British soldiers were made to stand near a nuclear bomb with just their hands over their eyes, then given a battery of tests. The horrifying consequences and cover-up is the next big scandal, says AL MURRAY By Al Murray Published: 20:38 EDT, 24 July 2024 | Updated: 20:47 EDT, 24 July 2024 e-mail View comments The names are idyllic, evoking heaven on earth: Primrose Island, Crocus Island, Bluebell Island. But this uninhabited scatter of white sandy beaches and azure lagoons on the edge of the Indian Occean is a crime scene in the most scandalous injustice ever inflicted on British troops by their own government.
The Monte Bello islands were the site of the initial British atomic bomb test, the first in a series throughout the Cold War that exposed more than 22,000 unsuspecting National Servicemen to horrific radiation injuries — condemning thousands to lifelong sickness and agonising deaths. Soldiers and sailors lined up on the decks of dozens of ships from the British and Australian navies to witness the blast from just a few miles away on October 3, 1952, during a top secret exercise codenamed Operation Hurricane. ‘We had no protective clothing,’ former Royal Engineer Derek Hickman later recalled.
‘You wore shorts and sandals, and if you remembered to grab your bush hat on the way, that was all you had. They ordered us to turn our backs. We put our hands over our eyes and they counted down over the Tannoy.
There was a sharp flash and I could see the bones in my hands.
