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To test the effects of a ship-smuggled atomic bomb on a port (a threat of great concern to the British at the time), the bomb was exploded inside the hull of Plym, anchored 350 metres (1,150 ft) off Trimouille Island. The explosion occurred 2.7 metres (8 ft 10 in) below the water line and left a saucer-shaped crater on the seabed 6 metres (20 ...
No. 49 Squadron was a squadron of the Royal Air Force formed during World War I, re-formed in the build up to World War II, and later took part in Britain's Atomic and Hydrogen bomb program. The unit is noted for its role in the British atomic and hydrogen bomb programmes.
Two separate atomic test projects occurred at the islands, the first being Operation Hurricane and the second being Operation Mosaic. Following the second Mosaic explosion, the radioactive cloud that was supposed to be taken away from the site, was sent back by wind that was not anticipated by the British scientists.
The term "atomic bomb" was already familiar to the British public through the writings of H. G. Wells, in his 1913 novel The World Set Free. [12] It was immediately apparent to many scientists that, in theory at least, an extremely powerful explosive could be created, although most still considered an atomic bomb was an impossibility. [13]
Operation Grapple was a set of four series of British nuclear weapons tests of early atomic bombs and hydrogen bombs carried out in 1957 and 1958 at Malden Island and Kiritimati (Christmas Island) in the Gilbert and Ellice Islands in the Pacific Ocean (modern Kiribati) as part of the British hydrogen bomb programme.
Enola Gay: The Men, the Mission, the Atomic Bomb (NBC, 1980) – made-for-television docudrama about the Army Air Force B-29 unit that dropped the first atomic bomb to be used in combat on Hiroshima, Japan at the end of World War II. Fail-Safe (1964) – a film based on the novel of the same name about an American bomber crew and nuclear tensions
April: 1957 Defence White Paper emphasises nuclear weapons to replace Britain's declining conventional military capabilities. [53] May: First British hydrogen bomb test in Operation Grapple off Malden Island in the Pacific is a failure. [64] May: Memorandum of Understanding with the US regarding the loan of nuclear weapons to the UK in wartime ...
During the early part of the Second World War, Britain had a nuclear weapons project, codenamed Tube Alloys. [1] A directorate of that name coordinated this effort. Sir John Anderson, the Lord President of the Council, was the minister responsible, and Wallace Akers from Imperial Chemical Industries (ICI) was appointed the director. [1]