This blog has been created due to Dr Charles Winstanley's letter to the BNTVA outlining the decision of the Advisory Military Sub-Committee concerning the BNTVA application for a medal for British nuclear test veterans from 1952-1991, submitted in August 2019. There has been much debate within the British nuclear community about the risk and rigour demonstrated within the application. There have been three medal applications by the BNTVA - the first application in 2012 in the Jeff Liddiatt era, this application by Susie Boniface and Alan Owen, and the third application submitted on the 8 June 2021. In fact, risk had been demonstrated in 2013 according to the August minutes of the previous AMSC.

"Further Claims for Medallic Recognition

(Extract from the minutes of the meeting of the Advisory Military Sub-Committee of the Committee on the Grant of Honours, Decorations and Medals held on 29 August 2013)

Jon Thompson – Permanent Secretary MOD – Chairman.

Vice-Admiral Bob Cooling – ex Royal Navy representative.

Major General Nick Cottam – ex Army representative.

Air Vice-Marshal Tony Stables – ex RAF representative.

Sir John Holmes – Adviser to the AMSC. 

13. Claim from Servicemen who witnessed the Atmospheric Nuclear Tests in the Pacific in late 1950 and early 1960

This claim is for those servicemen who believe they were exposed to the risk of radiation when serving in the Pacific in the 1950s, when they were involved in helping set up and observe nuclear testing, without being advised properly or consulted.

Comment

There seems little doubt that the servicemen involved in the nuclear tests were not given a proper account of the risks they were running and therefore have a genuine grievance. However the other aspect of the criteria for medallic recognition i.e. rigour, was not there. It is not clear that medallic recognition is the right way for the Government to recognise this risk and there may be other ways for them to do so. Nevertheless there is a case for the review to take a closer look at this, since it is not clear how the issue will be tackled otherwise.

AMSC Recommendation:

Disagree – not for review. The sub-committee felt that this was not the type of operational duty that would normally be recognised by the award of a medal. The sub-committee was mindful that there were ongoing claims for compensation by some of this group of veterans and it would be inappropriate for any medal review to potentially impact upon that." 

Below is the medal application written by Susie Boniface on behalf of the BNTVA:

The UK Nuclear Weapons Testing Programme was the biggest, most important and potentially deadly tri-service operation since the D-Day landings. More than 22,000 personnel, many  of  them  on  National  Service,  took  part  in preparing, detonating, measuring and witnessing the bombs.

This application does not rely on the well-known belief of many veterans that they were irradiated. It is irrelevant to the risk and rigour of their service and their argument for official recognition. But it is important to bear in mind these were experiments, and no-one at the time was sure they would be conducted with  success.  The  chances  of  something  going  wrong of  a  mis-timed explosion,  or  badly  made  device,  possibly  claiming  thousands  of  lives  in  an instant-were immense.

Such tests could and would never be conducted today. This is not just because of  21st  century  sensitivities  about  the  environmental  or  humanitarian  impact. Even at the time these tests were conducted, it was against a background of worldwide  disapproval,  impending  testing  bans,  and  the  clear  knowledge among  scientists  and  the  government  that  radiation  carried  dreadful  risks,  of not  only  death  but  also  genetic  mutation,  as  noted  by  the  Medical  Research Council in 1947(see notes). That is why the tests were conducted in the furthest

reaches of the British Empire, rather than in the UK. It is why we wanted such a weapon in the first place.

Indeed,  many  of  the  veterans  report  getting  'Dear  John'  letters  from  their girlfriends back at home, terrified any future children would be affected. Whether these fears were well-grounded or not, they existed. The constant peril of Soviet invasion from the Eastern bloc, and of international nuclear war with all the horrors that entailed, were part of the veterans' daily lives both in and out of service.

Despite those risks, and perhaps because of them, the 22,000 men stepped up to do their duty with a valour of a sort that has not been seen before or since. Single,  married,  in  love  or  in  hope  of  it,  they  all  believed  that  their  country needed them to engage with an invisible, and deadly, enemy. Even today the government  insists  the  nuclear  deterrent  is  necessary  simply  because  of  its horrifying ability to extinguish and damage all living things within a vast area. These men went did battle with it.

That  is  the  challenge  these  men  met,  with  discipline,  good  grace  and  willing sacrifice. It was no less risky because they were not being shot at - it was more risky,  simply  because  they  were  fighting  to  ensure  no-one  ever fired  such weapons at Britain.

Their service was not an easy one. Engineers built runways on shifting coral sands, maintained generators, built desalination plants. Sailors patrolled vast oceans, RAF mechanics maintained planes, signallers, scientists and officers worked around the clock to do what must be done. Many were not told of their mission  before they  left  port, and  many  were  told after  being  in  theatre  for  a year that they would need to stay another year to get the job done. That is the job of any serviceman, but in the UK nuclear weapons testing programme it all took  place  8,000  miles  from  home,  on  a  deployment  with  little  if  any  outside contact,  under  immense  public,  governmental  and  scientific  pressure  to produce a safe and certain thermonuclear weapon in a hurry. The scientists asked for, and received, extra pay because of the risks they were running. The military personnel did not. They completed their service, in some cases with only an inkling of the risks involved, while wearing most days only

cotton  shorts  and  boots.  AWE  staff  who  worked  alongside  them, meanwhile, wore full radiation protection for the time.

A  medal  was  never  an  option  for  work  done in  such  immense  secrecy,  and which upon their return to the UK was considered by much of the public to be a  shameful  episode  in  the  nation's  history.  But  in  recent  years,  hitherto unknown facts have emerged about the scale of the risks these men ran. At Monte Bello in 1952, sailors were ordered to sail through fallout to discover the  effect  on ships  and  men.  They  did  so  twice,  for  a  total  of  16  hours,  and remained on board that ship – HMS Diana - for a year, diverted on its way back to the UK

in the Suez Crisis. Its captain, John Gower DSC, later said his vessel was still radioactive and asked publicly why it and his crew were never checked after their mission for what he believed would have been militarily - useful data.

At Emu Field and Maralinga the men worked and lived in areas which saw 700 'minor trials' of trigger devices. Eyewitnesses describe "jets of molten, burning plutonium  extending  hundreds  of  feet  into  the  air".  Op  Hercules  cleaned  up Maralinga  in  1964,  only  for  it  be  done  again  in Op  Brumby  three  years  later when plutonium found on the surface was buried in 22 pits and covered in 650 tons  of  concrete.  In  the  1990s, the  Australian  Radiological Protection  and Nuclear Safety Agency spent 5 years burying a further 200,000 cubic metres of topsoil  after  finding  large  amounts  of  plutonium - 239,  which  has  a  half - life  of 24,000 years. The land was not considered safe enough to be returned to its Aboriginal owners until 2009; how it can therefore be considered to have been safe  for  thousands  of  servicemen  during  these  trials,  and  during  the  latter, unsuccessful clean-ups, has never been explained.

At Christmas Island MoD records show safety measures observed at earlier, smaller tests were thrown out of the window in Op Grapple to get an H-Bomb before an imminent testing ban. The NRPB health studies report that while 96% of those men at Op Hurricane in 1952 had radiation dose badges, just 3% of those at Grapple Y in 1958 had any checks on their exposure (see notes). The men not only felt at risk, but those who had the responsibility for ensuring they were  not  exposed  to  unnecessary  danger  had  stopped  checking.  There  can therefore be no grounds to claim the risk was small or non-existent - no proper assessment  was  done  at  the  time,  and  it  is  clear,  from  the  common-sense perspective of history, the risks were great.

Archive documents have been released that show blood tests, and white blood cell counts, were taken before some of the explosions, but ministers have told Parliament it is not possible to provide the results. Many veterans report missing sections in their medical records. Parliament has heard how veterans told they had no dosimeter record because they did not work with radiation can produce photographs of them wearing such badges. At  clean-up  operations,  and  at  US  tests  in  Nevada  for  which  British  service personnel were provided, there is now clear evidence that officials were aware of risks that men were not adequately protected from, in some cases even by the standards of the day.

In 2009 the MoD admitted on the eve of a court case that around 10% of those who took part were possibly exposed - in sniff planes sent on cloud - sampling missions of both our own and other countries' atomic weapons; of maintenance crew; of Op Buffalo indoctrinees ordered to walk and crawl through fallout to test the ability of uniforms to hold the toxic particles; and on HMS Diana, to name just a few.

Ministry  of  Defence  assertions  that  most  of the  men  received  no  'significant' exposure, and that rules were followed about safe dose limits, has long been made irrelevant by the view of the international scientific community that there is no safe dose for radiation. Any may carry a risk. Any may be significant, to an individual.

And regardless of exposure, the risks themselves carried a cost. Many veterans report  symptoms  of  PTSD,  and a  University  of  Southampton  study this  year found that the many subsequent decades of uncertainty about what, if anything, they were exposed to has led to elevated rates of depression and anxiety not only in the veterans but in their wider families. The  psychological  damage  done  not  just  by  the  fearful environment,  and terrifying explosions, in circumstances no serviceman would today be happy to serve in, has been made immeasurably worse by the long decades of denial and obfuscation by successive governments. This may have been necessary, in  terms  of  national  security - it  is  not,  however,  principled  or  humane.  It  is certainly  against  the  spirit  of  the  Military  Covenant,  which  says  that  some veterans may  deserve  special  treatment  by  the  state  in  light  of  the  nature  of their service.

There has also been great moral damage done to the veterans, due to not just the valour they showed in the face of ineffable risks but the way in which that service  was  later  considered  unworthy  of  recognition.  In  2013,  following  the Holmes review, their case for a medal was considered for the first time by the previous AMSC. It was decided they should not get a medal while there was ongoing litigation about the claims of ill health. Such litigation had ended a year earlier at the Supreme Court, with no chance of further appeal, which makes this reason for refusal invalid. The only other possibility of litigation would be ongoing  war  pension  claims but  as  these  will  likely  continue  until  the  last veteran has died, the logic of the 2013 decision, if it hinged on this, would mean a medal would be considered only after no veteran is left alive to receive one.

That same AMSC agreed a medal for the Arctic Convoy veterans, on the basis that President Putin had conferred one on 47 British veterans. A medal of some sort  for  atomic  veterans  has  been  awarded  by  the  governments  of  the  USA, Australia, New Zealand, Russia, France, China, and Canada. They have all, as well as the Isle of Man and Fiji, set up a system of either ex gratia payments, priority healthcare or war pensions for their test veterans. Some of them have even  compensated  British  veterans  who  are  refused  such  recognition  in  this country.

For  the  reasons  laid out  above,  and  using  the  AMSC’s  published  terms  of reference,  we  submit  that  there  is  ample  evidence  that  the  issue  was not considered  properly  in  2013.  The  decision  taken  was  for  reasons  that  had nothing to do with risk or rigour, but with an eye to possible litigation that has never  been applied  to  other  cases  of  medallic  recognition.  The  decision  was also  inconsistent  with recent decisions  creating  the  Arctic Star, the  Elizabeth Cross, the Bomber Command clasp, and the Ebola medal. We ask you to agree also that significant evidence has come to light that had not been considered previously. The facts relied upon in 2013 and earlier have now  been  proven  unsound,  both  by  archival  documents,  official  statements, media  investigation and  scientific  research. And there  has  been a  manifestly unfair  approach  to  this  particular  veteran  community.  As  their  service  was utterly unique , and not reflected anywhere outside the atomic weapons tests, there can be no sound argument that to honour these veterans would create inconsistencies  elsewhere.  Indeed,  the official  treatment of  this  particular community to date has been to single it out for not being the ‘right’ sort of veteran: with stories people wanted to hear, or wounds people could see. To award  them  a  medal  would  not only  recognise  their  unquestionable  bravery, but would end an inconsistency.

The  UK  is  the  last  nuclear  nation  on  Earth - with  the  possible  exceptions  of Israel and North Korea, about whose weapons programmes little is known - to refuse any form of official state recognition to its atomic veterans. Our request for a medal has long been supported by all political parties. In 2007 Gordon  Brown  said  the  country  owed  the  test  veterans  a  debt  of  honour.  In 2011  Liam  Fox  said  it  was  "time  to  be  seen  to  do  the  right  thing".  Last  year Gavin Williamson said it was time "for a fresh look". The chair of the Defence Select Committee, Dr Julian Lewis MP, has also backed our calls for a medal or  clasp.  Today  our  patron  is  Sir  John  Hayes,  Conservative  MP  for  South Holland and The Deepings, and our campaign in Parliament is led jointly by him and Tom Watson, deputy leader of the Labour Party. As a result of their efforts we have received the backing of more than 40 MPs and peers.

We  have  had  immense  and  long - term  support  of  our  claims  from  the  British media,  in  particular  the  Daily  Mirror,  which  has  reported  on  our  case  for  30 years. Last year we got more than 10,000 names backing a medal on an official government  petition,  and  the  Mirror  produced  a  dedicated  website  called DAMNED which has brought us new support from around the world. There is clear public and Parliamentary support for medallic recognition.

A 2007 peer-reviewed genetic study found extensive evidence of DNA damage to test veterans compared to the rest of the population, and an extension to this work looking at whether their reported illnesses are linked to such damage is currently underway at Brunel University. Regardless of what this may prove, it is clear that the long-stated refusal to acknowledge the risk and rigour of the veterans' UK atomic weapons service is no longer a tenable position. The only issue left is whether they showed courage in the face of danger: a question best answered by each of us asking ourselves whether we would turn our faces to the same.

These  servicemen  played  a  uniquely  dangerous  role,  unparalleled  in  UK military  history,  in  creating  the  nuclear  deterrent  that  has  helped  to  keep  the peace  ever  since.  As  a  nation,  we  owe  them  respect  and  thanks,  as  well  as remorse for their treatment to date. A  medal  does  not  in  any  way  support  contentious  claims about  radiation exposure. The risks these men ran existed whether they were exposed or not.

Honouring this truth is simply the decent thing to do. For  many  of  those  still  struggling  with  their  memories  and  ill  health,  most  of whom are now in their 80s, a medal would be a dignified nod of thanks from the young    Queen    they    were    happy    to    risk    everything    for,  a simple acknowledgement that what they did for their country is appreciated. It will be the order to finally stand at ease, and cease fighting the enemy they could never see.

NOTES:

ARPANSA report on Maralinga contamination: https://damned.mirror.co.uk/img/docs/maralinga.pdf

Ministerial statements on blood and urine tests:

https://www.parliament.uk/business/publications/written-questions-answers-statements/written-questions-answers/?page=1&max=20&questiontype=AllQuestions&house=commons&member=1463&keywords=blood

HMS Diana:

https://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/uknews/1574676/HMS-Diana-the-ship-that-went-nuclear.html

Hansard report of Parliamentary debate: bit.ly/2HmH3Em

University of Southampton study: https://exposure.press/nuclear-families/

Rowland study: https://pdfs.semanticscholar.org/82b7/8b5961f6e58ba0eb055a50ac9f87c2a3636a.pdf

DAMNED: http://damned.mirror.co.uk/

Parliamentary support:

https://www.mirror.co.uk/news/politics/nuclear-veterans-campaign-jeremy-corbyn-12663472

Please see attached PDFs ‘Catcheside’ for Medical Research Council evidence from 1947

Please see pp 9-12 of attached NRPB analysis for data on dose badge distribution, service personnel, and number of tests served at.

There's just one question. Do you think that this application demonstrated enough risk and rigour to satisfy the AMSC?