Born in 1911, he was a precocious child and won an open Scholarship from Abertillery School to University College Cardiff. From there he passed into the RAF College at Cranwell as a prize cadet with exceptional marks. In 1935 he became a commissioned pilot officer and two years later joined a flying boat squadron at Southampton. In September 1939 he was posted to anti-submarine patrols over the English Channel. His exceptional abilities were soon recognised and in 1943, he was given command of 58 Squadron, a Halifax bomber squadron specially converted for maritime operations. He was soon embroiled in Britain’s life and death struggle to keep the seaways open for the convoys, who were taking a terrible mauling in the Atlantic from the marauding U-boat wolf packs. His first ‘kill’ was the German U-boat U-663 which surfaced in the rough seas of the Bay of Biscay. Oulton attacked with depth charges causing it to sink with no survivors. Eight days later, his crew spotted U-463. Oulton took his plane into a steep dive and released six depth charges that blew the sub out of the water. At the end of the same month, he attacked and crippled U-563, a submarine that had sunk 10 allied ships. Follow-up aircraft finished it off.
Oulton was awarded the DFC and the DSO and was mentioned in dispatches three times during his war service. His swash-buckling adventures attracted the attention of Winston Churchill who chose him as an aide when he made a visit to see President Roosevelt. He was soon playing host to General, later President, Eisenhower at a base in the Azores. Eisenhower was so impressed he asked how he could repay him for the hospitality. Oulton suggested some fruit for his men and was surprised when a short time later a whole plane load of oranges arrived.
After the war he became the first RAF director of the joint anti-submarine School at Londonderry, but then in his own words, “destiny beckoned”. The RAF’s top commanders summoned him to a secret location where he was told: “we’ve got a job for you. We want you to go out and drop a bomb somewhere in the central Pacific Ocean and take a picture of it with a Brownie camera.”
Oulton was nonplussed… until he was told the bomb in question was a “thermo-nuclear’ megaton H-bomb…”
“Good God,” he muttered, overcome with emotion. It was fate: his scientist father Llewellyn Oulton had been there at the dawn of the nuclear age, as a member of Sir Ernest Rutherford’s team of physicists that worked on splitting the atom. The novel and almost limitless possibilities of nuclear power had been a regular feature of discussions in the Oulton household when he was a boy. Now fate had chosen him to play a pivotal role in the release of that mystical power.
Oulton hurled all his considerable energies into the task of organising, supplying and conveying 4,000 men half way across the world. It was a wonderful adventure and Oulton relished the challenge of carrying out a vital military operation against the romantic backdrop of swaying palm trees and white sands. His was a bygone world where friends and colleagues were all part of the cosy Old Boy network, and where everyone seemed to be called “Chalky”, or “Ginger.” And at first it all went swimmingly until, in his mind at least, the elemental collided with the paranormal in the form of the ‘Witch’s Curse’. Suddenly Oulton’s dream turned into a nightmare.
Mishaps, big and small, were now ascribed to its supernatural powers. One of the most startling examples came prior to the second drop of the Grapple series when the very large and unstable uranium core for the massive fail-safe atomic bomb malfunctioned in the assembly hangar at Christmas Island.
Chief scientist Bill Cook was overseeing a group of technicians who were gently screwing together two copper hemispheres surrounding the radioactive core when they became stuck. The technicians first tried to uncouple the two hemispheres to start all over again. But the assemblage was stuck fast. Two more technicians were summoned to apply more pressure. For nearly an hour, sweat dripping down their necks, the taut scientific team tried to dislodge the two hemispheres by gradually increasing the force whilst simultaneously trying not to disturb the delicate radioactive core. All to no avail; the thing was solid.
As the tension mounted, a warrant officer, pressed into trying to uncouple the spheres, suggested that the only thing left to do was to “clout it.” The scientists looked at each other in dismay, but after a short while agreed that, indeed, that was the only course of action left, short of cabling back to Britain for a replacement.
Watched by the others and with a nonchalance no-one else felt, the warrant officer rummaged around in his tool box and fished out a seven-pound, copper-headed sledge hammer. An assistant was positioned with hands supporting the two hemispheres to absorb the shock. After a deep breath the warrant officer gave the flange round the middle of the radioactive core a hefty thump. After a short heart-stopping moment, the warrant officer once again tried to screw the hemisphere’s together. They moved “as smooth as silk,” according to Oulton who gratefully retired to the mess bar with Cook for ‘a fortifying drink.’ (It was a past-time they indulged in a lot).
Fortunately everything went well with the rest of the preparations. The newly-assembled bomb, code-named Orange Herald, was borne aloft in Valiant XD822 and released at the correct height and position. But then, another heart-stopper: a sudden instrument failure caused the bomber to stall and go into a high-speed spin during its escape manoeuvre. Only superb airmanship by pilot David Roberts prevented a catastrophe.
His Official Record Book entry states that the operation ran into a “critical situation” when the Valiant bomber stalled shortly after the weapon was dropped. He wrote:-
The bomb was released at 10.44 and after a slight pause I initiated a steep turn to port. Simultaneously, the aircraft stalled and the bomb aimer, who was making for his seat, returned to the bomb aimer’s well with some force.
Oulton ordered a news blackout. The press, who had been invited along to record events, were given no inkling of the drama overhead. The crew was not made available for interviews as had been planned, and only the scarcest of details about the drop were issued. All they were told was that there had been a successful H-bomb drop and there had been negligible fallout. Neither statement was true: the bomb was a giant A-bomb which caused considerable radioactivity because of its almost pure uranium core. Oulton was uncharacteristically glum as he attended the traditional “after-bomb” party aboard HMS Warrior that evening. He knew the difficult challenges to make a fully working hydrogen bomb had not yet been resolved.
The third, and final test in the series, took place on June 19th but this failed dismally; it was the lowest yield yet. And this test also brought with it another series of frustrating failures and calamities: A Hastings with vital supplies had to make an emergency landing after its undercarriage failed, and a Shackleton bomber was nearly lost after three of its four engines failed on the 400-mile trip from Malden to Christmas Island. Four Avenger aircraft on board HMS Warrior had to be jettisoned over the side because their engines were too radioactive for further use. One of the pilots nearly lost his life when the last Avenger crashed on take off. Oulton was often seen sitting alone outside his tent contemplating the sunset and no doubt pondering his fate.
Meanwhile back in Britain, Penney and his team were summoned to Whitehall for crisis talks. Penney bluntly told Defence Minister Duncan Sandys that further work was needed if they were going to build a ‘true’ H-bomb and they needed to conduct further tests to ensure it worked. An impatient Sandys said that was all very well, but time was running out. The international ban on testing might be only months away.