Search results
Results From The WOW.Com Content Network
[76] [77] Grapple was Britain's second airdrop of a nuclear bomb after the Operation Buffalo test at Maralinga on 11 October 1956, and the first of a thermonuclear weapon. [78] The United States had not attempted this until the Operation Redwing Cherokee test on 21 May 1956, and the bomb had landed 4 miles (6.4 km) from the target. [79]
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.
During Operation Hurricane, an atomic bomb was detonated on board the frigate HMS Plym anchored in a lagoon in the Monte Bello Islands in Western Australia on 3 October 1952. [89] Britain thereby became the third country to develop and test nuclear weapons. [90] A Blue Danube bomb, Britain's first nuclear weapon
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 ...
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 ...
Violet Club was a nuclear weapon deployed by the United Kingdom during the Cold War; the name was chosen in adherence to the Rainbow code system. It was Britain's first operational "high-yield" weapon and was intended to provide an emergency capability until a thermonuclear weapon could be developed from the 1956–1958 Operation Grapple tests.
Britain was at war and felt an atomic bomb was urgent, but the US was not yet at war. It was Oliphant who pushed the American programme into action. He flew to the United States in late August 1941, ostensibly to discuss the radar programme, but actually to find out why the United States was ignoring the MAUD Committee's findings. [ 92 ]
Fearing a resurgence of American isolationism, and Britain losing its great power status, the UK government restarted its own development effort, [10] now codenamed High Explosive Research. [11] In 1949, the Americans offered to make atomic bombs in the US available for Britain to use if the British agreed to curtail their atomic bomb programme ...