones and worst of all, I could see the flash itself. It was like looking into a white-hot diamond, a second sun.

Then the heat came. A slow, intense, searing heat which ate its way into your very bones. It didn't feel"... as if someone had passed an electric fire behind us". On the contrary, it felt as if someone had passed an electric fire through us. I let out a scream with the scorching pain.

"Okay, look at the bomb now," said the voice from the PA system.

The whole scene was unbelievable. A gigantic, dirty-looking mushroom cloud was forming on the horizon. An enormous ball of fire inhabited the base of the cloud and deadly-looking ripples of waves began to emanate from its base. It headed directly for us as we stood on the beach. I quickly glanced around me at the other men just as we got hit by a gale. Some tents got wrecked and the cookhouse collapsed.

"Did you see those trees snap in half?" I spluttered to one guy.

"A bloke over there has shat himself," said someone else. No one laughed when he said this. We were all frightened ourselves and our own bowels were in uproar. A man directly in front of me suddenly started to cry like a baby. A silent, low-level panic had descended upon even the bravest of men. I was worried about Frank. I didn't know if he was safe or not.

Immediately after the blast I glanced towards my sergeant who was standing there shaking his head in disbelief. I was perplexed with this reaction since I always assumed the higher ranks knew what to expect, fut from this sergeant's expression it appeared he was just as shocked as I was.

I returned to the tent for a few things then headed towards my bulldozer when suddenly a torrential downpour began. By the time I reached the bulldozer it had eased off a bit but the controls were soaking and I had to wipe large dirty puddles off the seat. Although I was shaken, I managed to mount the bulldozer and carry on with my normal day's work. Concentrating the ;mind on simple tasks cuts through a lot of dangerous psychological confusion.

The details contained in the above description of the events leading up to and during the 28 April bomb test could probably be applied to any of the 1958 H-bomb tests I witnessed on Christmas Island. It is far more accurate, in my view, than the piece which appeared in the Soldier magazine. That particular article did not mention the apprehension amongst many of the soldiers before the blast, the lack of effective protection during the blast nor, indeed, the subsequent damage as a result of the post-detonation winds. The paragraph which compares the risk of radioactive contamination to the radiation contained in any ordinary luminous wrist-watch is so condescending it's almost below contempt.

The general public in the United Kingdom were kept informed about the progress of the Christmas Island bomb tests via some rather guarded articles which popped up from time to time in the British press. The Times ran a piece the day after the 28 April detonation which, like the Soldier review, had all the hallmarks of an official Whitehall press release. The article in question was presented thus:

ANOTHER BRITISH

NUCLEAR TEST

CENTRAL PACIFIC EXPLOSION

NEGLIGIBLE FALL-OUT

The article in the Soldier magazine and the above piece in The Times both fail to mention the possibility of local radioactive fall-out. They simply dismiss it as "negligible". I believe that this was incorrect. The heavy rain which I witnessed after the 28 April blast cannot be ignored. Admittedly there was nothing unusual about this phenomenon so I didn't really think much of it at the time. With hindsight, however, I am inclined to wonder whether this original assessment might have been a little premature. Predictably, the article in The Times never mentions this rainstorm nor the possible dangers which could befall anyone caught out in the open during it. (The piece in the Soldier magazine only mentions a "slight movement in the air ..." which bears out my belief that the unidentified author has taken complete leave of his senses.)

Other men who were on the island with me also remember the rain. Several of them have openly expressed their doubts about the MOD's claims that it was harmless. Ken Taylor from London, for example, was a cook on Christmas Island during my stay there. He was based at exactly the same location that I was, HMS Resolution, when the 28 April bomb went off. He clearly recalls the events of that morning:

"It bucketed rain after that one," he says. "It was heavy rain ... like liquid hailstones or even Singapore during the rainy season."

Another witness to the same detonation was a friend of Ken's from Birmingham. tom Birch, who was also living under canvas at HMS Resolution. What he saw on the morning of the detonation will stay with him for the rest of his life.

But when one compares the above testimonies to a Top Secret Ministry of Defence report on 28 April blast, the contrast between our evidence and the official military line becomes even starker. This report, which has never been seen publicly before, was unearthed by the journalist Eamonn O'Neill when he was doing some research for this book in the Public Records Office.

The document refers to the 28 April megaton blast. It was written by Group Captain W. Townsend and it lists lots of senor officers and various important observers who were present during the preparations for the test and indeed the detonation itself; it also describes the bomb blast itself. Here are a few excerpts:

As you can immediately see this document completely fails to mention the pitch black and that it rained after the blast on some parts of the island. It assumes, therefore, that none of the servicemen were ever in any danger of being exposed to radiation. I have always believed that this assumption could be challenged. Surely the fact that it rained after the tests proves that something went wrong? Why do none of the official accounts of this blast mention this rain? these are important questions which should have been answered. but they weren't. The MOD have always stated that the rain, if any existed, would not have done us any harm. They claim, quite fairly, that it often rained on the island. Why should we be so concerned about that particular rainstorm? The answer to this question and the reason why I question the MOD's stance is simple enough. Firstly, I believe all the men, including my own judgment, when they say that they instinctively knew that something was wrong. Secondly, I'm absolutely certain that the rain was radioactive and I'm sure you'll agree when you read the following letter from Captain W. G. Stewart who, as a twenty-year-old RAF recruit, participated in the same 28 April test. His account of the blast reads as follows:

Saying that the rain on that day might have been irradiated is one thing but actually proving how it could have come about is quite another. Only a scientist could do that. This important issue was addressed in part during an interview which Professor Joseph Rotblat, Emeritus Professor of Physics, University of London, gave when he was interviewed on the BBC's Nationwide programme when it dealt with nuclear test veterans in the early 1900s.

Professor Rotblat attended pioneering experiments during the Los Alamos tests in the United States and is widely regarded as an international expert on radioactive fall-out. In the course of his television interview he was asked about the safety of air-burst detonations of a nuclear weapon. An "air-burst" detonation involves a warhead which is detonated high above the earth's surface. Most scientists agree this is safer than a "surface-burst" which is detonated on the ground, like the Nevada tests in the United States. A surface-burst generally lifts up enormous amounts of surface-matter and therefore leads to widespread radioactive fall-out when it's dispersed back to earth after the mushroom cloud has formed. The Christmas Island tests, however, did not involve surface-busts - instead air-bursts were used to stimulate an air-attack on a military port of strategic importance. Authorities have always believed that an air-burst does not suck-up a large amount of surface-matter and consequently the subsequent radioactive fall-out is negligible. these common assumptions were challenged by Professor Rotblat during the course of the interview and his answers underline my belief about the nature of the puddles I cleaned after the 28 April bomb test:

Professor Rotblat proceeded to explain two examples of local fall-out which could occur after an air-burst. First, there is the "after-wind" effect, when a column of water is sucked up from the sea. this reaches the fireball where it mixes with radioactive materials and, under suitable atmospheric conditions, returns to earth in a radioactive state. Secondly, there is the "rain-out" effect. This occurs after the nuclear device has been detonated, when the fireball ascends it encounters a rain-cloud, mixes with the cloud's contents then returns to earth in the form of rain. Professor Rotblat concluded by stressing that these two examples c9uld have more significant implications if their "air-burst" occurred at a lower level than the scientists had planned. As Professor Rotblat commented:

But that was only half the equation. The real question which still existed concerned the precise height of the explosions that I witnessed. I thought that many of them were much lower than the experts had predicted. If this was correct then it would mean Professor Rotblat's theory about the possibility of local fall-out could possibly be applied. but how could I prove that these blasts were lower?

In 1988 a coroner's inquest would be held into a man's death. The deceased gentleman was named Collin Frederick Kendal Smith. He was an ex-serviceman who had spent almost exactly the same amount of time on Christmas Island as I did. We must have seen the same five tests go off during 1958. Like me, his first bomb test was on 18 April of that year. He died of caner on 21 November 1985. During the inquest, the Coroner, Mr E. J. Wain, spoke to Dr J. Fielding from the Royal British Legion. In the course of this exchange the operation of the height of the detonation was raised:

Professor Rotblat's comments and the above extract from the inquest serve only to confirm what I believe really happened during and after the 28 April H-bomb test. But perhaps the most damning piece of evidence comes again from Glenn Stewart, the pilot who, as a young man, witnessed the 28 April blast. Eamonn O'Neill interviewed Glenn and asked him to detail his experiences about the detonation he's witnessed.

If Glenn Stewart is correct then the above interview can only lead one to conclude that the official 1958 document, which lists the height of the detonation at 8,000 feet remember, has got its sums wrong. If this seems slightly fantastic, then one should take note of the following information which has only recently been uncovered by Eamonn O'Neill.

In the official 1958 To Secret report on the 28 April test we are informed that:

This language makes no room for any doubt. The facts that are presented go straight to the point, don't they? The bomb was detonated "five miles", or 8.047 km, off the south-east peninsula of the island ... that's what we're told, so that's the way it must have been. Until the MOD changed its mind that is! At an inquest recently some documents were given out which listed the bomb trials, distances and heights, etc. One of the documents contained information about the 28 April test which included some figures about the distances off the island where the trials took place. This listed the ground zero area as being 2.5 km, or 1.5525 miles, off the edge of the island! Even at the most conservative estimate this revealed that the MOD was willing to reduce its original estimates outlined in the 1958 document by well over a half. Moreover, Glenn Stewart, completely unaware, that the MOD had revised its figures, pointed this flaw out during his interview with Eamonn O'Neill. After he'd shown Glenn the figures about the height of the air-burst, Eamonn allowed Glenn to browse through a copy of the 1958 report. Without any prompting, Glenn spotted the error in the MOD's estimation concerning the distance of ground-zero from the island. Indeed, he suggests that the real point of detonation could have been as close as 1/4 mile or 0.40225 km away from the island.

The last piece of new evidence cannot be ignored. If the MOD are prepared to revise heavily its figures concerning the distance of the 28 April bomb when it was detonated, then one can only speculate about the actual height of the device on that morning. If, as I and many others believe, it was much lower than the 1958 document reports, then Professor Rotblat's rain-out theory can be applied. All the witnesses were interviewed separately and none of them were aware of the others' evidence. All of them spoke about the rain long before TV programmes mentioned the significance of it in relation to the rain-out theory. (Tom Birch's medical records, for example, clearly illustrate his belief that the rain had harmed him. This assertion dates back to 1983 which is a full year prior to anyone mentioning rain-out in public.)

As we shall see in later sections of this book, this information becomes even more startling when it is placed into a different context and its significance in the longer-term is, to say the least, powerful. For the moment though let's return to Christmas Island in the days which followed the 28 April test.

Three days after the 28 April bomb test, I awoke to find my face, neck, hands and the upper-area of my chest covered in large water blisters. I made my way over to the medical officer's tent and queued outside with a line of other men who had similar complaints. By the time the medical officer examined me, my eyes were nipping profusely and tears streamed down my cheeks. He prescribed me with a bottle which sprayed a plastic-type covering on to the rash and a pair of sunglasses for my eyes. The rash cleared up about two or three weeks later but it left a noticeable scar along my chest and face.

One morning shortly after this I attempted to get out of bed only to find my right leg was refusing to move. Initially it felt as if I might have a bad case of "pins and needles? but then it went completely numb. I panicked and dressed as quickly as I could before making my way over to the medical officer's tent again. On the way over I became really frightened and I started to cry. The doctor said the best thing to do was to put the leg in plaster for a few days. His plaster fell off after two days and I found it difficult to move around on the island with two crutches. I was eventually taken into the medical tent for observation for a couple of days, with my right leg suspended in a sling. The patient in the bed opposite me was a sailor by the name of Tanky, who was suffering from coral poisoning. His shinbone had a hole in it where the coral reef had penetrated it. The wound was deep enough for me to have put two fingers in it. As we sat talking, one of of his pals came in to visit him. The moment I saw the guy I realised he had some sort of mental problem but I didn't want to say anything to Tanky.

"It's a bit chilly in here," remarked Tanky's wide-eyed visitor.

After he'd said this he disappeared outside for a few moments before returning with a large piece of crunched up newspaper which he suddenly set light to. He casually proceeded to set the medical tent on fire. thankfully someone appeared and all the patients were hauled to safety. This incident gave me a shell of a fright and the shock actually helped my leg, for within a few days it was much better. The guy who set fire to the tent was placed under medical supervision and escorted off the island.

After the bomb tests, discipline deteriorated rapidly and men would do anything to get off the island. I sat at breakfast with Corporal Ginger Redman one morning. He was looking rather ill and had been complaining of stomach pains, headaches and vomiting, so I advised him to report sick. Later in the afternoon I went to visit him but the doctor, an officer, wasn't going to let me in since he was sure Ginger was really skiving off his duties> I knew Ginger well and I realised dodging work wasn't his style so I persisted until he gave way and let me in. When I went in I saw poor Ginger lying on a bed with his eyes sunk in his head and his skin a jaundiced yellow colour. I whispered a few words into his ear but he didn't answer so I left with the intention of calling back a few hours later.

In the evening, after I'd visited Frank and NAAFI for a few beers, I walked the short distance to the medical bay. I looked at Gineger's bed but it was empty so I called over an orderly and asked him about it.

"He died an hour ago," he said flatly.

"Eh?" I stammered.

"His body's over there pal," said the orderly pointing to a bed in the corner of the tent.

I went over to the bed and pulled the single white sheet back. Ginger lay dead.

Some men who had arrived with me on the TT Dunera and who'd been stationed with me at the main camp were being sent home on medical grounds. Other men at my camp started to lose their tempers for the smallest reason whilst others just walked around in a trance all the time.

On my way back from the main camp one evening I noticed two servicemen standing in an area of scrubland looking u towards the sky. I stopped the truck and asked if they wanted a lift back to the Port Camp.

"No, it's all right, mate," said one of them calmly, in a soft, southern-English accent, "don't mind us, we're just talking to our new friends."

I looked around to see if there was anybody else but the three of us were clearly alone. After some strong words they reluctantly accepted a lift from me. As we moved off they start4d to cry because they said they were leaving their friends, the telegraph poles, behind. By the time we reached the medical bay I was starting to get a bit frightened myself but I held my composure long enough to drop the two soldiers off. I never saw them again and I heard later they were taken straight off the island for psychiatric treatment.

A week after this incident I was told I was entitled to a week's holiday in Honolulu. A crowd of us piled aboard an aircraft and left Christmas Island for the first time in six months. The island looked tiny when we saw it from the air, which was a total contrast to the view from the Dunera on our arrival. We didn't need to look through windows for our view since the pilot had left the aircraft's main door open. I was flying for an hour before I realised it was my first journey aboard an airplane.

fourteen hundred miles later we arrived in Honolulu to be greeted by girls wearing grass-skirts and singing traditional songs. I was grinning like hell when one of them came over to me and placed a garland of flowers, called a lei, over my head. We journeyed from the airport to the US army barracks named Fort De Russey where we would stay for the duration of our holiday. I'd already made friends with a little guy from Liverpool called Spud Murphy so I wasn't short of company. The pair of us gasp3d when we saw our rooms in Fort De Russey. They were sheer luxury! The beds were lovely and soft, there were curtains on the windows and we had access to the base's dining facilities - all for only one dollar per day.

When we went out for lunch we visited Hickham Air Base which is near the infamous Pearl Harbour. Its dining-room had palm trees growing inside the eating area and all the officers and ordinary solders mixed together when they were eating, a total contrast to the class system which existed in the British Army. After we'd introduced our ID cards we were directed to the food counters. Our jaws hung open when we turned the corner. There were steaks an inch thick, pork chops and something called french fries. But best of all was the unbelievable selection of milk! I hadn't tasted real mild for months so I headed for it like a bullet out of a gun. there was strawberry milk, mint milk, banana milk, chocolate milk and good old white milk. I grabbed four pints for starters and settled down to stuff myself.

I spent two days in Fort De Russey near Waikiki beach. Spud and I went to a revolving bar one night and got legless on two drinks. To this day I still don't know how the bar actually revolved because I'd never been to a place like that before or since. The bars I frequented in Scotland only had revolving customers.

The following morning Spud and I went out on to the shore at Waikiki beach to play football. We kicked the ball ar9und for a while then started heading it to one another. Some local children gathered around us as we played this strange game - they'd never seen soccer before of course. The next thing we knew, a photographer from the local newspaper turned up to take some pictures of us. A week later they were printed, along with an article about us, in the popular Sunday Post newspaper in Scotland. My mother was full of maternal pride when she read of our exploits:

Spud and I were a bit short of cash after our revolving bar escapades so we went for a walk around the town to kill time. Two young, clean-cut men approached us and asked if we wanted to make a bit of easy money. We agreed and followed them to a local clinic where we sold a pint of blood each for ten dollars. After I'd given the blood I looked around at the rest of the customers in the clinic. They were all deadbeats and poor-looking drop-outs who would have looked more at home a decade later during the hippy era. I felt sorry for them and a little ashamed of myself for actually selling my own blood but I needed the money so I hung my head and left as quickly as I could.

Oh my third day I walked around the beach-front area and approached a stall where a plump lady stood selling various items. I pointed to something and asked its price:

"That's a dollar, honey," she replied.

I pointed to something else on the stall.

"And that's a dollar too, honey," she laughed.

I pointed sheepishly to another trinket in front of her.

"And I suppose that costs a dollar as well," I joked.

"It sure does, honey," she said, "'cos, this is a 'dollar-stall'."

The woman started talking to me and asked me where I was from and how I came to be in Honolulu. When I mentioned Christmas Island she perked up and appeared to know all about the bomb tests. The next thing I knew, she had invited me back to her house to meet her husband. I agreed and went to Fort De Russey to grab my luggage.

When I returned she's shut the stall and was standing next to the longest car that I'd ever seen in my life. It was like a large boat on wheels and it had gigantic tail-fins like a spaceship. She drove us to the drive-in restaurant called the "Kau Kau Korner" where her husband and son worked. both of them shook my hand warmly and the son casually asked me if I would like a record specially played on the radio. I said that that would be fine and I asked for one of Elvis Presley's hits of the time. The next thing I knew the radio station was announcing my name and playing an Elvis record for me. I thought I was dreaming.

I stayed with this family, whose name was McGarry, for nearly the rest of my time in Honolulu. They had two lovely children called Joey and Timmy, both of whom I took an immediate liking to during the days that I looked after them. The McGarrys used to take me out on runs in their speed-boat which was called Thumbs-Two. I thought this was a strange name for a boat so I asked them why they called it this.

"My husband lost two fingers in his old job," laughed Mrs McGarry, "but they paid him compensation which is what we used to buy the boat. We thought we'd call it Thumbs-Two in honour of the missing fingers, without which we'd all still be on dry land."

The McGarrys' house was a magnificent glass-fronted affair with lots of windows and more breath-taking views than you could ever possibly imagine. They were always throwing parties and for the time I stayed with them I seemed to be the main attraction. Night after night a steady stream of visitors would file in to look at me and listen to my strange accent. I didn't mind this attention in the slightest; indeed, for a twenty-year-old from Scotland it was like walking on to a Hollywood film set.

I spent two days in Fort de Russey again before I left Honolulu. Mrs. McGarry and some of the family turned up to see me off at the airport. They kissed me goodbye and gave me some small gifts as I boarded the aircraft. I was said to be leaving Honolulu but I was still shrewd enough to buy plenty of fresh milk before I left which I was supposed to give to wee Frank when I arrived back on Christmas Island. I deviously changed my mind and raffled the milk instead. I made a clear profit of seven pounds with a clear conscience, Frank would have done exactly the same thing.

As soon as I returned to Christmas Island I heard a rumour about a sergeant who had died after witnessing a bomb test. The nature of this death and subsequent burial was a big talking-point among all the troops who had known him. After he'd died his body was placed into a makeshift coffin which had been knocked together by some soldiers on the island. The coffin was put on to a LCM and taken out to HMS Narvick so the sergeant could be buried at sea.

After a short journey out to sea the coffin containing the sergeant's body was tipped over the side of the ship into the clear-blue Pacific Ocean. It soon became apparent, however, that the coffin wouldn't sink so some soldiers were ordered to shoot some holes into the side of the coffin. Much to the captain's horror the coffin still refused to submerge so it was hauled back on board. The troops had to bore some more holes into it and the casket was riddled with a few rounds of bullets before it was hurled into the sea again. Only then did it finally sink.

Stories like this inadvertently led to an atmosphere of sheer depression which spread rapidly throughout the camps. In the high summer of 1958 men began to drink more and serious grudge-fights broke out on a more frequent basis in the NAAFI. I found myself smoking more heavily than I'd ever done previously. It was around this time when the orders were pinned to the board informing us that another bomb test was due to go off on 22 August. The test was given a press built-up by The Times in London:

BRITAIN TO MAKE

MORE NUCLEAR TESTS

STARTING DATE

NOT DISCLOSED

When the day of the bomb test arrived we expected to be issued with the white cotton suits and to be lined up on the beach before the bomb went off. But as I sat on my bulldozer waiting for these instructions, I was told to forget about the bomb and carry on working as it was "only" an atom bomb. (This meant it was roughly similar to the bombs dropped on Hiroshima and Nagasaki.) No preparations were undertaken, no cotton suits were issued, no line-ups took place, nothing. Everything carried on as normal and I worked away on my bulldozer, striped to the waist, wearing a floppy-hat and shorts as the time of detonation neared. Because the highest point in the island was only ten-foot above sea-level, I could easily stand on top of the Ann-Marie and take in an excellent view of the A-bomb test-site which was at the other end of the island. The bomb went off on time and I gazed at the initial flash then at the gigantic mushroom cloud that formed against the pale blue sky. I didn't think much of the explosion since it wasn't nearly as big as the earlier H-bomb which I'd witnessed in April. The wind which followed the August test didn't cause much damage and there wasn't any rain either. After it was all over I went back to work as normal. 

The soldiers were never well informed about the bomb tests. We only found out about a test a day or two before it was due to go off. After the 22 August test we would witness another three nuclear experiments within the space of one month. Two of these would involve the detonation of the enormous hydrogen bombs. God only knows what psychological effects these tests had on the soldiers. I was really nervous when I heard I was going to witness another H-bomb test and I said so in my next letter to Alice:

The 2 September test was carried out using a similar procedure to the other H-bomb detonation in April. All the soldiers were taken down to the beach at dawn, ordered to sit down and then told to wait for the blast. The crucial difference, however, was that none of us were given any white cotton suits. In other words, we witnessed a massive H-megaton explosion wearing shirts and shorts. 

We knew what to expect with this second bomb test so we weren't as shaken up as we had been with the previous one. The damage in and around the camp was just as bad, though, and after the test took place we returned to find our tents in a real mess as a result of the wind which immediately followed the blast. The NAAFI had its windows blown in and the cookhouse collapsed again.

Another H-bomb was detonated nine days later. By that time I was ready to go home. I know for a fact that some men committed homosexual acts in the hope they'd be caught, changed and sent back before another bomb test. Other men also acted completely out of character. My big pal Tiny Robinson, for example, became broody and the pair of us almost came to blows one night after we'd had a bad argument. During the argument we suddenly realised what we were doing so we stopped dead in our tracks. Nobody said a thing, they didn't have to. Everyone knew that the pressure was mounting. Tiny, like the rest of us, just wanted to go home to his family. Nobody criticised his brief loss of temper, family men were respected on Christmas Island and everyone knew how hard it was for them.  

About a dozen or so Fijian soldiers were kept on the island during the bomb tests in September 1958. We were friendly with one of them called Albert. He was a massive big guy who could work us all under the table any day of the week. A few hours after one of the September bomb tests Albert was found sitting on a deserted beach trying to eat the coral which had been washed up on to the shore. Albert knew this could have killed him but he still kept shovelling it into his mouth. Two of us grabbed him and tried to stop him harming himself but as we got him to his feet he started to cry loudly:

"SonaLekeLeka," he sobbed to me, "I wanna go home, I don't want to stay in this place, pleaqse4 take me home, away from this place, please!"

Albert was placed in solitary confinement for a few days before he was finally removed from Christmas Island.

The military personnel on the island often ate various types of fish which could be caught in and around the shore. I was taught to catch cray-fish by some of the Fijian soldiers and the Gilbertese villagers. This practice continued before, during and after all the nuclear bomb tests. After the September tests, for example, we often visited the spa, an area of the sea near the shore-line which was next-door to the testing area. We fished this area for cray-fish the day after the last two or three bomb tests. And as many witnesses will testify, the bird and marine life suffered heavy casualties after the tests.  At Port Camp, for example, I was assigned on a couple of occasions to collect the dead birds which were lying all over the place. I personally collected about fifty which had badly singed and scorched wings. Others were half-dead but were blinded by the explosion so they just flapped their bruised wings as they lay in a pathetic heap on the mud roads. On closer examination, you could see that their little eyes had been burned out of their sockets. It was really horrible. I collected some marine-life which was also washed up on the beach along Port Camp. Some sharks had managed to find their way through the waters around the treacherous coral-reef, more by luck than design probably, and were beached on the shore. They were dead by the time I reached them but you could clearly make out the distinct scorch-marks which ran along one side of the poor creatures. The burning flesh gave off an awful stench. I later spoke to some crew members of the Wave Crest, anchored near the coast, and they told me that following the initial blast they'd seen hundreds of dead fish floating around the coral tempting all the hungry sharks from the open sea where they normally fed.

The last nuclear bomb I witnessed was on 22 September 1958. There were no special preparations for this test and I watched its detonation from the seat of my bulldozer, the Ann-Marie. Apart from my normal working togs (ie, shirt, shorts and boots) I had no protective clothing.

By the autumn of 1958 I was falling ill more frequently than I'd ever done in the past and I was in a state of confusion about my career in the army. After the 2 September bomb test I awoke to find my voice had completely gone, my throat was on fire and I had a severe cough. My neck was also badly swollen. I was told to drink lots of cold water but that didn't really help. By 15 September it was established that I was allergic to penicillin and that my glands were severely swollen. It took the medical staff on Christmas Island over a month and a half before they realised I was really ill. On 28 October I was admitted to Tripler US Army Hospital in Honolulu suffering from chronic tonsillitis. During the intervening months on Christmas Island I had felt very uncomfortable yet was still forced to do hard quarry work. On 29 October I underwent an operation to remove my tonsils. I was as nervous as hell before going into theatre because I always had my brother Jimmy's death at the back of my mind. He had died on the operating table while having his tonsils out so I didn't write to my mother in case she got upset. 'During the operation I woke u and looked at the surgeon just as he was placing my detached tonsils into a small jar. He smiled at me and told me to go back to sleep again; needless to say I refused.

A few days later, I noticed there was a problem in the muscles in the right side of my face. I became really worried about this and called the doctor over to examine me. He diagnosed a condition called "Bell's Palsy". I returned to Christmas Island where I was fitted with a splint in order that the right side of my face might be elevated to a comfortable angle. My condition improved over the next few weeks and I managed to get rid of the splint within a fortnight or so.

Everybody was desperate to get off the island as soon as possible. some of our kit was sent on ahead of us but we still kept a spare outfit for our journey back to Britain. some other troops had already arrived on the island to relieve us and they quizzed us about conditions on it. We didn't want to rub too much salt into their wounds so we said that it hadn't been too bad during our eleven-month stay. This optimism wasn't all a front for we heard there weren't going to be any more bomb tests so we knew the next bunch of soldiers wouldn't go through the same fear and apprehension which we'd all had to endure.

Some troops left Christmas Island via ships like the Captain Cook or the TT Dunera; others, like us, left by air. On 15 December 1958, after spending 351 days on the island, I boarded an aircraft with Frank. Tiny and other troops. During this time I'd witnessed five nuclear bomb tests. As our plane took off I settled back into my seat and I closed my eyes. I refused to take one last look at Christmas Island as the small aircraft circled it before heading towards Honolulu. . . .

*  *  *

Our return journey was broken up into several legs. We stopped in Honolulu first in order to refuel the plane. This gave me the opportunity to call up the McGarrys and a local girl who I'd met when I was on leave there. The McGarrys never made it down before I left but the girl showed up with a gigantic garland of flowers for me. I dutifully wore it as I said my goodbyes to her but the moment I boarded the aircraft all the guys started shouting names and singing love songs to me. I was sad to leave Honolulu that afternoon. It was a really beautiful place which appears to have been somewhat exploited and spoiled by the hordes of tourists who have since visited it.

Our next stop was San Francisco on the West Coast of America. It was the very first time I'd ever been in the United States and it was an experience I'll never forget. The contrast between Christmas Island and San Francisco was like black and white. The city was at its post-war height when we saw it; all the buildings were made of spotless white brick, the pavements were gleaming, massive cars which guzzled the endlessly cheap petrol cruised by, the garde3ns in Union Square were full of sightseers and people walked around the night without fear of being disturbed. We ere able to view the complex freeway interchanges against the skyline of the city with the famous Golden Gate Bridge forming a frame to the whole scene. It was magnificent. 

As Frank and I walked into our hotel we noticed a tall, bald-headed man standing in the foyer. Frank walked up to him and prodded him in the chest:

"You're that big, baldy guy out of Dagwood and Bumpstead aren't you," he laughed, but before the poor man could reply Frank spat out a catch-line from the American TV programme: "Don't go Near the Water!" he shouted at the top of his voice.

"Where the hell do you come from? asked the tall man.

"We're from Scotland," replied wee Frank, "and you're in that programme aren't you? You can't kid me, pal . . . you're the boss, the big, baldy boss . . . "Don't Go Near the Water.' Ha, ha, I watch that Dagwood and Bumpstead all the time!"

"Yes," said the man, "that's right, my name's Fred Clark."

Both of us got Fred's autograph before we went to our room on the twenty-fourth floor. Wee Frank was delighted.

The excitement of going home meant neither of us were able to sleep that night so we ended up ordering breakfast at three a.m. After I'd stuffed myself with pancakes and maple syrup I went for a quick bath while Frank lay on the bed. I was in the bath for no more than two minutes when suddenly there was one hell of a rumble. The building shook like hell. I thought Frank had maybe fallen out of bed or done something he shouldn't have.

"What's going on!" I screamed from the bathroom as I pulled on my robe.

"I don't know! But whatever the hell it is I don't like it . . . get out of here now!"

The pair of us got dressed and ran to the nearest lift. It took ages for the elevator to reach the ground floor and by the time we finally got there the whole foyer was teaming with people running to and fro. Within another half-an-hour the front pages of the early morning newspaper headlines ran "EARTHQUAKE HITS CITY!"

Two days later we left San Francisco and flew to Dalouth, Minnisota. The journey was awful for wee Frank since he was suffering from toothache. Our sergeant kept telling him to eat something and the nice stewardess waved scrambled eggs under his nose every two minutes but he would have none of it and spent the entire flight under a blanket growling inintelligible oaths at anyone who dared annoy him.

The arrival in Minnisota was a hell of shock to all our systems. Indeed, when I think about it now it's hardly surprising that so many of us got drunk during the trip home. We'd left an island that Robinson Crusoe would have found lonely, thousands of miles from anywhere, and within twenty-four hours we'd been dumped in the middle of San Francisco, one of the largest cities in the world and prone to earthquakes every so often, and then flown into a small town called Dalouth which had temperatures of twenty below. It had taken us nearly a year to become used to tropical conditions and now we were instructed to run across the runway tarmac in case we froze up. Everyone was confused that night and to make matters worse we'd been warned not to talk to anyone about our experiences on Christmas Island and never divulge descriptions of the bomb tests we'd witnessed.

We stayed in Minnisota for two nights then we flew on to Newfoundland in Canada. The weather was even worse there and the snow drifts reached at least three feet high. Some local girls invited us out when we arrived and it was here I tasted my first ever milk-shake.

A couple of days later we flew from Newfoundland b ck to London. When we arrived back on British soil I think we expected to be treated like some kind of long-lost heroes. I knew there had been lots of publicity about the bomb trials in the British newspapers and that all the scientists were proclaiming the wonders of this so-called "Atomic-Age". We saw ourselves as pioneers at the forefront of the new age - we'd actually seen a bomb go off so we knew from first-hand experience what the new military deterrents looked like. If the politicians were right and this device would allow us all to live in safety for ever and ever then surely we deserved some credit for being around when they tested the damn thing. but when we arrived back in London Airport the first thing we encountered was a line-up of grouchy customs men who didn't give a damn where we'd been or what we'd seen exploding. Our uniforms didn't seem to be worth much. We were all really desperate to get home, yet here we were being held up by a wee man looking for some fags that Frank and I had planked inside our luggage. I even had to pay duty on a radio I'd bought to keep me company on Christmas Island. Nobody gave a damn about us. 

We went straight to Euston Station and hung around waiting on the next train to Scotland. We finally caught a train to Glasgow which took a longer route than normal. The ticket inspector said that we should have taken an earlier, more direct, train. We protested and said that it didn't matter since we all had army travel warrants but he had had enough so we paid up in silence and settled down to catch some sleep before we reached Glasgow.

Just in case you think we're exaggerating our feelings concerning our return journey I would like to point out that years and years later I found a newspaper article from The Times dated 1958 which highlighted the case of some other soldiers in a strikingly similar situation to ours. After I had read the article I grew even more angry since it illustrated the cold-hearted and calculated fashion in which all us returning soldiers were treated. The article ran as follows:

"LIKE PAUPERS'

SERVICEMEN HAD TO

BORROW IN U.S.

After an awful train journey we finally arrived in Glasgow to find the place much the same as we'd left it almost a year before. But each of us had changed inside and in our own way we knew it. For months and months we'd planned and fantasised about what we'd do when all we wanted to do was go home and go to sleep.

I caught a bus to Johnstone along with a few other lads and I waved to big Tiny as he got off at Paisley Cross. As he saluted me with his massive hands I never imagined for one moment that I wouldn't see this gentle giant for almost thirty years. I continued my journey with only a snooty Frank for company until we finally reached Johnstone a few stops later. It was a rainy and cold 22 December 1958 and I was glad to be home.

Two nights later I went to midnight Mass. Going to a Christmas service in my home church, Mt Margaret's, was something I'd often dreamt about when I'd been on Christmas Island. The thought of proudly wearing my uniform as I walked through the church door with an air of confidence and having a calm, settled mind had been a private vision which had frequently pulled me through many nights of loneliness and terror during the bomb tests.

Halfway through the Mass, as I sat five rows from the front, I began to see flashes of light and hear loud sounds in my ears. I turned to say something to the person sitting next to me but I was already falling to the floor. I passed out in front of the whole church and had to be carried out of my seat. When I came to, I was shivering and shaking like a leaf; it was the first time in my life that I'd ever fainted.

After New Year I returned to Ripon. Although I was looking forward to seeing all the boys again I knew my heart wasn't in it any more. I constantly felt ill and it wasn't any surprise to find myself being admitted to Caterrick Military Hospital with a bad flu-type illness at the end of February 1959. I stayed there for approximately four days before I was discharged back to Ripon. My next posting was to Otterburn in Northumberland where we had to build a road deep in the damp countryside. It was a very lonely place and we stayed under canvas for the whole period. I didn't feel very fit either and the fact that we only got terrible rations made me feel even worse.

One night, while I was staying in the tent in Otterburn, I woke up with a start and went into a series of painful spasms. The front of my pyjamas felt damp so I sat up in bed and examined them. I was drenched in a pool of blood. Someone put me on to the back of a motorbike and rushed me to a local hospital where I was given an injection to make me sleep. I remember them telling me I'd suffered internal haemorrhaging. When I woke up the next morning a dirty old doctor shoved two paracetamol tablets into my hand and gruffly told me I'd be all right. I was discharged ten minutes later.

I returned home to Scotland that same weekend and visited my own doctor in Johnstone. He said I was in no fit state to return to active service but I did attempt to journey back down to Ripon after my weekend leave was finished. My girlfriend Alice accompanied me to Central Station in Glasgow on the Sunday night but I felt too unwell to tackle the rest of the journey so I about-turned and headed back home. I was in a hell of a state.

My local doctor supported me with a series of long-term sick-notes and I was admitted to Cowglen Military Hospital, which is just outside Glasgow, in the summer of 1959. I was put through a whole series of rigorous tests which eventually led the doctor to diagnose a serious duodenal ulcer. Is pent sixteen days recovering there before I was discharged and sent back to Ripon to be examined by an army doctor. I was told I was being discharged from military service on the grounds of "Ceasing to Fulfil Army Medical Requirements, Para 503 (xvi) (b) (11) Q.R. 1955."

I still attended a local doctor on a regular basis who took a special interest in my health. He was particularly concerned about my ulcer and the fact I shook and sweated continuously for no apparent reason. The first time I visited him as a civilian after being discharged from the army, he examined me and shook his head.

"What's wrong, Doctor?" I asked him.

"You're such a young man," he said sagely, "and you'll always regret the day you ever set foot on Christmas Island...."

To be continued ...

Kiribati - A Nuclear Test Veteran Remembers

Christmas Island Bomb Tests

Christmas Island Home Page

Jane's Kiribati Home Page

Banaba Home Page

Jane Resture's Oceania Page

Jane's Oceania Travel Page

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(E-mail: jane@janeresture.com -- Rev. 25th July 2005)