大象传媒

Jack Pettitt 06.05.05

In 1952 I was on board The HMS Plym heading for Australia, via Freetown ,Cape Town, then on to Perth and then on up the western coast to Montebello a trip that took 2 months in total. I was not totally aware of the details of my mission, but from different conversations I managed to get a rough idea of the job ahead.

The ship itself had been completely stripped and had a skeleton crew of only 70. The reason being, once the ship had been moored, it was blown up and completely destroyed. This being a trial for the atomic bomb. We spent two weeks keeping the ship running and the week before the bomb was detonated we were transferred to HMS Campania.

All crew were brought home by HMS Campania the aircraft carrier, which had followed us out there.

I actually witnessed the explosion, first hand and it was horrendous. There was no loud bang, but a noise I can only liken to the whoosh of a train, followed by a huge mushroom of black smoke, and when I looked closer I could actually see the sea was on fire, the blast was so hot that the oxygen in the sea was burning.

Unfortunately due to weather forecasts being wrong the fallout headed for The Northern Territories and the nearest town called Onslow instead of the Indian Ocean. There were dead fish and seagulls everywhere.

There must have been at least 5,000 men involved in the operation, from all areas such as Army, Navy, Air force and the Australian Army, Navy and Air force.

After approximately a month, the radiation levels were deemed sufficiently low for the helicopters with their huge grabbers to go in and remove the solid lumps of fused metal that were all that remained of HMS Plym. These were then disposed of out in the Indian Ocean. Where we presume they still lie.

There are still reports today that Aborigines are suffering from effects of this fallout.

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