Nuclear test veterans seek silver lining
Steve Smethurst reports on the plight of British nuclear test veterans, forgotten heroes of the Cold War, to whom the military covenant does not seem to apply
Star-struck, and perhaps a little tipsy, Douglas Hern had a 21st birthday to remember. The Navy chef was on his way to Christmas Island to witness the nuclear tests that the British Government was conducting in the Pacific Ocean.
At the time, he felt he was being sent as something of a punishment – the Navy had discovered he’d auditioned for the Carol Levis’ Discoveries radio show as part of a four-piece band, and didn’t approve – but on 11 September, 1957, he didn’t care. He was only half way there, in New York with time to kill, and taking a message to a cousin who worked for Tiffany’s, the jewellers.
His cousin told him, “We’re going to a bar where there’ll be celebrities!” He wasn’t wrong. At the bar were a host of famous names, including film stars Phil Silvers and Bette Davies. His cousin took him over, saying, “This man is thousands of miles from home and it’s his 21st birthday.”
The actors were so welcoming that: “the drinks came from all directions and they got me in such a pickle, I couldn’t fly on,” he recalls. “I remember that Silvers had that same voice you hear in Sergeant Bilko, it’s not something he put on. While Davies was very quietly spoken and something of a chain smoker.” Unfortunately, from a high like this there was only one way to go. Down.
Half a century has now elapsed since the nuclear tests that Doug witnessed – and they have not been easy years. These days, he is the litigation secretary of the British Nuclear Test Veterans Association (BNTVA), a collection of long-suffering veterans who feel they have been abandoned by an embarrassed Government that wants to airbrush them from history.
Their problems stem from the fact that between 1952 and 1967 the UK carried out a number of atmospheric tests of nuclear weapons in the Pacific Ocean and at Maralinga, South Australia. Overseeing them were more than 20,000 servicemen.
Many of the explosions they witnessed were many times more powerful than those discharged at Hiroshima and Nagasaki.
It remains a moot point how much the Government knew about the dangerous health effects of radiation. In the 1950s a report on radiation fallout was produced by Sir Harold Himsworth, Secretary of the Medical Research Council. He concluded that, “the effects of external radiation are insignificant and the genetic effects negligible.” Armed with that statement and faced with the need to join the thermonuclear club in the little time that was left before a moratorium on nuclear tests was declared, the British Government pressed ahead, although Prime Minister Anthony Eden apparently stated in a 1955 letter that any side-effects for troops would be, “a pity, but we cannot help it.” With hindsight, one thing is certain, watching the tests at close proximity – with no protection other than covering their eyes with their hands – was never going to boost their health.
“We just weren’t aware of the danger,” says Doug. “I know we were in the forces, but we hadn’t even been in combat scenarios before. The closest I’d been was going to Action Stations.”
Doug witnessed five terrifying explosions, one atom and four hydrogen, which he describes vividly: “It was like someone had turned on an electric bar heater, you really felt the heat. You also saw the bone structure of your hands through your closed eyes as the bomb went off, it was like a pink X-ray. For the bigger hydrogen bombs, the heat was as if someone had thrown open a baker’s oven. You could still see your bone structure in your hands, but it was 10 times brighter.”
The many subsequent health problems that followed for veterans of the tests – and there are many – are not surprising. As Doug says, “We ate irradiated food and drank irradiated drinks. We even bathed in irradiated water. One time, within six minutes of detonation it started to rain. The MoD denies this, but we saw fish and other marine life in puddles that had been picked up by the blast.”
There is abundant evidence of the devastating impact on the health not only of the veterans themselves, but tragically of their families too. Of the 2,500 test veterans the BNTVA checked on in 1999, 30% had died, mostly in their 50s. In their grandchildren, spina bifida rates are more than five times the usual rate for live births in the UK.
More than 200 skeletal abnormalities were reported and more than 100 veterans’ children reported reproductive difficulties.
Doug’s daughter, Jill, died, aged 13, in 1977. “She contracted a rare form of cancer, Cushings Syndrome. The doctors did nothing but photograph her,” he says, with both anger and frustration. Tragically, Doug’s loss is not unusual among test veterans and his anger at the lack of Government support is clear: “I sit here and I see the death certificates, the membership forms with all the medical details - and it’s not just the veterans, it’s their children and their grandchildren and the great grandchildren. And it’s being passed down the line – disabilities, deformities, babies being born with a full set of adult teeth. They’re horrendous things. And the Government denies, denies, denies,” he says. “I’m sorry to be so strident about it,” he adds, although, clearly, there is no need to apologise.
John Lowe is chairman of the BNTVA. The National Serviceman was sent to the Malden Islands, 450 miles south of Christmas Island on board HMS Narvik. His position is simple. “The Government should put its hand in its pocket and do some research on the health of the nuclear veterans’ children. What if there’s a nuclear terrorist attack in this country? We need to know what the effects are going to be. Doesn’t a woman need to know what risks she is taking if she is going to have a baby?
“One man phoned up and mentioned three different diseases. I hadn’t heard of any of them, as the chances of a child suffering any one of them was one in 100,000. His daughter had got all three. His dad had been at the tests.
“The Government says our members only join because they are ill. But a lot weren’t ill when they joined. They wanted to support those who were ill. But half are dead now from cancer.”
Phil Spooner, a senior aircraftsman in the RAF, spent much of 1958 on Christmas Island. He witnessed three tests and a balloon explosion. “I worked at the airfield and one of the most disconcerting aspects was connected to the cameras that were used on the aeroplanes overseeing the tests.
“The cameras had to be charged in our electrical section, then they would be brought back in a couple of days after the test, still highly radioactive. When you think that we unloaded them in a bush hat and a pair of shorts, not even wearing a pair of gloves,” he says with disbelief.
Phil’s daughter Alison was born with spina bifida and hydrocephalus and he “strongly suspects” that it was related to his exposure to this radiation. “When you see pictures of men operating in nuclear power stations, you can see the amount of protective clothing they wear. They gave us white overalls,” he says bitterly.
RAF veteran Jeff Liddiatt is another to have experienced health problems. He too is at his wits’ end with the situation. “I’ve had degenerative skeletal problems, with five operations on my spine. The doctors have said – but only off the record – that radiation has a degenerative effect on the skeleton, but they won’t put their name on the dotted line, it’s sticking their neck out too far.”
Jeff is at least heartened that the weight of the numbers is starting to look convincing in terms of the tests affecting veterans’ children and grandchildren. But he adds: “By the time it’s 100% certain, there won’t be any veterans left. We get veterans every day asking ‘what if...’ or ‘has this been caused by..?’ One recent example is a family with four children, two of them have Alexander’s disease. There have only been 400 cases worldwide since the war.”
Jeff urges Legion readers to sign its petition on the Prime Minister’s website (http://petitions.number10.gov.uk/bntv-children). “It’s to ask the Government to run a study into the health of children and grandchildren of nuclear veterans. People who sign it will get a confirmation email back.” Although he urges readers to check their spam or junk folders to ensure the confirmation hasn’t been lost as they will need to click on a link in the email to complete the petition process.
In addition to the petition, the BNTVA has had two meetings with Veterans Minister Derek Twigg recently, in the hope of influencing the Government into following the rest of the world and taking responsibility for the damage it’s done to nuclear test veterans’ health. The Legion is also supporting the Association.
Jenny Priest, Policy Adviser at the Legion, says: “The Royal British Legion will be campaigning to urge the Government to undertake research into the health effects of nuclear test veterans’ exposure on their children and grandchildren.
“We would also like to see some changes to the War Pension Scheme, including an extension of the scheme to family members of nuclear test veterans and a list of conditions affecting the children and grandchildren of test veterans that would be recognised by the War Pension Scheme.”
At Rosenblatt, the law firm acting for the veterans, consultant Stephen Evans notes that virtually every other country has agreed to pay compensation, “it’s just the Brits” that are left, he says. “Russia, China, Australia, USA, Canada and even the Isle of Man have all compensated their veterans.
“We’ve got a thousand veterans, from the UK, New Zealand and Fiji. The MoD has alleged that we’re too late to take them to court and is focusing on the Limitation Act, which says that for personal injury claims you have to issue court proceedings within three years of injury or knowledge.
“They’re making a technical point. They’re lawyers, so you have to expect it. But if we lose, the facts will never be heard. These guys deserve justice. This preliminary issue has already cost two years – and several lives. That’s the tragedy of it all.”
Unfortunately, the case could even go to the House of Lords before the trial proper could be heard. It may not get finished until 2011 or even 2012.
With the case before the courts, the Government declined to comment. So, the last word goes to Douglas Hern. “It’s not just the Government’s attitude that frustrates us,” he says. “Nobody wants to recognise our role in the Cold War.” Hopefully, January will bring the BNTVA the silver lining it deserves.
