Between Heaven and Hell

by Alan Rimmer

  Grapple X had provided valuable information about the fusion processes that had baffled the scientists so far. Now they believed they had the means to make a ‘pure’ H-bomb without the need for a huge atomic bomb as the trigger. Early 1958 was the deadline given to the scientists to perfect and test the new weapon.

  By this time Oulton had been relieved of his command of Christmas Island, and replaced by Air Vice Marshal John Grandy, another former Battle of Britain ace. Whether or not Oulton’s arguments with Defence Minister Sandys had anything to do with this decision is a matter for conjecture. But it could well be the High Command was more concerned about his continued obsession with the ‘Witch’s Curse.’ Oulton was still displaying his worrying obsessions months later.

  He makes a point in his memoirs of recounting how Wing Commander Ken Hubbard went out to HMS Warrior for a farewell party prior to its departure for England. According to Oulton he took with him the Witch’s Curse, concealed in his jacket. As the party got into full swing, Hubbard popped the device behind a picture over the wardroom fireplace. Oulton was clearly worried if the ‘curse’ had had any effect on Warrior and quizzed Commodore Roger Hicks about the trip home when they met for lunch at the Services Club on Pall Mall.

  Oulton recalled: “Hicks said he had never had such a bloody awful trip in his life. It had all started well enough visiting Ratotonga and Pitcairn Island. But then came a series of calamities. His boat had been stolen in Callao! They’d had a very rough passage round the Horn. At Buenos Aires, the splendid ceremony of ‘Beating the Retreat’ laid on by the Royal Marines had been a disaster in a torrential rainstorm. In Rio a lot of the ship’s company had had a stand-up fight with the police. Then they had come through that hurricane which had sunk the famous German sailing ship Pamir and caused immense damage to Warrior particularly to a lot of stuff in the ward-room on which the insurance had lapsed…” Oulton of course wasn’t at all surprised by this list of calamities, although he thought it wise not to inform the Commodore of the Witch’s Curse lurking behind the wardroom picture.

  But he felt duty bound to speak out when the Warrior was later sold to the Argentine Navy with inevitable (in Oulton’s mind) consequences. Warrior, now renamed the Independencia was beset by a series of catastrophes resulting in the Argentine Navy’s Commander in Chief being court marshalled. Oulton invited the Argentine Naval Attache in London to lunch and told him about the Witch’s Curse. It is not recorded what comment the official made, but Oulton reported: “He turned quite pale.”

  Thankfully Oulton’s strange fixation had no effect on Penney who assembled his scientists at Aldermaston for the last “great push.” He outlined his plan for Grapple Y and told them to smooth out any final problems with the design. At a meeting on January 10, 1958 it was announced the bomb was ready.

  Penney also had a surprise for the assembled company: he told them he would be flying to Christmas Island to take personal charge of the drop. His deputy Bill Cook, who had thus far been the man on the ground made no comment. The decision didn’t surprise those in the know, however. It was whispered there had been a certain amount of ‘bad blood’ between the pair since the failure of the first series. Cook, apparently blamed Penney for bringing “duff information” back from America; Penney blamed Cook for the string of failures and mishaps.

  They put their differences aside as they prepared to showcase Grapple Y to the world, but the problems that seemed to beset the Grapple project were not over yet.

  DITCHED

  On the 26 February, 1958, Grapple Y, the biggest bomb Britain would ever build, the bomb destined to make the world sit up, toppled off the back of a lorry and rolled into a ditch.

  The accident occurred near the small village of Wansford in Cambridgeshire as the truck, travelling in a heavily-guarded convoy, encountered a fierce blizzard that had brought much of the east coast of Britain to a standstill. Struggling up a steep incline, the convoy slithered to a halt ten miles short of RAF Wittering, Bomber Command’s main V-bomber nuclear strike base. The specially modified Foden truck, its contents shielded by black tarpaulin, went into an uncontrolled slide, mounted the kerb and toppled over on its side into a ditch. The driver managed to scramble clear and was gingerly examining the contents of the truck as armed guards swarmed everywhere, closing the road and forming a protective cordon.

  Emergency calls went out to Aldermaston and RAF Wittering. In the gathering gloom, a detachment of men was deployed to try to clear the snow, but two hours later the convoy was still stuck fast. A decision was taken to wait until morning before attempting to get it moving again. Meanwhile rations and blankets were sent out to the men who had been ordered to stay with the vehicles. A group of armed airmen arrived to help guard the convoy.

  Some time later a clutch of scientists and technicians sent from Aldermaston approached the stricken Foden and peeled back the heavy folds of the tarpaulin covering. In the harsh glare of hastily erected arc lights, the darkly glistening metallic casing of the huge bomb was revealed. It was 24-feet in length, five in diameter and weighed 8,000 lbs. It appeared to be undamaged, which must have been a considerable relief to the scientists and the War Office, not to mention their political masters in Whitehall.

  Grapple Y was more impressive than Grapple X. It was another ‘layer-cake’ device with an atomic trigger, but with less uranium-235 and considerably more lithium-7 deuteride. Various other modifications were also incorporated, and the scientists now believed they had the weapon that would blow away any remaining doubts about Britain’s credentials for membership of the megaton club. But it was still an experimental weapon and was so unstable that a file supplied with the weapon emphasised the absolute requirement that the bomb could only be assembled under the strict supervision of scientists from AWRE. RAF Wittering, home of No. 49 Squadron was where the bomb was to be loaded aboard one of the distinctive white-painted Vickers Valiant bombers, for its 10,000-mile journey to Christmas Island.

  Now the bomb was lying on its side in a snow-drift on the A1. There were more than a few heads-in-hands in Whitehall that night. William Penney must have been in despair. Oulton, if he had known about it, doubtless would have blamed the Witch’s Curse. Much to the relief of the assembled scientists, there appeared to be little damage to the awesome weapon. The Operations Record Book at RAF Wittering for 26 February 1958 states:-

  Owing to heavy falls of snow, a convoy from AWRE was stuck in a snow drift at Wansford Hill at 1500hr. An officer from this unit was sent to investigate. At 1700hr the vehicle was still unable to be moved. Rations and bedding were sent to the convoy from AWRE and an officer and a team of airmen were detailed to stand by throughout the night to give help if required. It was not until the following day that vehicles began using the A1. The convoy arrived at the main guard room at 1200 hr. Personnel were sent immediately for a meal. Unloading was commenced at 1400hr…”

  The measured tone of the report was in stark contrast to the way James Challinor, a local garage owner, who was put on standby with his pick-up truck on the afternoon of the accident. He recalled: “I was in my workshop when there was a tremendous hammering on my door. When I went round I was confronted by a group of armed soldiers in a land-rover. They said they needed my pick-up and I followed them up to Wansford Hill. By this time the weather had really closed in and it was dark. Up ahead I could see some considerable activity. There were vehicles all over the place with lights flashing everywhere. Men were waving their arms and shouting orders; there was a hell of a flap. It was chaos.”

  Mr Challinor was ordered to wait some distance away, but he could clearly see a ring of armed servicemen surrounding a lorry that had pitched into a ditch. He was eventually told that his pick-up wasn’t required and that he could go home. He distinctly remembered one of the soldiers cautioning him not to talk about what he had seen. It was only years later that he learned what had happened. He recalled: “I had no idea what it was all about at the time, and no-one told me anything. But if I had k
nown then what I know now I would have gotten out of there as fast as I could, armed men or not.”

  Of course the device was not armed: there was no way there was going to be a mushroom cloud blooming over the Cambridgeshire countryside that snowy afternoon. But unless the British government is prepared to open up the archives, there is no way of knowing if the fissile core had already been installed. The assembly work for the bombs was usually carried out on Christmas Island, but Grapple Y was such a special bomb that it is possible that only the firing mechanism had to be installed. To give some idea of what could have happened, you only had to look at a terrifying event that occurred just two days later involving two American bombers at the Greenham Common air base.

  At 4.25pm on February 28, 1958 a US B-47 aircraft awaiting take-off on the runway was engulfed in fireball when a wing-tip tank carrying 1,700 gallons of fuel from another B-47 flying overhead was accidentally dropped. The fuel tank landed just 65 feet behind the parked aircraft, igniting on impact and engulfing the plane. Both aircraft were from 310th Bomb Wing (part of 3909th Combat Support Group) which carried Mark V nuclear bombs with yields up to 60 kilotons. Each warhead had a plutonium core surrounded by enriched uranium and TNT high explosive. The enriched uranium is used to increase the bomb’s yield.

  If there was a fire both the enriched uranium and plutonium would be released in the form of a deadly oxide powder. Both aircraft were destroyed in the fire which was allowed to burn out because of the intensity of the blaze. The base commander Colonel Arthur Cresswell issued a denial that nuclear weapons were involved. That isn’t surprising as the British and US governments in top secret protocols agreed in 1956 to always deny that nuclear weapons were present in any accident involving American nuclear bombers stationed in the UK. These agreements surfaced in 1976 after details of another crash involving a B-47 which exploded in a nuclear bomb storage bunker at RAF Lakenheath.

  Suspicions about nuclear fallout from these accidents have lingered ever since. Environment groups like Greenpeace have evidence of leukaemia clusters associated with both areas.

  Penney and his band of Aldermaston weaponeers must have feared the worst as they later examined their prized bomb in a hangar at RAF Wittering. But the safety harness around it had done its job and Grapple Y seemed to be none the worse for its mishap. It was later flown safely to Christmas Island in plenty of time for the intended firing date.

  No-one, not even Penney, was sure just how big Grapple Y was likely to be: estimates ranged from 2.5 – 7 megatons. But they were taking no chances. Thousands of anti-flash hoods, gloves and white boiler suits were provided for the men on the island. Lessons had been learned from Grapple X and special attention was given to the effects of the blast wave on buildings. To avoid damage, loose items were to be secured; all glass windows, doors and partitions were to be removed and all electrical equipment not essential for the test switched off. Cupboards had to be laid on their sides. Pets were to be rounded up and put into containers; efforts were to be made to round up any stray animals. All tents were to be vented and furnishings tied down.

  It was a very worrying time for all the scientists involved; Penney also had the added worry of keeping his own involvement as secret as possible. Whether he liked it or not, by this time he had become an international celebrity. He was flown round the world in his own specially converted Hastings aircraft and given VIP status wherever he went. His aircraft was always ‘parked’ in areas reserved for world leaders and even the Australian premier complained because he had to be ‘vetted’ by Penney’s personal armed guard before meeting him.

  Journalist Chapman Pincher was in thrall to the super scientist. He enthused in one of his dispatches: “What sort of man is this Penney who without any political touting or personal magnetism can command such power and authority? Never before in history has the British Government placed such reliance on one man’s word. On Penney’s assurance that his entirely untried H-bomb would work, the Government revolutionised the Forces, and invested millions in atomic works. I yield to no man in my admiration for this excellent man. I have witnessed his outstanding mind in action in the conference room, over the lunch table and during the tenseness of atomic blasts. His extraordinary position is unparalleled in the free world…”

  All this hero worship only served to antagonize Penney who loathed publicity and had never been known to grant an interview. He avoided all contact with the press and even referred to Pincher as ‘Chapman Stinker’ in one dispatch from Australia

  Getting him to Christmas Island without fanfare was a major operation. He eventually arrived on an American sea-plane (his favourite mode of transport) from Honolulu while his Hastings together with his normal entourage, were sent on a decoy trip to America.

  Penney’s arrival was noted with some excitement by the RAF ground crew who shepherded the seaplane, a Catalina, to its slot on the runway. For as the doors opened out popped Penney, accompanied by four very attractive models. Aircraftsman Archie Ross recalled: “They were real stunners, and to us men who hadn’t seen a woman in months, a real tonic. We set up a chorus of wolf whistles as the little group made its way to the terminal. The girls gave us a wave before they disappeared. I think they were part of a film crew, but what they were doing with Penney I haven’t a clue. The Catalina didn’t stay long before it was off, with the four pretty girls back on board, which was more the pity.”

  Penney was met by Cook and other scientists and taken to a private tented complex near ‘C’ site, the forward area. No official minutes have been released about the visit, but his arrival was duly noted by Ralph Gray, a steward in the catering core.

  He had had a pretty good idea that “something big” was about to happen when he was ordered to report to ‘C’ site. His orders were to “look after a few gentlemen…and keep your mouth shut.” He was directed to a tented complex bristling with aerial equipment and surrounded by heavily armed guards. He was thoroughly searched and checked out before being allowed into the inner sanctum where he was introduced to the people he was to look after for the next few weeks.

  The “few gentlemen” turned out to be none other than Sir William Penney, Bill Cook, Air Vice Marshall John Grandy, Air Commodore J.F. Roulston, the highest ranking Navy officer, Captain J.G. Western, and the Army’s Task Group Commander Colonel R.B. Muir. Half a dozen scientists from Aldermaston were also present making it the largest gathering of top brass Gray had ever seen. After perfunctory introductions, Gray was put to work serving what appeared to be everyone’s favourite drink: large gin and tonics infused with lashings of ice.

  Gray delighted in the work. He was now living and working in comparatively lavish surroundings…a far cry from the primitive conditions the rest of the island had to endure. Duckboards on the floor were covered with comfortably-padded groundsheets, and the sleeping quarters contained real cast-iron beds with sparkling white linen sheets. Padded chairs and large deep armchairs were liberally spread about. An area set aside for drinks and food preparation had a large dining table and a modern well-stocked fridge. And the young steward could hardly believe his eyes when he discovered there was even a washing machine...an unheard of luxury on the island.

  Gray, just 21 at the time, set about his duties with enthusiasm. He washed and ironed clothes, polished boots and cooked and served dinner every night. And he was always on hand to replenish the crystal glasses as the “few gentlemen” fortified themselves while they talked and planned well into the night. Of course Gray understood little of what the great men were talking about, but he did gradually become aware of a deep sense of unease that pervaded much of the table talk. From what he could gather Penney and Cook had only a vague idea of what to expect from the bomb and argued furiously as they pored over blueprints and calculations.

  Penny and Cook were not getting on at the time. They had always formed a perfect partnership at Aldermaston and together had worked wonders to progress the development of Britain’s H-bomb. But now they appeared to be
increasingly irritated with each other. The pressures were obviously mounting.

  Cook was one of the ablest men in his field and the making of the hydrogen bomb showed him at his most typical and effective. He had worked in defence science all his career, was in close touch with defence policy, and had no moral qualms about the need for the weapon.

  He was brought in to Aldermaston in 1954 as Sir William Penney’s deputy essentially to make sure Britain had a workable bomb in the shortest possible time. The theoretical side was, of course, primarily the work of Penney, but Cook played a vital part in harnessing theory to application. Cook had been in charge of the 1957 series when the first, unwieldy bomb was exploded: then in 1958, he was recalled to finish off the work and to take charge at Christmas Island again.

  He might have viewed the arrival of Penney as a slur on his abilities and reacted accordingly. But nothing prevented him from working all hours of the day, or night. There is no doubt he missed his old drinking buddy, Wilf Oulton, and was often seen sitting alone next to the sea pondering a problem (accompanied by a whisky and soda) far into the night.

  Despite their outward calm, both Cook and Penney were very worried men and Gray could sense the rising tension. “I got the distinct impression they didn’t have a clue what was going to happen,” he said. “They weren’t happy with their calculations and fretted continuously.”

  As D-day approached, Penney and his team toiled in a large heavily-guarded corrugated iron “workshop” out of sight of prying eyes. Archie Ross used to watch the comings and goings. He said: “Every time some important part arrived, they would screen off the area surrounding the workshop with large pieces of canvas. I was never quite sure what they were hiding from us, but they were obsessed with secrecy.” Ross had been on Christmas Island since mid-1957 and had witnessed Grapple X. But there was something different about the preparations for this latest drop. “The activity was more intense,” he said. “There was definitely tension in the air.”