Between Heaven and Hell

by Alan Rimmer

  During Operation Grapple the airfield was the main base for the aircraft used to supply Christmas Island. The story was that in the early days of the operation a young ground crew technician due to fly to Christmas Island was walking on Ben Twitch when he came across an unusual object, a small yellowish skull with a hardwood stick firmly stuck through the top. He idly picked it up and strolled into the village of Limavady where he went for a drink in a local public house. Swinging the stick to and fro, the technician enquired of the assembled company if anyone knew what the strange object was. There was a sharp intake of breath all round, and he was informed the object was a ‘Witch’s Curse’, a very powerful device which should be handled with great care.

  The technician, much amused, decided to take the object with him to Christmas Island to liven things up, as he had heard life out there was pretty dull. As he boarded the plane the following morning he threw the stick together with his bag into the baggage rack at the back. Oddly, there were troubles with the flight from the beginning. The aircraft was beset by technical problems and was delayed for four days. It was then struck by lightning, the radio and radar were knocked out, and two engines failed nearly causing a crash.

  By the time the aircraft reached Christmas Island, the ‘Witch’s curse’ had become the talk of the squadron. In exasperation, the Chief Technical Officer, Wing Commander Ron Boardman, confiscated the device and took it to his superior Air Commodore Weir, who was much intrigued. After a spot of banter, Boardman retired and Weir absently tapped the object on the edge of his desk as he contemplated his charts on the wall. As he did so, he heard a small and unusual noise which he eventually traced to his wristwatch, a beautiful Omega which had been a wedding present from his wife, 25 years ago. Something in the escapement had broken and the hands were whizzing round.

  Weir was amazed and excitedly took the device to show a wide-eyed Oulton, and suggested it be taken on the next ‘live’ drop and dumped at sea, “to help the explosion”. Oulton, didn’t see the joke, and was having none of it: “No! Absolutely not!” he cried in alarm. “I’m not going to tempt fate.” Weir was instructed to take “the thing” away and get rid of it.

  This was an odd reaction from the military commander in overall charge of Britain’s most devastating secret weapon. The supernatural, most people would expect, featured rarely in military circles. But many RAF pilots, especially during the war, were known to be extremely superstitious and often carried charms of various kinds with them on sorties. Oulton was no exception, and it was well known he was a firm believer in fate which stemmed from his childhood.

  Born in 1911, he was a precocious child and won an open Scholarship from Abertillery School to University College Cardiff. From there he passed into the RAF College at Cranwell as a prize cadet with exceptional marks. In 1935 he became a commissioned pilot officer and two years later joined a flying boat squadron at Southampton. In September 1939 he was posted to anti-submarine patrols over the English Channel. His exceptional abilities were soon recognised and in 1943, he was given command of 58 Squadron, a Halifax bomber squadron specially converted for maritime operations. He was soon embroiled in Britain’s life and death struggle to keep the seaways open for the convoys, who were taking a terrible mauling in the Atlantic from the marauding U-boat wolf packs. His first ‘kill’ was the German U-boat U-663 which surfaced in the rough seas of the Bay of Biscay. Oulton attacked with depth charges causing it to sink with no survivors. Eight days later, his crew spotted U-463. Oulton took his plane into a steep dive and released six depth charges that blew the sub out of the water. At the end of the same month, he attacked and crippled U-563, a submarine that had sunk 10 allied ships. Follow-up aircraft finished it off.

  Oulton was awarded the DFC and the DSO and was mentioned in dispatches three times during his war service. His swash-buckling adventures attracted the attention of Winston Churchill who chose him as an aide when he made a visit to see President Roosevelt. He was soon playing host to General, later President, Eisenhower at a base in the Azores. Eisenhower was so impressed he asked how he could repay him for the hospitality. Oulton suggested some fruit for his men and was surprised when a short time later a whole plane load of oranges arrived.

  After the war he became the first RAF director of the joint anti-submarine School at Londonderry, but then in his own words, “destiny beckoned”. The RAF’s top commanders summoned him to a secret location where he was told: “we’ve got a job for you. We want you to go out and drop a bomb somewhere in the central Pacific Ocean and take a picture of it with a Brownie camera.”

  Oulton was nonplussed…until he was told the bomb in question was a “thermo-nuclear’ megaton H-bomb…”

  “Good God,” he muttered, overcome with emotion. It was fate: his scientist father Llewellyn Oulton had been there at the dawn of the nuclear age, as a member of Sir Ernest Rutherford’s team of physicists that worked on splitting the atom. The novel and almost limitless possibilities of nuclear power had been a regular feature of discussions in the Oulton household when he was a boy. Now fate had chosen him to play a pivotal role in the release of that mystical power.

  Oulton hurled all his considerable energies into the task of organising, supplying and conveying 4,000 men half way across the world. It was a wonderful adventure and Oulton relished the challenge of carrying out a vital military operation against the romantic backdrop of swaying palm trees and white sands. His was a bygone world where friends and colleagues were all part of the cosy Old Boy network, and where everyone seemed to be called “Chalky”, or “Ginger.” And at first it all went swimmingly until, in his mind at least, the elemental collided with the paranormal in the form of the ‘Witch’s Curse’. Suddenly Oulton’s dream turned into a nightmare.

  Mishaps, big and small, were now ascribed to its supernatural powers. One of the most startling examples came prior to the second drop of the Grapple series when the very large and unstable uranium core for the massive fail-safe atomic bomb malfunctioned in the assembly hangar at Christmas Island.

  Chief scientist Bill Cook was overseeing a group of technicians who were gently screwing together two copper hemispheres surrounding the radioactive core when they became stuck. The technicians first tried to uncouple the two hemispheres to start all over again. But the assemblage was stuck fast. Two more technicians were summoned to apply more pressure. For nearly an hour, sweat dripping down their necks, the taut scientific team tried to dislodge the two hemispheres by gradually increasing the force whilst simultaneously trying not to disturb the delicate radioactive core. All to no avail; the thing was solid.

  As the tension mounted, a warrant officer, pressed into trying to uncouple the spheres, suggested that the only thing left to do was to “clout it.” The scientists looked at each other in dismay, but after a short while agreed that, indeed, that was the only course of action left, short of cabling back to Britain for a replacement.

  Watched by the others and with a nonchalance no-one else felt, the warrant officer rummaged around in his tool box and fished out a seven-pound, copper-headed sledge hammer. An assistant was positioned with hands supporting the two hemispheres to absorb the shock. After a deep breath the warrant officer gave the flange round the middle of the radioactive core a hefty thump. After a short heart-stopping moment, the warrant officer once again tried to screw the hemisphere’s together. They moved “as smooth as silk,” according to Oulton who gratefully retired to the mess bar with Cook for ‘a fortifying drink.’ (It was a past-time they indulged in a lot).

  Fortunately everything went well with the rest of the preparations. The newly-assembled bomb, code-named Orange Herald, was borne aloft in Valiant XD822 and released at the correct height and position. But then, another heart-stopper: a sudden instrument failure caused the bomber to stall and go into a high-speed spin during its escape manoeuvre. Only superb airmanship by pilot David Roberts prevented a catastrophe.

  His Official Record Book entry states that the operation ran i
nto a “critical situation” when the Valiant bomber stalled shortly after the weapon was dropped. He wrote:

  The bomb was released at 10.44 and after a slight pause I initiated a steep turn to port. Simultaneously, the aircraft stalled and the bomb aimer, who was making for his seat, returned to the bomb aimer’s well with some force.

  Oulton ordered a news blackout. The press, who had been invited along to record events, were given no inkling of the drama overhead. The crew was not made available for interviews as had been planned, and only the scarcest of details about the drop were issued. All they were told was that there had been a successful H-bomb drop and there had been negligible fallout. Neither statement was true: the bomb was a giant A-bomb which caused considerable radioactivity because of its almost pure uranium core. Oulton was uncharacteristically glum as he attended the traditional “after-bomb” party aboard HMS Warrior that evening. He knew the difficult challenges to make a fully working hydrogen bomb had not yet been resolved.

  The third, and final test in the series, took place on June 19th but this failed dismally; it was the lowest yield yet. And this test also brought with it another series of frustrating failures and calamities: A Hastings with vital supplies had to make an emergency landing after its undercarriage failed, and a Shackleton bomber was nearly lost after three of its four engines failed on the 400-mile trip from Malden to Christmas Island. Four Avenger aircraft on board HMS Warrior had to be jettisoned over the side because their engines were too radioactive for further use. One of the pilots nearly lost his life when the last Avenger crashed on take off. Oulton was often seen sitting alone outside his tent contemplating the sunset and no doubt pondering his fate.

  Meanwhile back in Britain, Penney and his team were summoned to Whitehall for crisis talks. Penney bluntly told Defence Minister Duncan Sandys that further work was needed if they were going to build a ‘true’ H-bomb and they needed to conduct further tests to ensure it worked. An impatient Sandys said that was all very well, but time was running out. The international ban on testing might be only months away.

  In August 1957 Prime Minister Harold MacMillan held an uncomfortable meeting at Aldermaston with Penney. It was acknowledged the first set of tests in the Pacific had not produced a working H-bomb design. All Britain had to show so far was a massive A-bomb masquerading as an H-bomb. But it would have to do. The weapon was rushed into service with the RAF. Dubbed the interim weapon, it would be carried by Vulcan bombers in the event of nuclear war.

  But this contingency brought its own problems because to deliver the yield required, the bombs had to be filled with huge amounts of highly unstable uranium 235 which apart from being dangerously volatile was also enormously expensive. Bomber Command, which had to take control of the bombs, was not happy. It was thought too tricky a weapon to handle because if damaged, say in transport, the core’s sub-critical masses could come into contact with each other, causing a meltdown.

  And of course if they caught fire the consequences would have been catastrophic. The Chiefs of Air Staff were also not happy with the safety measures installed in the bomb, which amounted to inserting thousands of ball-bearings into a rubber bag “similar to a feminine condom” and lowered into the core. This may have made the weapon safe. But if it became necessary to use it, the ball-bearings had to be drained from the core. This took at the very least 15 minutes, sometimes longer. The RAF required a weapon they could keep at four minutes alert.

  There were angry exchanges between Bomber Command and Aldermaston with the RAF bigwigs accusing the scientists of “selling them a lemon.” If there was an international crisis, Britain would be virtually defenceless in nuclear terms. The bad-tempered row rumbled on.

  But while everyone was arguing, Penney quietly got on with the major problem of building a ‘true’ hydrogen bomb. The breakthrough came when he was given access to the latest US computer technology. To everyone’s immense relief Penney was soon able to tell the Prime Minister that he believed he could now design a better bomb thanks to the number crunching power of Aldermaston’s new electronic computer, recently arrived from America. All he needed was a few more tests in the Pacific.

  So they got to work; they investigated faults and deficiencies, and their new IBM computer was helping enormously. Finally they came up with a new design a hybrid, a cross between an atomic and hydrogen bomb, similar to a design already successfully tested by the Russians.

  Preparations to test the new design code-name Grapple X got under way. There was much more confidence in the success of this bomb and American observers were invited to the trial. It was hoped that they would be so impressed by Britain’s development of the H-bomb that collaboration between the two countries would be restored.

  The task took on a new urgency when the Soviet Union launched Sputnik 1, the first artificial earth satellite, in early October 1957. This event shocked the Americans to the core. It caused a widespread feeling of national humiliation. The launch vehicle, a large ICBM, was already in use and showed that the Soviet Union was capable of hitting targets anywhere on the earth’s surface. Up to then, the United States had always felt secure in its superior technology. Now suddenly the balance of power had shifted.

  The event was viewed in Britain as an immense opportunity to seek improved nuclear defence co-operation. The pressure for results was intense. A fateful decision was taken, to save both time and money. But it was enormously risky, especially for the thousands of support troops, for it was decided that Grapple X, would be detonated over Christmas Island, instead of 400 miles south at Malden island.

  Oulton credited himself for this extremely risky decision, describing how it came about as he and Cook strolled along the foreshore at Christmas Island drinking the inevitable gin and tonics. Oulton recalled: “Cook said to me, ‘I’m sorry to have to tell you Wilf, but we’ve got to do it all over again.’ That was the first inkling I had of it. I said, how soon? And he said as soon as possible and I said how soon is as soon as possible and he said certainly not more than three months.”

  That was a tremendous shock to Oulton, who said: “We were completely exhausted, both manpower-wise and equipment-wise. And effectively to do the whole thing over again at Malden Island would have meant another 18 months, which we didn’t have. And so I thought well we could perhaps do it at Christmas Island. So after 10 minutes thought I said to Bill: ‘It is 30 miles from here to the south-east point of the island. I think we could do it here. All the information we had at that date said 30 miles would be OK. Cook said everything couldn’t be a hundred per cent sure, but it seemed a very reasonable proposition.’”

  This was a dangerous decision involving many risks, not least to the thousands of servicemen on the island who would now be placed in close proximity to enormous nuclear forces. This, naturally enough, led to fears for their safety. Penney was also worried when the decision was conveyed to him. His team was confident the new bomb would produce a big bang. It was a boosted design incorporating large quantities of lithium-6, but they had no way of knowing just how big it would be. They were in uncharted territory, and there were real fears the bomb might get out of control with unknown consequences.

  In the middle of all this came news of a disaster which threatened to jeopardise the whole operation. On October 10 there was a catastrophic fire in a nuclear reactor at Windscale which was producing the uranium for the weapon. A vast quantity of radiation was released into the atmosphere. There was a threat to milk supplies in 150 farms in a 200 mile radius around the site. Newsreels showed urns of milk being emptied into drains. The whole area was put on standby for evacuation.

  Prime Minister Macmillan was in a panic. Not only did he have CND breathing down his neck, but the incident threatened to derail delicately poised negotiations with America over nuclear cooperation. He summoned Penney to sort the mess out. One of his first priorities was to ensure the fire didn’t prevent sufficient radioactive fuel from getting to Christmas Island.

  Penney, dragged
from his desk at Aldermaston, set up an inquiry which duly reported to Macmillan on October 28. Faults in “procedure and organisation” were blamed. More specifically there were accusations the cause of the catastrophe was the pressure the managers were under to produce the fissile material for the nuclear bombs. Penney was scathing in his criticism of the way the site was managed. The Prime Minister wasn’t happy with the findings: “How do we deal with Penney’s report?” he pondered gloomily in his diary on October 30. “It has, of course, been prepared with scrupulous honesty and even ruthlessness.”

  Macmillan feared if the full extent of the failings at Windscale were to be publicly revealed, US-UK nuclear collaboration might be ended by those in America who did not want to help Britain. He decided on only a partial release of Penney’s report on the grounds of national security. The result was that Penney was blamed unfairly in many circles. Opponents in the closed scientific community accused him of conducting a whitewash. Penney, ever the patriot, took it on the chin and returned to Aldermaston.

  ON THE BRINK

  Meanwhile back in the Pacific, the forthcoming H-bomb test was spawning feverish rumours among the servicemen. One wild claim was that Christmas Island, perched as it was perilously on top of an extinct volcano was, in the event of an H-bomb explosion, in danger of tipping up and depositing the troops into the abyss. Another was the island was so low-lying that a large explosion could cause a vast tsunami to overwhelm the island

  Oulton and Cook discussed the problems as they sat drinking on the patio of the mess tent with the Pacific waves lapping at their feet. The Task Force Commander was at low ebb. He confided to Cook he just wanted to get off the “infernal island” as quickly as possible. Cook was worried about the effects any delays in preparations might have on morale. He decided to make a flying visit to Aldermaston to smooth over any last minute problems. Air Commodore Denis Wilson, the RAF’s most senior medical officer, had joined the discussion. He was concerned about possible health effects on the men and decided to accompany Cook. Wilson had made a speciality of the effects of radiation on the human body and wanted to check problems of possible contamination on the island after the explosion. It was up to him to establish the safe limits for the amount of radiation a person could absorb. He had always erred on the cautious side, but he told Oulton the radiation safety limits might now have to be recalibrated upwards. Oulton said they had better sort the problems out “pretty damn quick” and placed a Canberra at their disposal instead of the usual Shackleton which was very much slower.