two Dakotas flew along the coast at five hundred feet the day after the test but reported no evidence of fallout on the ground. This result is not as impressive as it looks; it was revealed during the London hearings in 1985 that it was realized after the Totem tests in 1953 that an aircraft flying at this height registered only a tenth of the contamination lying on the ground.
None of the aircrew who took part in this sampling and tracking operation wore film badges or protective clothing. The safety measures adopted for the Hurricane test specified that anyone who might be exposed had to have special clothing and be supplied with devices to monitor their exposure to radiation, but an exception to this rule was made for aircrew. Back in 1950, the Air Ministry in Britain had sought the advice of scientists at Harwell on whether there was any risk to aircrew flying through the atomic cloud after the explosion. The answer was that aircrew must avoid flying through the
visible
cloud after the explosion but once the cloud could no longer be seen, there would be no danger.
This advice was later proved to be quite wrong. The cloud sampling operation, which involved the collection of samples in special canisters attached to the plane, was considered at the Totem tests the following year to be an âunexpected radiation hazardâ not only for aircrew but for ground staff dealing with the plane once it had landed. When the sampling canisters were removed from RAAF Lincolns which had flown through the cloud at the first Totem explosion, they were so radioactive that they sent Geiger counters off scale when taken into the laboratory for analysis.
As a result of this incident, Australian aircrew at the later tests were provided with protective clothing and film badges. But at Hurricane and Totem, they had neither; radiation dosesreceived by the crew can only be guessed at by relating them to measurements of the radioactivity in the cloud.
Sampling the cloud was not, of course, the only operation which involved exposure to radiation. Helicopters were used to survey the area close to the explosion; salvage teams were sent on to islands to recover a variety of objects which had been left there to establish the effects of blast; ships sailed into contaminated water for various operations, and radioactive waste was stored on HMS
Tracker
and HMS
Zeebrugge.
Men involved in âdirty sortiesâ - expeditions into contaminated areas - went through health control on board HMS
Tracker
when their duties were finished. Torlesseâs report shows that 912 people passed through health control in the twenty-two days after the explosion. Various examples are given in his report of incidents in which men were contaminated.
On the day of the explosion, the only party âsignificantly contaminatedâ was a sortie sent out to recover rocket heads from one of the islands after the explosion. Their hands were judged to be âdirtyâ. On two occasions, helicopters were âmildly contaminatedâ. The first was on the evening of the day the test took place, when a helicopter flew through a fire on Trimouille Island which had been caused by the blast. In this incident, âthe helicopter crew was also slightly contaminatedâ and was sent to the health ship for decontamination.
The second occasion happened three weeks after the explosion, when a helicopter was hovering over the sea in the lee of an island and became contaminated by dust blowing off the island. The following day the contamination had to be washed off the aircraft.
Although Torlesseâs report is detailed, there is at least one interesting omission from it. He records a number of occasions on which ships sailed into areas where the water was contaminated - HMS
Tracker
detected fallout one mile south of Flag island, directly south of Trimouille, on the day of the explosion, for example. But the fact that the ships were still radioactive on their arrival
None of the aircrew who took part in this sampling and tracking operation wore film badges or protective clothing. The safety measures adopted for the Hurricane test specified that anyone who might be exposed had to have special clothing and be supplied with devices to monitor their exposure to radiation, but an exception to this rule was made for aircrew. Back in 1950, the Air Ministry in Britain had sought the advice of scientists at Harwell on whether there was any risk to aircrew flying through the atomic cloud after the explosion. The answer was that aircrew must avoid flying through the
visible
cloud after the explosion but once the cloud could no longer be seen, there would be no danger.
This advice was later proved to be quite wrong. The cloud sampling operation, which involved the collection of samples in special canisters attached to the plane, was considered at the Totem tests the following year to be an âunexpected radiation hazardâ not only for aircrew but for ground staff dealing with the plane once it had landed. When the sampling canisters were removed from RAAF Lincolns which had flown through the cloud at the first Totem explosion, they were so radioactive that they sent Geiger counters off scale when taken into the laboratory for analysis.
As a result of this incident, Australian aircrew at the later tests were provided with protective clothing and film badges. But at Hurricane and Totem, they had neither; radiation dosesreceived by the crew can only be guessed at by relating them to measurements of the radioactivity in the cloud.
Sampling the cloud was not, of course, the only operation which involved exposure to radiation. Helicopters were used to survey the area close to the explosion; salvage teams were sent on to islands to recover a variety of objects which had been left there to establish the effects of blast; ships sailed into contaminated water for various operations, and radioactive waste was stored on HMS
Tracker
and HMS
Zeebrugge.
Men involved in âdirty sortiesâ - expeditions into contaminated areas - went through health control on board HMS
Tracker
when their duties were finished. Torlesseâs report shows that 912 people passed through health control in the twenty-two days after the explosion. Various examples are given in his report of incidents in which men were contaminated.
On the day of the explosion, the only party âsignificantly contaminatedâ was a sortie sent out to recover rocket heads from one of the islands after the explosion. Their hands were judged to be âdirtyâ. On two occasions, helicopters were âmildly contaminatedâ. The first was on the evening of the day the test took place, when a helicopter flew through a fire on Trimouille Island which had been caused by the blast. In this incident, âthe helicopter crew was also slightly contaminatedâ and was sent to the health ship for decontamination.
The second occasion happened three weeks after the explosion, when a helicopter was hovering over the sea in the lee of an island and became contaminated by dust blowing off the island. The following day the contamination had to be washed off the aircraft.
Although Torlesseâs report is detailed, there is at least one interesting omission from it. He records a number of occasions on which ships sailed into areas where the water was contaminated - HMS
Tracker
detected fallout one mile south of Flag island, directly south of Trimouille, on the day of the explosion, for example. But the fact that the ships were still radioactive on their arrival
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