Other experiments were more clinical in their use of servicemen as human guinea pigs during the bomb tests. One of these included the deliberate blinding of ‘volunteers’ during an A-bomb test in 1956. A secret document, written by a Captain C.D.B Bridges of the Royal Army Medical Corps, discusses the ‘visual incapacity in human beings following exposure to a nuclear explosion.’
Bridges reports that rabbits could be blinded by a nuclear explosion 42 miles away and that scientists had calculated that human beings would receive burns to their eyes at comparable distances. Bridges goes on to report exactly what happened to three of these servicemen:-
Case 1: In daylight, he viewed the latter part of the flash from a distance of six miles from an atomic weapon. The left eye viewed through the optical system of a camera, the right eye viewed it directly through the open window. There was immediate dazzle, blurring and haziness. Extreme photophobia developed later.
Case 2: The left eye was covered and the patient viewed the flash with his right eye from a distance of five miles. He was blinded for 15 seconds, and had only a hazy view of his instruments after 25 seconds. This lasted for 8-10 minutes. Seven months later a paracentral scotoma was found in the upper temporal quadrant of the right visual field.
Case 3: The patient viewed the explosion with both eyes from a distance of 10 miles. Subjective visual difficulties lasted for five minutes. Five days later a paracentral scotoma was found in the left eye. A blanched area was found nasel to the fovea, adjacent to the branch of the inferior temporal artery leading to the paramacular area. The artery appeared blocked, and was bloodless distal to the lesion. The area was surrounded by oedema, although this disappeared after about one month.’
What all this means, of course, is that the unfortunate victims of this experiment suffered varying degrees of blindness after being ordered to gaze upon a nuclear fireball. It is interesting to note the use of the word ‘patient’ in the context of the experiment and also the fact that medical examinations were carried out upon them many months after the event. It would be harder to imagine a clearer definition of the term ‘human guinea pig.’
The Royal Navy was also playing its part in finding out the effects of radiation on men and equipment. And as befits the ‘senior service’, it did it in a big way.
In early 1956, HMS Diana, a Daring class destroyer slipped its moorings and set sail for the Indian ocean. She was bound for the Monte Bello islands off the Australian coast where Britain’s first atomic bomb was exploded four years earlier
She was to take part in two atomic experiments and her mission was top secret and potentially deadly. Diana was fated to be the first manned warship to deliberately steam through the radioactive cloud created by an atomic bomb.
Her 278 officers and crew had been fully briefed about the purpose of the mission. Before departing, her crew underwent special training in radiological warfare. They had been issued with protective clothing and for weeks they had trained in tight security in a huge warehouse near Devonport dockyard.
The training consisted of putting the men through a series of obstacle courses that had been ‘mined’ with quantities of radioactive isotopes. Each man was issued with a Geiger counter, and he was required to detect and mark ‘hot spots’. All the time clouds of steam and smoke were blown across the course to simulate battlefield conditions.
While all this was going on, HMS Diana was also being well prepared for the rigours that lay ahead. She had been fitted with powerful pump and sprinkler systems, and she bristled with air filters and scientific measuring equipment.
Diana arrived at the Monte Bello islands on May 2nd, 1956 and took up position five miles from Trimouille Island, the main one in the group, where the tower-mounted bomb was to be exploded. There followed a series of exercises to ensure the men were ready and the ships equipment was in working order.
One administrative record reveals it was decided not to issue film badges, used for detecting radiation exposure, to the ship’s company. This was a curious decision given the ship was soon to be enveloped in a radioactive cloud. It was even more puzzling when the same records showed that little was done to protect the crew from contamination.
A scientist, who boarded the ship on May 3rd reported: “Originally it was intended to have the ship shut down all the time during the fall-out, but present information on the length of time they may be in the fall-out zone makes it impossible to do this. In order to open up, certain personnel have to leave the Citadel, go out into the open and return to cover.”
The scientist thought this operation could be carried out quite safely using protective clothing. But he warned: “Complete protection of the personnel in the engine room is more difficult to arrange since it is difficult to assess the hazard involved.” It is clear from this that scientists fully expected radiation to enter parts of the ship, making the decision not to issue film badges even more incomprehensible.
When the bomb was detonated, the entire ship’s complement was on deck to see the fireworks. About 30 of them were mere boys, cadets, aged just 15.
John Kay was an 18-yr-old national service seaman, on board at the time. He recalled: “I was badly frightened, but not surprisingly these boy sailors were more terrified than anyone when the bomb went off. I was thrown onto my face by the force of the blast. The whole ship rocked and I knew we must be very close to the explosion. Men were groaning all around me and the young kids were crying as we scrambled round the deck. My first thought was that something had gone wrong.
“Suddenly the battle stations were called and we a great sense of relief we scrambled down the hatches which were then tightly battened down. We stayed below for hours as the ship zigzagged to stay in the fallout. It was very hot and claustrophobic. I remember officers constantly checking instruments for radiation. At one point there was a high-pitched alarm indicating the instrument readings were too high. It was very unnerving.”
According to other accounts, men in the engine room, even those wearing protective gear, had to be evacuated, because of high radiation counts. As the men quavered below, scientists in ‘moon suits’ moved from compartment to compartment checking radiation levels. Several areas were evacuated. Above, a deadly radioactive rain poured down onto the decks as Diana doggedly tracked the mushroom cloud.
The second phase of the experiment began when Diana emerged from the mushroom cloud. Wash-down parties were ordered on to the decks where a thick layer of contaminated coral dust had accumulated. Mr Kay, who had been ‘volunteered’, was one of the first out of the hatches.
He said: “We were dressed in black capes with hoods attached. I remember it was very overcast and there was an eerie purple and yellow glow in the sky. Our first job was to remove some canvas coverings from the deck. We worked in silence and it was very scary to see the other men moving about in this weird light looking like big black bats. There was dust everywhere and the sprinklers were going full blast. At one stage my hood came off and I was immediately ordered to the decontamination unit. One of the scientists put a Geiger counter to my head and it started to buzz like crazy. I spent three hours in the showers after that.”
After several hours swabbing the decks, Diana finally returned to her mooring to await a repeat of the whole operation, this time with an even bigger bomb, in a month’s time. After that Diana was ordered to steam home, but was refused docking facilities at Fremantle near Perth because the Australians didn’t want the ‘ship of doom’ on their doorstep.