Ex-Royal Navy and RAF officers from New Forest given Nuclear Test Medal 65 years after watching hydrogen bomb tests in Pacific

“I FELT the shockwave, I felt the heat wave hit me, and then I saw the flash through my hands.”

That’s how retired sailor Roger Brinton describes the moment he saw Britain conduct a hydrogen bomb test at Kiritimati in the Pacific in 1958.

Roger is one of several ex-servicemen on the Forest who have now been awarded the Nuclear Test Medal recognising their part in the covert atomic testing operation.

The ex-Royal Navy petty officer, now living in Sway, was serving aboard HMS Cavalier when she received top secret orders to divert course and watch the detonation as part of Operation Grapple.

“Our ship had just stopped at Fiji,” Roger told the A&T, “but we were then designated to Grapple Squadron for the detonation of the first or second hydrogen bomb experiment.

“There wasn't a lot of fuss made. It seemed the senior crew didn't know why we were there, but some of them took shelter below decks while we were on the upper deck when the bomb went off.

“We were all just stood side-by-side on the deck, no protective gear, looking at the horizon.

“First I felt the shockwave, then I felt the heat wave hit me, and then I saw the flash through my hands.

“I turned away quickly after it happened. It blew one person off the upper deck of the destroyer about 20 feet above sea level.”

He added: “A calm came up after the blast and we started to move ourselves away. I saw a great boiling mass of flames and detritus on the horizon.

“We were just there as guinea pigs. There was no protective gear or warnings. I remember we were told something about roentgens [a measurement unit for ionising radiation] but we never had anything to put on.”

Now aged 83, Mr Brinton has been diagnosed with a pituitary brain tumour and has other health complaints.

He said: “After I left the navy I worked for British American Tobacco for a time. People who worked there wore little filament badges that measured radiation exposure but we never had anything like that on the ship.

“It was all secret. The government said it never happened, and no one was hurt during it.

“I asked my consultant about it, I said I had been irradiated by an atomic weapon, but he could not say anything conclusively back to me about that.”

Roger recalled: “I remember that scientists at the time weren't sure what would happen when the first detonation happened – if it would blow a hole in the atmosphere or if it could crack the seabed.

“All it really did was wipe an island off the face of the earth, and we displaced an entire population of native islanders to do that.

“Our forces moved them onto other islands to live with other populations and they were not friendly with each other.”

Roger’s wife Irene, a former Wren and barracks pay clerk, wrote to the MoD in 2022 to request her husband receive the Nuclear Test Medal.

She said: “It was nice they acknowledged he was there, after years of being told ‘You weren’t there because it didn’t happen’.”

Roger said: “It didn't feel meaningful [to get the medal].

“If you do something heroic, save lives, which you could say we have done through these tests, then I feel you should have something. But I was just pleased that it was recognised, if nothing else.

“And when the medal just came in the post I was a little despondent – there was no presentation or recognition from anyone.”

Milford resident David Brockett was also awarded the medal after spending all of 1958 on Kiritimati running the officers’ mess.

Mr Brockett, who joined the RAF in 1957 for a three-year commission as a catering officer, saw three atomic tests, including a hydrogen bomb test.

After returning to Britain and leaving the navy, Mr Brockett – now aged 88 – became the general manager of Chewton Glen for 13 years before retiring.

Unlike Mr Brinton, Mr Brockett was presented his medal by Colonel John de Candole of the Royal British Legion.

The Nuclear Test Medal was also posthumously awarded to Tony Hayward, a mechanical engineer in the navy stationed at the HMS Resolution shorebase on Kiritimati in 1958.

Tony’s widow Pam told the A&T: “He told me that when the bomb went off he and the other men were told to stand with their backs to it, but they then turned to look at it afterwards.

“Him and his mates weren’t to know, but they were there so they could test the effect of the bomb on people.”

Echoing Mr Brinton’s words, Pam added: “They were all there as guinea pigs.”