In August 1957 Prime Minister Harold MacMillan held an uncomfortable meeting at Aldermaston with Penney. It was acknowledged the first set of tests in the Pacific had not produced a working H-bomb design. All Britain had to show so far was a massive A-bomb masquerading as an H-bomb. But it would have to do. The weapon was rushed into service with the RAF. Dubbed the interim weapon, it would be carried by Vulcan bombers in the event of nuclear war.
But this contingency brought its own problems because to deliver the yield required, the bombs had to be filled with huge amounts of highly unstable uranium 235 which apart from being dangerously volatile was also enormously expensive. Bomber Command, which had to take control of the bombs, was not happy. It was thought too tricky a weapon to handle because if damaged, say in transport, the core’s sub-critical masses could come into contact with each other, causing a meltdown.
And of course if they caught fire the consequences would have been catastrophic. The Chiefs of Air Staff were also not happy with the safety measures installed in the bomb, which amounted to inserting thousands of ball-bearings into a rubber bag “similar to a feminine condom” and lowered into the core. This may have made the weapon safe. But if it became necessary to use it, the ball-bearings had to be drained from the core. This took at the very least 15 minutes, sometimes longer. The RAF required a weapon they could keep at four minutes alert.
There were angry exchanges between Bomber Command and Aldermaston with the RAF bigwigs accusing the scientists of “selling them a lemon.” If there was an international crisis, Britain would be virtually defenceless in nuclear terms. The bad-tempered row rumbled on.
But while everyone was arguing, Penney quietly got on with the major problem of building a ‘true’ hydrogen bomb. The breakthrough came when he was given access to the latest US computer technology. To everyone’s immense relief Penney was soon able to tell the Prime Minister that he believed he could now design a better bomb thanks to the number crunching power of Aldermaston’s new electronic computer, recently arrived from America. All he needed was a few more tests in the Pacific.
So they got to work; they investigated faults and deficiencies, and their new IBM computer was helping enormously. Finally they came up with a new design a hybrid, a cross between an atomic and hydrogen bomb, similar to a design already successfully tested by the Russians.
Preparations to test the new design code-name Grapple X got under way. There was much more confidence in the success of this bomb and American observers were invited to the trial. It was hoped that they would be so impressed by Britain’s development of the H-bomb that collaboration between the two countries would be restored.
The task took on a new urgency when the Soviet Union launched Sputnik 1, the first artificial earth satellite, in early October 1957. This event shocked the Americans to the core. It caused a widespread feeling of national humiliation. The launch vehicle, a large ICBM, was already in use and showed that the Soviet Union was capable of hitting targets anywhere on the earth’s surface. Up to then, the United States had always felt secure in its superior technology. Now suddenly the balance of power had shifted.
The event was viewed in Britain as an immense opportunity to seek improved nuclear defence co-operation. The pressure for results was intense. A fateful decision was taken, to save both time and money. But it was enormously risky, especially for the thousands of support troops, for it was decided that Grapple X, would be detonated over Christmas Island, instead of 400 miles south at Malden island.
Oulton credited himself for this extremely risky decision, describing how it came about as he and Cook strolled along the foreshore at Christmas Island drinking the inevitable gin and tonics. Oulton recalled: “Cook said to me, ‘I’m sorry to have to tell you Wilf, but we’ve got to do it all over again.’ That was the first inkling I had of it. I said, how soon? And he said as soon as possible and I said how soon is as soon as possible and he said certainly not more than three months.”
That was a tremendous shock to Oulton, who said: “We were completely exhausted, both manpower-wise and equipment-wise. And effectively to do the whole thing over again at Malden Island would have meant another 18 months, which we didn’t have. And so I thought well we could perhaps do it at Christmas Island. So after 10 minutes thought I said to Bilclass="underline" ‘It is 30 miles from here to the south-east point of the island. I think we could do it here. All the information we had at that date said 30 miles would be OK. Cook said everything couldn’t be a hundred per cent sure, but it seemed a very reasonable proposition.’”
This was a dangerous decision involving many risks, not least to the thousands of servicemen on the island who would now be placed in close proximity to enormous nuclear forces. This, naturally enough, led to fears for their safety. Penney was also worried when the decision was conveyed to him. His team was confident the new bomb would produce a big bang. It was a boosted design incorporating large quantities of lithium-6, but they had no way of knowing just how big it would be. They were in uncharted territory, and there were real fears the bomb might get out of control with unknown consequences.
In the middle of all this came news of a disaster which threatened to jeopardise the whole operation. On October 10 there was a catastrophic fire in a nuclear reactor at Windscale which was producing the uranium for the weapon. A vast quantity of radiation was released into the atmosphere. There was a threat to milk supplies in 150 farms in a 200 mile radius around the site. Newsreels showed urns of milk being emptied into drains. The whole area was put on standby for evacuation.
Prime Minister Macmillan was in a panic. Not only did he have CND breathing down his neck, but the incident threatened to derail delicately poised negotiations with America over nuclear cooperation. He summoned Penney to sort the mess out. One of his first priorities was to ensure the fire didn’t prevent sufficient radioactive fuel from getting to Christmas Island.
Penney, dragged from his desk at Aldermaston, set up an inquiry which duly reported to Macmillan on October 28. Faults in “procedure and organisation” were blamed. More specifically there were accusations the cause of the catastrophe was the pressure the managers were under to produce the fissile material for the nuclear bombs. Penney was scathing in his criticism of the way the site was managed. The Prime Minister wasn’t happy with the findings: “How do we deal with Penney’s report?” he pondered gloomily in his diary on October 30. “It has, of course, been prepared with scrupulous honesty and even ruthlessness.”
Macmillan feared if the full extent of the failings at Windscale were to be publicly revealed, US-UK nuclear collaboration might be ended by those in America who did not want to help Britain. He decided on only a partial release of Penney’s report on the grounds of national security. The result was that Penney was blamed unfairly in many circles. Opponents in the closed scientific community accused him of conducting a whitewash. Penney, ever the patriot, took it on the chin and returned to Aldermaston.
ON THE BRINK
Meanwhile back in the Pacific, the forthcoming H-bomb test was spawning feverish rumours among the servicemen. One wild claim was that Christmas Island, perched as it was perilously on top of an extinct volcano was, in the event of an H-bomb explosion, in danger of tipping up and depositing the troops into the abyss. Another was the island was so low-lying that a large explosion could cause a vast tsunami to overwhelm the island