More than 500 young Kiwi sailors were unwitting witnesses to British nuclear testing in the Pacific in the late 1950s. Jimmy Ellingham talks to three men who were there.
One by one they spoke of cancers and birth defects in their children.
Four decades after Operation Grapple, hydrogen-bomb tests off Christmas Island witnessed by New Zealanders on two frigates, HMNZS Rotoiti and Pukaki, the stories were harrowing and the suffering unbearable.
It was the early days of the New Zealand Nuclear Test Veterans’ Association, created through the efforts of navy veteran Roy Sefton, from Palmerston North.
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At the city’s Returned and Services’ Association home, Grapple sailors shared their stories of the tests’ after-effects.
“I knew people were sick. I didn’t know how sick. I didn’t know about the generations,” says Pukaki veteran Clive Strickett.
“That really broke me up.”
Sefton told veterans to bring their wives and children. They told stories of miscarriages and, in extreme cases, babies born with missing limbs.
“There wasn’t a dry face in the place,” Strickett says, remembering the moment when the terrible effects of what they were exposed to hit them.
“Everyone cried. It was so terrible. We decided that we’ve got to do something about this.”
That gathering in the late-1990s was also when fellow Pukaki sailor John Purcell learned what his old mates and their families were going through.
“A person speaking had throat cancer. He was in terrible trouble.
“As I sat there and listened to all the other disabilities that our members and their families have had, I suddenly realised that I had a story to tell as well.”
A chance to see the world
To young men of the 1950s, the navy provided the ticket to travel outside the confines of their homeland.
Stickett, 86, left school young, worked on a farm, found it wasn’t for him, and signed up.
He served in Korea and Malaya, and was involved in Queen Elizabeth and Prince Phillip’s triumphant coronation tour.
In 1958, the Pukaki crew was given its orders and off it sailed to the Pacific where the sailors were told they would be collecting weather data and observing British open-air nuclear tests.
Michael Toomath, 82, was just 17 when he signed on. He was on a ship escorting Sir Edmund Hillary to Antarctica for the Commonwealth-led efforts to cross the continent and was also involved in the royal tour, escorting Her Majesty to the Chatham Islands among other places.
In Russell, Toomath formed part of the guard that welcomed the Queen and Duke of Edinburgh to the town, and Elizabeth almost shook his hand before realising he wasn’t a town dignitary.
“That was as close as I got to the Queen. I’ll never forget it.”
In 1958, Toomath was also on the Pukaki. He says the crew was told it would go no closer than 80 miles (128 kilometres) to the test sites.
Like Strickett, Toomath knew nothing about nuclear tests and the possible effects of radiation.
Purcell, 81, was also 17 when he joined the navy.
“It sounded like a great opportunity for some adventure,” he says. “I was very young and had only travelled beyond Hawke’s Bay once, and that was to Gisborne. I’d certainly never travelled outside of New Zealand.”
He was a freezing worker, but couldn’t see himself watching the clock every day.
At sea on the Pukaki in mid-1958, Purcell found out they were to witness nuclear tests, but wasn’t concerned.
“It was like an adventure.”
In the fallout zone
In August and September 1958, there were five nuclear tests off Christmas Island, south of Indonesia, as Britain looked to match the arsenals held by the United States and Soviet Union.
Strickett saw three, the second of which was huge, 20 times bigger than Hiroshima, he says.
“That’s a huge explosion. That created a huge vapour cloud across the Pacific we had to monitor. We had to monitor it until it evaporated.
“It took days and days to evaporate, so we were under that cloud for a long time.”
It rained. Hard. Pukaki had a problem with its salt water condenser, so an awning was put up to collect rain water for washing and drinking. This potentially exposed the crew to more radiation.
Strickett remembers the explosions as horrific, although they were an amazing sight. Beautiful, some said.
“It was picturesque, but it wasn’t for me. I can’t say I enjoyed it. I don't think we were prepared for it.”
Sailors were told to tuck trousers into socks and cover their eyes. Those on deck sat with their backs to the detonation zone and waited.
“We did that and the bomb went off, and that was it for me. I could see the bones in my hand. It was scary.”
For that second, big bomb, after two minutes the men were told to open their eyes and look towards the blast.
“It was right in front of us... It was huge.”
Purcell saw four tests. Two smaller ones and two big ones, equivalent to 800,000 tonnes and 1 million tonnes of TNT, respectively.
Protective clothing wasn’t up to much, he says – a pair of trousers, hat and gloves.
“It’s so archaic they thought this was the uniform that would assist us with the blast...
“The biggest blast was a huge mushroom that climbed. It took up the whole horizon.”
Purcell also remembers sitting with his back to the blasts, waiting for them to explode as naval officers counted from one to 40.
“The explosions were rumblings in the distance. Then you felt the heat on your back.”
He also saw the bones of his hands, a common memory of Grapple veterans. “That’s the biggest memory I had, really.”
Toomath was below deck for two or three explosions. In recent years he's learned that may have been the worst place to be, as the boiler room sucked in air from outside.
“We had all the radiation coming down.”
But at the time he felt safe.
“I was in the boiler room for one of them. I think that was the biggest one. I know it got pretty hot down there. It was that hot I couldn’t even touch the handrails on the ladders.”
Above deck he saw the Pukaki steaming towards a huge mushroom cloud full of lightning and thunder, but was told not to worry.
“We were just young, innocent. We were up there for adventure.”
The aftermath
Purcell spent 8½ years in the navy before joining the prison service, including being in charge of Napier Prison.
His list of medical ailments is substantial. He doesn’t want to delve into the detail, but it includes cancer.
Purcell gets a war veterans’ pension because of his health, but such support, which was hard-won, does not extend to children or grandchildren of veterans.
In 1966, Purcell’s daughter Lynette was born with a hole in her heart and cerebral palsy. She was never able to sit up unsupported and died in her mid-40s.
Purcell lives in Napier, where he is president of the RSA.
Toomath left in 1964 after about nine years, working in the forestry then dairy industries.
He has suffered from fatigue, stress and joint pain, but the tiredness was the worst, particularly when working on farms.
Purcell and wife Gladys have two daughters, Cherie, born before Operation Grapple, and Wendy, born after.
Wendy was advised not to have children because of the risk they could suffer from defects, leaving Toomath feeling “robbed”.
Toomath and Gladys live on a 1.6 hectare property near Hamilton, with their four cats and six dogs, all retired greyhounds.
Strickett considers himself and his family lucky compared with others, but he’s faced his own health battle.
He left the navy in 1961 as a fit young man and, in the butchery industry, would have to move animal carcasses.
In the late-1990s, when he worked in Auckland, he started getting sick.
He remembers going out to lunch and choking on his food. He was forced to run outside and vomit in a garden.
“You drunken b......,” said a man passing by, unfairly.
It came to a head one day as he was driving a produce delivery truck. He ate a banana, but again started choking and pulled over. A passing policeman helped and called an ambulance.
Doctors were initially baffled, before a North Shore specialist, Michael Booth, consulted an expert in Sydney for a solution to the condition, known as vigorous achalasia.
“My throat was shrivelling up fast. I couldn’t swallow. I couldn’t eat.”
Food was delivered down an uncomfortable tube, before it was decided Strickett needed operating on.
The intricate surgery involved splitting his oesophagus from his throat to his stomach and scraping off the shrivelled tissue. A year later he needed the same operation, but this time surgeons entered from his back.
Strickett and his wife Femmy retired from Auckland to Waikato. His problems returned and, after initially been scheduled for another operation, doctors instead inserted a valve into his stomach through which he is fed.
He’s lived with that since 2009.
“I still believe it came from the H bomb tests.”
They have three children, all of whom have problems other branches of the family don’t suffer from.
Waiting for an apology
Sefton, the Nuclear Test Veterans’ Association’s chairman, died in January, aged 82. Bulls Grapple veteran Tere Tahi, who was aboard the Rotoiti in 1957, has taken over his mate’s mantle and is determined to meet with Prime Minister Jacinda Ardern.
He estimates about 60 veterans survive and the association wants an apology for the young men who were put in harm’s way and the effect the blasts had on their health.
It also wants research undertaken and medical help for children or grandchildren of veterans.
Association patron Al Rowland is a retired Massey academic involved in research that found there was long-term genetic damage to the veterans and their families, but this hasn’t been enough to convince the New Zealand or British Government.
The Veterans’ Affairs website says British authorities had procedures in place to minimise risk. “The precautions were based on the best available knowledge at the time.”
Toomath says support for veterans’ children and grandchildren is crucial, as is understanding the effects of radiation exposure down the generations. He would like to see research into this.
Strickett says he doesn’t need money from a payout, but would like an apology.
Like Toomath he wants the Government to fund research into Grapple veterans’ descendants and for it to push the British Government into acknowledging it was wrong to risk the young sailors’ lives.
Purcell says he’ll write a letter to the latest Veterans’ Affairs Minister, Meka Whaitiri, as he has done to her predecessors.
“What I find hard to accept is the lack of recognition from the Crown that these young boys were handed over to the Government to be treated like guinea pigs.
“If the testing was so safe why didn’t the British carry it out on their own shores?
“All we want is simply a public apology for the treatment of all navel test veterans and their whānau. That’s not hard.”
Purcell and Toomath are featured in a photography exhibition at Te Manawa Art Gallery, Palmerston North, until August.
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