Between Heaven and Hell Read online

  Between Heaven and Hell

  By Alan Rimmer

  Text copyright 2012 Alan Rimmer

  All Rights Reserved

  To my wife Maryse for her loyalty, love and support.

  Table of Contents

  Author’s Note

  INTRODUCTION

  THE SMILING KILLER

  TRINITY

  BATTLEGROUND BRITAIN

  ARMAGEDDON

  THE WITCH’S CURSE

  ON THE BRINK

  ISLAND OF THE DAMNED

  DITCHED

  INTO THE JAWS OF DEATH

  THE COVER UPS

  NO WAY TO TREAT A HERO

  THE LONG DEATH

  SHIRLEY’S STORY

  DID YOU KNOW HE WET THE BED?

  NUCLEAR GUINEA PIGS

  HUMAN EXPERIMENTS

  DIRTY TRICKS

  KEN AND ALICE

  THE CORONER’S CLERK

  MURDO’S STORY

  CHILDREN OF THE BOMB

  THE DARK TOWER

  THE URINAL DIALOGUES

  THE ROAD TO CHERNOBYL

  BETRAYAL

  SICK FAMILY SYNDROME

  MARK OF THE BOMB

  THE DOG IN THE NIGHT-TIME

  THE TRUTH OF CHRISTMAS ISLAND

  Author’s Note

  This book is dedicated to the thousands of nuclear veterans and their families whose selfless courage, dignity and kindness made it possible. I would like to acknowledge the contributions of Ken McGinley who has tirelessly campaigned on behalf of Britain’s nuclear veterans; Mrs Shirley Denson, for her indomitable courage and determination; Archie Ross, whose Damascene conversion was an inspiration to all; Roy Sefton, New Zealand nuclear veteran, whose lone battle showed the way; Mrs June Charney and all the other widows of nuclear veterans who refused to allow their husband’s memories to fade. I would also like to thank John Urquhart, statistician and epidemiologist, for his invaluable advice and encouragement, and John Large, nuclear scientist, for his technical expertise, and patience. I would like to pay tribute to the late Professor Michael Moore and Nobel Laureate Joseph Rotblat for their inside knowledge of Lord Penney and the men who built the atomic bomb; the late doctors Alice Stewart and Rosalie Bertell for their unceasing quest to expose the truth; and to the late Richard Stott, journalist and editor who never gave up on the nuclear veterans. But most of all, this book is for the children, grandchildren, and the children yet to be born who will be paying the price for mankind’s folly unto the end of time.

  INTRODUCTION

  The small military convoy drove cautiously through the village of Wansford as it threaded its way to Bomber Command’s Armament School at RAF Wittering in Cambridgeshire. It was snowing heavily and visibility was down to 50 yards. As the vehicles exited the village they faced a steep climb up Wansford Hill. Without warning a large Foden truck, its contents shielded by a black tarpaulin, began to fishtail as the wheels lost traction in the tightly-packed snow. The driver struggled to control the heavy vehicle but it slithered remorselessly to the side of the road mounted the kerb and toppled over into a ditch. The driver leapt from the cab and held his breath as he stared down at the stricken truck; the tarpaulin had been dislodged during the crash revealing a large packing case. Through the slats the man could make out the sinister outline of an enormous bomb.

  Sir William Penney, Britain’s master bomb-maker, was flown off the island at dawn, which was just as well because, as feared, something went badly wrong. The huge bomb, codename Grapple Y, was much bigger than expected. The blast wave scattered troops like leaves before the wind, and the fantastic heat of the explosion made the blood bubble beneath their skin, even at a distance of 30 miles. It also created a hellish thunderstorm that produced a curtain of sizzling radioactive rain. Thousands of men got caught in the downpour. Within hours many experienced nausea and vomiting; some coughed blood up; others were blinded and their skin erupted in blisters.

  The scientists and military planners acted quickly to suppress the news. This was after all the Cold War, and with nuclear Armageddon just a heartbeat away, secrecy was paramount. Official observers specially flown in to view the event were assured there was no fallout, before being hastily removed from the island back to the safety of their base in Honolulu. Politicians in London announced the test was a success and that the results were “gratifying” to the scientists. The public was told in a routine statement that it was a “clean” bomb and that all the troops were safe.

  No-one worried overmuch about the troops. None as far as is known was killed instantly by the blast, and their sudden afflictions were easily explained away as “coral poisoning”. The real effects of the bomb in disease and death would not become apparent for many years, and the authorities knew it would be virtually impossible to make a connection.

  Penney, the “Father of the British H-bomb” observed the crowning achievement of his career from the cockpit of a Dakota aircraft circling the island. He had a grandstand view of the explosion, the huge mushroom cloud that accompanied it, and the towering thunderclouds that formed in its wake. By the time the deadly rain came, he was on his way to safety to an island 400 miles to the south.

  He would never make a bigger or better bomb. Grapple Y was a thousand times the size of the Hiroshima bomb and its awesome power ensured Britain’s place at the top table of international politics alongside America and the Soviet Union. Penney was showered with honours, and after a distinguished academic career, retired to a chocolate-box cottage nestling in the heart of the Oxfordshire countryside. Grapple Y, his legacy, was allowed to disappear into the sealed archives of government, consigned to just a minor footnote in history.

  Penney, a mathematical genius, was marked down as a high-flyer in World War II when his unique talents took him from backroom boffin at the Ministry of Supply, to America where he became one of the chief architects of the atomic bomb. He was a reluctant recruit to this apocalyptic venture and like all the other scientists had deep misgivings about the possible consequences.

  But a capricious twist of fate guided one of Hitler’s new terror weapons to Penney’s modest home in Croydon, South London with disastrous results. Any doubts that he may have had disappeared along with the tragedy that befell his beloved wife.

  THE SMILING KILLER

  June 29, 1944.

  Auckland Road, Croydon, London,

  An eyewitness described it thus: “I saw a sphere of flame hurtling earthwards like a football on fire. This was followed by a bright flash and a frightful roar…”

  It was a V1 flying bomb, the first of hundreds to rain down on London as Hitler unleashed a new blitzkrieg. The V1, with a 2,000 pound payload of high explosive, landed in the road outside 108 and 110 Auckland Road. Both houses were demolished in the blast and scores were damaged over a quarter mile radius. A local church was destroyed; shredded bibles and hymn books were discovered as far away as Streatham.

  The raid had started at dawn. The official log states:-

  04.23: A V1 totally demolished eight houses in Gibbs Close, not far from Auckland Road. More than 40 houses were severely damaged.

  08.04: On the corner of Central Hill and Hermitage Road a V1 exploded in the air. Houses and Norwood Cottage Hospital were badly damaged.

  11.07: V1 strikes the corner of Sylvan Hill and Auckland Road. Details of damage in this area were not released because of “military restrictions.” One of the houses at the site, 159, Auckland Road, was the home of Mrs Adele Minnie Penney, wife of Dr William Penney. The extent of the damage to the house is unknown, but Mrs Penney was alone as the doodlebugs exploded all around.

  There is no record of her physical injuries, but her mind couldn’t cope with the horror and she suffered a break
down. The news was broken to her husband in America and arrangements were made for him to be flown home under military escort. Meanwhile Mrs Penney, aged 31, was admitted to Warlingham Park Hospital in Surrey. Set in acres of lush grounds, it was listed as a hospital for nervous disorders, but to the locals it was the place where the mad people went.

  Mrs Penney was put under the care of Dr William Shepley, the Deputy Superintendent, and Dr Joyce Martin, a leading Freudian analyst. She was treated in a special complex called ‘The Villas’ where she received psychotherapy and electro-convulsive shock treatment.

  When her husband finally arrived, Mrs Penney didn’t recognize him; she was living in a twilight world. Her mental and physical condition was deteriorating rapidly. The doctors were not hopeful. They told the young husband with the tousled fair hair that everything possible was being done. Penney decided not to take up an invitation to view the “barrow squad”, a collection of inmates in various chairs who were habitually wheeled about the grounds to show visitors the patients were getting some useful activity.

  Penney’s visit was short and afterwards he went to see his two young sons, who had been evacuated. Les Hogan who had married Penney’s younger sister Muriel, recalled the change in his normally placid brother-in-law: “He was always a very secretive person, I suppose he had to be, but always very pleasant and approachable. I remember him before Adele’s illness, his sense of humour and fun. I had a little dog and I used to hold this dog and rub a ruler across his tummy and he used to immediately burst into incredible sounds. Bill used to laugh like mad at that, he thought that was so funny. He was a very human person. But he changed after what happened to his wife. He didn’t talk a lot about it, but we all knew he was hurting very much. But there was also anger; there was a lot of that.”

  Penney stayed only long enough to make the arrangements for the welfare of his children. Then he was off in the waiting car, back to what remained of his Croydon home which was still guarded by armed soldiers. He spent several hours inside, eventually emerging with a leather valise stuffed with papers. He handed his keys to an official and received a receipt.

  A light blue RAF Hillman Minx staff car took him to an airfield where a two-seater Mosquito fighter-bomber waited, engines revving. Two hours later it deposited Penney at Shannon airport where a cumbersome, but reliable, converted Wellington bomber was ready for take-off. The old ‘bone shaker’ was the regular shuttle plane across the Atlantic for scientists taking part in secret work. On board already was a colleague from Liverpool, Professor Michael Moore, who was going to America for the first time. He was the personal assistant of the Nobel laureate Sir James Chadwick, ‘discoverer of the neutron’ and head of the British mission in America.

  Both men sat huddled in the wind-whistling fuselage of the Wellington, swathed in scarves and blankets. The plane rattled and creaked like an old cattle wagon. There were two security guards with them and there was little talk. Penney sat in his own world staring white-faced out of the window. Fifteen hours later, the plane touched down at an isolated, windswept airfield in the vast, featureless terrain of Newfoundland.

  The weather closed in almost as soon as the aircraft bumped to a halt, and the two scientists were shown to a wooden transit room reeking of paraffin and damp. They spent a restless night wrapped in blankets and dozing fitfully as they waited for the sleet and rain to subside. They talked little, but Moore learned enough to understand the depth of his colleague’s sadness.

  A military transport plane of the US Air Force eventually flew Moore to Berkerley in California where his skills in precision engineering were needed. Penney, whose job was more important, went to Washington. General Groves, the man in overall charge of the project was waiting. He told Penney his expertise was urgently required as “the gadget” was almost ready for testing.

  This time Penney didn’t take the Santa Fe Chief, the famous Pullman train linking Chicago with Los Angeles, a distance of more than 2,200 miles, because of pressure of time. Instead a military plane took Penney across the continental United States to the scorched New Mexico desert. It landed at the Alburqueque air base where some unusual activity was taking place far out in the desert at a place called Alomorgordo. Dust clouds drifted across the horizon as heavy vehicles moved equipment to and fro. Penney knew what it was all about but, as always, he was close-mouthed.

  An open-topped Ford sedan, a female chauffeur at the wheel, was waiting. They headed for Santa Fe, a large, bustling, dusty town sweltering 20 miles away in the middle of the desert. The car drew up outside an anonymous building at 109, East Palace Avenue. The clapboard property with peeling paintwork was in fact the business address for the most secret place on earth. Penney was welcomed back by Dorothy McKibbin, a young widow who was one of the first recruits to the top secret project. She presented him with his new white security pass. Penney and his chauffeur then set off up the treacherous, twisting roads towards the towering Jemez mountain range.

  Early explorers examining the Jemez Mountains observed the huge circular shape in the centre of the 11,000-foot range and thought of it as merely a curious set of connected valleys. It was not until the 1930s that it was identified as the rim of an ancient and extinct volcano. Some thought it was the actual crater, but the favoured theory was that it was a caldera, the huge saucer left when the volcano collapses.

  Lush, green alpine passes between the peaks give way to a vast sea of grass interrupted only by forested hills. In winter a blanket of snow fills the valleys and the stark peaks form a magnificent panorama. Next to all this glory is a long, narrow plateau extending along the eastern slope of the Jemez range overlooking the Rio Grande. This narrow bench is known as the Pajarito (Little Bird) Plateau. Lying at an altitude of 7,000 feet, it is covered with ponderosa pine, fir, aspen and oak. Where they can get a foothold, juniper and many varieties of scrub proliferate. Early hunters wandered into the narrow defile for deer, bear and elk that still abound there to this day. Beaver traps were set in the lower regions.

  It was a landscape shaped for the American dream, and it was here in 1917 that a Michigan businessman called Ashley Pond opened the Los Alamos Ranch School for boys on a hill surrounded by a dense forest of pines. The school flourished and it was soon catering for more than 50 boys sent there for experience of the open air life. By the 1930s a 23-acre lake had been excavated with places for boating, swimming and ice skating in the winter. Vigorous outdoor life was the order of the day while entertainment was provided by local Indians who performed dances and sold their craftwork on blankets.

  The idyllic lifestyle at the ranch ended in 1942 during the annual summer program when school officials noticed an increase in low-flying aircraft over the area. Cars, and all kinds of strange military vehicles began to appear on the approach roads to the ranch.

  On December 7, 1942, the first anniversary of Pearl Harbour, Secretary of War Stimson gave an order requisitioning the school. School officials and parents were told the building was being closed, but they were not told why. But the owners were happy enough with the $450,000 cheque they received.

  It was only after the destruction of Hiroshima that they and the world learned of the true purpose: Los Alamos ranch school, renamed Site Y, had been chosen as the top secret headquarters of the Manhattan Project, the billion dollar program to develop the atomic bomb.

  At first, however, locals could only scratch their heads and wonder as teams of construction workers fell on the campsite and grounds like a huge army of worker ants frantically rebuilding a damaged nest. Laboratory buildings were thrown up and living quarters for at least 300 people prepared. Chalet-style wooden huts were erected overnight and a network of crude roads cut into the red soil. The old school buildings, which used to contain 27 rooms, were modified so there was room for 70 people. A protective cordon of barbed wire fencing was thrown around the whole site; the only way in and out was through two well-guarded frontier posts.

  By early 1943 some of the most famous scientific bra
ins in the world had arrived at the ranch which everyone now referred to as The Hill. First to arrive were scientists from the University of California under the scientific director J. Robert Oppenheimer. Others came from all over Europe and America. Academic giants like Enrico Fermi, Neils Bohr, Hans Bethe, Edward Teller, Otto Frisch and George Kistiakowski were in the vanguard. Toward the end of the year, the second wave arrived. Penny was included in the 20-strong contingent from England.

  Penney was the son of William Alfred Penney, a sergeant major in the Royal Ordnance Corps, who could not afford to pay for an education for his son. In fact in the early years, young William had no formal education at all; for the first 12 years of his life he lived a nomadic existence in various outposts including Gibraltar, where he was born. His father was an explosives expert, and family rumour had it that during the First World War he helped train Lawrence of Arabia in the techniques of laying charges. On their return to England, the Penney family settled in Alexandra Road, a modest row of Victorian terraces in Queensborough on the Isle of Sheppey, Kent. Penney’s mother Blanch had a head for figures and was chief cashier at the Co-op.

  Penney was set for an unremarkable life until, almost by accident, his tutors at Sheerness secondary school discovered he was a mathematical genius. Exasperated teachers complained about the precocious boy who was shouting out the answers to mathematical problems almost before equations on the chalk board were finished. The tutors nurtured this unexpected savant and were not surprised when Penney obtained the highest results in all England when he sat for scholarships in mathematics and physics. His results were so spectacular they guaranteed him entry to the prestigious Imperial College London. From there he was awarded a Commonwealth scholarship, and spent two years in America at the University of Wisconsin.

  On his return he was offered a place at Cambridge where he studied the magnetic properties of crystals and the structure of metals. He went back to Imperial College after obtaining a brilliant First, and picked up two doctorates on the way. Finally he was made a Professor of Mathematics at Imperial College. He was just 27 years old.