Alan Rimmer - Between Heaven and Hell

The ship waiting for them at Southampton was the TT Dunera, a WW2 troopship that had seen better days, but it was comfortable enough for Mrs Midford who was soon joined by thirty more wives together with their 31 children. They were shown to spacious quarters on the top deck of the ship, while more than 1,000 relief soldiers for Christmas Island were crammed below decks, four to a cabin or slung across the galleys in hammocks.

Alcohol had been banned for the trip, but it was New Year’s Eve and there was a large contingent of Scots; a party was soon in full swing, thanks to someone managing to smuggle a crate of whisky aboard. There were inevitable consequences the following day as the Dunera nosed into the Atlantic and headed into the storm-tossed seas around the Azores: the decks rails were lined much of the way with seasick soldiers. Luckily the weather turned benign and most of those on board soon recovered. Three weeks later the Dunera reached Curacao in the Caribbean and passed through the Panama Canal for the last leg of its journey across the Pacific to Christmas Island.

It was a propaganda coup for the War Office as photographs of the Dunera, with smiling wives and children waving from the decks were flashed home. The Daily Mirror enthused: “Happy, happy family day… that’s the sort of day it was among the palm trees and coconuts of Christmas Island when the troopship Dunera sailed into the palm-fringed lagoon…”

Mrs Midford said: “There were a couple of ladies from the WVS waiting for us and we all had a big party. Tony, my husband, didn’t recognise me at first because I’d had a new hairdo. And I hadn’t seen him in over a year. The children loved it. We were only on the island two or three days and they played in the sand or swam in the lagoon the whole time. Our three-yr-old played in the water for hours.”

Mrs Midford’s trip of a lifetime was marred on the way back, however, when her daughter suddenly began to lose her hair. She said: “I noticed she had developed a bald spot as we sailed home on the boat. At first it was only small, about the size of a sixpence, and I didn’t think much about it. But over the months it gradually got bigger and bigger until it was about the size of the palm of my hand. I took her to a doctor who said he had no idea what was causing it. He asked me if I had changed her diet, things like that, but I said I hadn’t. Then I told him about my trip to Christmas Island, and he didn’t believe me; he said: ‘Are you seriously asking me to believe that the government sent children to an H-bomb testing zone?’ I said they most certainly had, but he still wouldn’t believe me, and just sent me away.”

This was an illuminating exchange: clearly the doctor believed it was a bad idea to send children out to a nuclear test site. So why was it done? This was a question that Mrs Midford and her husband asked themselves many times in the years to come. And it was even more urgent when their daughter contracted cancer at age 28. Mrs Midford said: “At the time I thought the trip was an example of a kindly government but now I’m not so sure. I have got so many questions: why did they take blood samples? Why did they choose only mothers with children? Were they trying to find out something they didn’t tell us about? We have never been given answers to any of these questions.”

Searching questions about possible ill-effects have always been asked by nuclear veterans. At the time, however, these questions didn’t unduly worry Penney or his Aldermaston scientists. All they were concerned about was producing the ‘big one’, the weapon that would finally prove that Britain was now truly worthy to be a member of the exclusive megaton club. The new bomb, codenamed Grapple Y, would contain many new elements designed to boost yield. And this included a confection of chemicals never used before.

The exact nature of this hellish cocktail is still secret, but according to historian Lorna Arnold it was made up of ‘intimate mixtures of materials, consisting of micron-sized particles of uranium-235, uranium-238 and lithium deuteride.’ The chemicals thorium, beryllium, cobalt and other deadly isotopes were also thrown into the mix. It conjures up a cartoon image of a mad scientist cackling gleefully over a smoking test-tube as the final mixture for Grapple Y was being prepared.

Grapple X had provided valuable information about the fusion processes that had baffled the scientists so far. Now they believed they had the means to make a ‘pure’ H-bomb without the need for a huge atomic bomb as the trigger. Early 1958 was the deadline given to the scientists to perfect and test the new weapon.

By this time Oulton had been relieved of his command of Christmas Island, and replaced by Air Vice Marshal John Grandy, another former Battle of Britain ace. Whether or not Oulton’s arguments with Defence Minister Sandys had anything to do with this decision is a matter for conjecture. But it could well be the High Command was more concerned about his continued obsession with the ‘Witch’s Curse.’ Oulton was still displaying his worrying obsessions months later.

He makes a point in his memoirs of recounting how Wing Commander Ken Hubbard went out to HMS Warrior for a farewell party prior to its departure for England. According to Oulton he took with him the Witch’s Curse, concealed in his jacket. As the party got into full swing, Hubbard popped the device behind a picture over the wardroom fireplace. Oulton was clearly worried if the ‘curse’ had had any effect on Warrior and quizzed Commodore Roger Hicks about the trip home when they met for lunch at the Services Club on Pall Mall.

Oulton recalled: “Hicks said he had never had such a bloody awful trip in his life. It had all started well enough visiting Ratotonga and Pitcairn Island. But then came a series of calamities. His boat had been stolen in Callao! They’d had a very rough passage round the Horn. At Buenos Aires, the splendid ceremony of ‘Beating the Retreat’ laid on by the Royal Marines had been a disaster in a torrential rainstorm. In Rio a lot of the ship’s company had had a stand-up fight with the police. Then they had come through that hurricane which had sunk the famous German sailing ship Pamir and caused immense damage to Warrior particularly to a lot of stuff in the ward-room on which the insurance had lapsed…” Oulton of course wasn’t at all surprised by this list of calamities, although he thought it wise not to inform the Commodore of the Witch’s Curse lurking behind the wardroom picture.

But he felt duty bound to speak out when the Warrior was later sold to the Argentine Navy with inevitable (in Oulton’s mind) consequences. Warrior , now renamed the Independencia was beset by a series of catastrophes resulting in the Argentine Navy’s Commander in Chief being court marshalled. Oulton invited the Argentine Naval Attache in London to lunch and told him about the Witch’s Curse. It is not recorded what comment the official made, but Oulton reported: “He turned quite pale.”

Thankfully Oulton’s strange fixation had no effect on Penney who assembled his scientists at Aldermaston for the last “great push.” He outlined his plan for Grapple Y and told them to smooth out any final problems with the design. At a meeting on January 10, 1958 it was announced the bomb was ready.

Penney also had a surprise for the assembled company: he told them he would be flying to Christmas Island to take personal charge of the drop. His deputy Bill Cook, who had thus far been the man on the ground made no comment. The decision didn’t surprise those in the know, however. It was whispered there had been a certain amount of ‘bad blood’ between the pair since the failure of the first series. Cook, apparently blamed Penney for bringing “duff information” back from America; Penney blamed Cook for the string of failures and mishaps.