If you want to test a nuclear bomb, the Pacific Ocean seems like the ideal place to do it. It's vast and largely devoid of land and population.
But, as we now know, that's just not the way it works. Radioactive fallout — despite how geographically remote it is — has the potential to land anywhere in the world. Radioactive material is well-known to affect our DNA and can cause all sorts of health problems.
Of course, it's unfair to judge those in the past through the prism of current knowledge. This problem was not well understood 80 years ago.
In the 1940s and '50s, the world was in the grip of the Cold War — a race between the capitalist bloc led by the US and the communist bloc led by the Soviet Union to get one over the other at all costs.
And if you were a powerful country during that time, it only seemed natural to try and get your hands on the latest tech — nuclear weaponry.
British and American scientists had worked together on the Manhattan Project to develop the first atomic bombs, which were dropped on Japan in 1945. The British considered it a joint invention — but one year later, the Americans shut the British out of further nuclear development technology.
The Brits were in a bind so they decided to just, you know, make their own nukes. Because in a post-WWII nuclear world, you can't be taken seriously if you don't have a nuke. So they made their own — including the newfangled hydrogen bomb.
No hydrogen or thermonuclear bomb has ever been released in war. They were developed after WWII and are significantly more powerful than the atomic bombs dropped on Japan — a 1000 times more powerful. A weapon of such immense destructive power, it's barely possible to imagine the impact of one on a modern country.
It's all very well developing this technology, but you have to test nukes to know if they work — hence the British nuclear testing programme.
There were seven operations — the largest, Operation Grapple, lasted from 1957 to 1958.
Kiwi veteran remembers nuclear tests
New Zealand's then-Prime Minister Sidney Holland was approached by the British government to test nukes at the Kermadec Islands north-east of New Zealand. Despite Holland being very much a British Empire man, he declined. As a compromise, two New Zealand frigates were sent to assist, allegedly to measure weather patterns — the HMNZS Pukaki and the HMNZS Rotoiti.
Approximately 528 New Zealanders were involved with Grapple. Veteran Tere Tahi had just turned 18 when he was posted, but he said there were even younger men on board. They didn't know where they were going or why. The operation had to be kept tightly under wraps.
Tahi said they were told perhaps a day before about what the plan was. He said they wore some sort of protective gear, including goggles, but were told to turn away and put their hands over their eyes.
Then the bomb was dropped.
He remembered feeling a fantastic bright light which seemed to emanate through his body — a light so bright he could see right through his hands, including the bones in his fingers.
Then at one point when the light dissipated, the men were told they could turn around and have a look. Tahi described what he saw as "marvellous" — an enormous mushroom cloud and all the colours of the rainbow.
What Tahi and his mates didn't know, however, was the impact the bomb would have on their lives. They were excited teenagers. They didn't know what they were doing or why they were doing it. To be fair to the governments of the time who were testing these weapons, they were partially in the dark too. The pressure of accruing these weapons during the intense Cold War environment overrode other concerns.
Tahi and many of the other veterans have had health problems during the course of their lives, as have their children and grandchildren: cancer, infertility, deformities. Tahi said he couldn't get the bomb out of his mind and was appointed a psychiatrist who eventually helped him recover; a highly unnatural sight for a human to witness, no doubt.
Tahi and other veterans have been petitioning successive New Zealand governments since the '90s for an official acknowledgement of their suffering. He said every minister he has talked to always takes the same tack — agree that they have a point, say they're going to do something about it, and then chucks it in the "too hard" basket.
In 2005, the New Zealand Nuclear Test Veterans — Tahi's group — commissioned a study from Massey University to investigate if there had been any alteration in their DNA. It concluded that there was a very high level of "translocations" in the veterans' DNA — an unusual rearrangement of chromosomes.
The British veterans noticed the study and petitioned their own government, who issued their own inquiry. They found that only 10% of personnel involved in the series of testing operations were likely to have been exposed to measurable levels of ionising radiation — none of which were the New Zealanders.
And successive New Zealand governments appear to be towing that line — only because there has never been an official inquiry into the matter.
It's an awkward situation. On Tuesday, 20 veterans were awarded the British Nuclear Test Medal for those who took part in British nuclear testing between 1952 and 1967 at Auckland's Torpedo Bay Navy Museum. There's a sense of honour and respect. It was a poignant ceremony. The British government and the New Zealand government — including Minister for Veterans Chris Penk — were honouring the veterans who took part in Grapple and other operations.
Meanwhile, the veterans who spoke at the podium discussed their trauma.
Yet, despite all this, Tahi doesn't regret a thing.
That's the problem with the bomb — an act so incredible yet so terrifying, a life-changing event you would be hard placed to trade for. A brief insight into the destructive heart of the universe and the ability of humans to harness that energy.
The great irony, of course, is that the immensely destructive power of nuclear weaponry has created a period of relative world peace. Relative, of course. And a theory in practice — for now. The incidences of armed conflict between two nuclear powered nations are very limited. Nuclear powers fight proxy wars, for sure — but the idea of lines of trenches or grand tank battles between two nuclear armed powers has become a thing of the past. For the meantime.
In military circles it’s called Mutual Assured Destruction or MAD theory — the idea that there is no point for two nuclear-armed countries to engage in a nuclear war because they'll both get destroyed in the process.
It's a conundrum.
The British High Commission encourages anyone who is eligible for the medal or anyone related to those who are eligible to get in touch here.
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