Between Heaven and Hell Read online

  Based on the Fat Man design of the American bomb dropped on Nagasaki, Penney’s bomb was an implosion device with about twice the destructive capacity. Penney’s team, short of materials and the latest technical know-how, toiled for weeks to perfect the design before it was finally delivered into the hands of the Royal Navy for transportation to Australia.

  In an operation codenamed Hurricane, a special task force of ships left London in August 1952 for their destination on the other side of the world. The flagship and leader of the squadron was the aircraft carrier HMS Campania. She was accompanied by the supply and landing crafts, HMS Tracker and Narvik. Guarding the little fleet was HMS Zeebrugge. A total of 1,075 men were aboard the four vessels. As the fleet nosed its way down the Thames, it was joined unobtrusively by another vessel, a battered old frigate called HMS Plym which had recently been salvaged from the breaker’s yard. There was only a skeleton crew on board, together with a handful of scientists and technicians. In the hull of Plym was Britain’s greatest secret, the atomic bomb.

  The task force arrived at the Monte Bello islands in good order. Plym was anchored in a lagoon near Trimouille Island, the main one of the group. The rest of the squadron withdrew to safe positions about 12 miles off shore. An advance party of royal engineers had been laying cables and preparing the ground for weeks and everything was in readiness when Penney arrived by seaplane. He was welcomed aboard HMS Campania by the Commander of the Special Squadron, Rear Admiral Arthur Torlesse.

  There were many delays caused by bad weather, and frustrating arguments over faulty equipment before Britain’s first atomic bomb was detonated on October 3rd, 1952. It was exploded inside the hull of Plym which was anchored in 40 feet of water, 400 yards off-shore. It was a replica of the Bikini explosion witnessed by Penney in 1946. A dense cloud of mud and water rose 15,000 feet into the air, but the ‘beauty’ of the explosion was somewhat marred as the familiar mushroom shape was distorted by a series of cross-winds. Penney on the flight deck of Campania made no comment, but was said to be disappointed.

  Penney’s account of what he saw was broadcast around the world by the BBC. In his quiet, middle-England accent, he told his audience: “I was on the flight deck of HMS Campania with Admiral Torlesse and most of the ship’s company. We all faced away from the explosion as the last few seconds were counted over the loudspeakers. Suddenly there was an intense flash, visible all round the horizon. We turned to look. The sight before our eyes was terrifying…a great greyish-black cloud being hurled thousands of feet into the air and increasing in size with astonishing rapidity. A great sandstorm suddenly sprang up over the islands. It seemed ages before we heard the bang, but in fact it was less than a minute. Somewhat to our surprise a second bang, at least as loud as the first, followed a few seconds later. At the same time we felt a peculiar sensation in our ears such as one has in an aircraft losing height rapidly. We were feeling the suction of reduced pressure, which always follows a blast wave. All the time the cloud was getting higher and higher and assuming fantastic shapes as it was pulled about by the strong winds at different altitudes…”

  Penney spoke at length about radiation, electronic gadgets, re-entry parties, contamination and how everyone had pulled together to make the test an outstanding success. He spoke soothingly about how the survey parties all wore protective clothing covering them from head to foot, and how they also wore gas masks to prevent inhalation of “foreign particles.”

  He continued: “The appearance of men in protective clothing, scrambling about on the white sand hills in the blazing sun and peering at their instruments every few seconds, was a weird sight. Everyone in the parties sweated profusely, and one man lost no less than 17 lb in weight in a single trip. However, on his return to the health control centre, a few long drinks of water, some salt tablets and a meal with lots of tea, quickly restored the loss of weight and nobody felt any the worse…”

  It was all good Boys Own stuff delivered in the manner of a cosy fireside chat between old friends. The bomb had gone off without a hitch, everyone was safe, and ‘our boys’ had pulled it off and no damage done. Britain had a new hero who had restored its rightful place as a world power.

  Rear Admiral Torlesse, listening to Penney’s broadcast as he shepherded his little task force back to Britain, might have raised a somewhat quizzical eyebrow. As task force commander he had been involved in every stage of the operation. And although it had been an undoubted success, it had most assuredly not been without its problems.

  For a start Torlesse and Penney’s right-hand man Leonard Tyte, the operation’s scientific director, had argued and bickered constantly. They fought royally over everything from lost messages, timings of rehearsals, accommodation, supplies; they even blamed each other for the capricious weather. At D-day minus two the relationship between the pair had deteriorated to such an extent they weren’t even on speaking terms. It was only the prospect of international humiliation, not to mention the towering rage of Winston Churchill, newly returned to power after six years in Opposition, which pulled them back from the brink.

  Even after the success of the mission, Torlesse remained a stickler for rules and procedure. He found the lack of discipline among the scientists a constant irritant. On one memorable occasion, Torless insisted on the scientists, who were famously bohemian in appearance, wearing ties for mess dinner. The scientists complied…the only problem was they “forgot” to put shirts on…

  For his part, Tyte found the Rear Admiral an insufferable snob. It amused Tyte no end to see Torlesse’s obvious irritation when Penney, who deferred to no man but Churchill, regularly plundered his personal cigarette stash.

  Bickering apart, Torlesse had been greatly concerned about the safety of his men, especially those who had been sent in to some very dangerous areas to satisfy the scientists’ insatiable thirst for knowledge. He later told in an interview how he was particularly concerned about radio communications from the pilots of two Shackleton aircraft who were tracking the mushroom cloud. At first Torlesse said he was irritated by the chatter, fed into main communications centre on the bridge of Campania, between the two pilots who were joking about who was the “hottest” pilot, when all of a sudden everything changed. One of the pilots was obviously in trouble.

  Torlesse said: “I remember there was a hell of a flap about a chap in one of the planes who was flying through the cloud to collect samples. He was ordered back and I understand flown immediately to a hospital in Perth. I’m not sure what happened after that. It was all secret. No-one would tell me anything.”

  The Rear Admiral wasn’t the only one to take a somewhat jaundiced view of Penney’s cosy assurances. Thomas Wilson, a sapper in the Royal Engineers, scratched his head and wondered if he had been at the same bomb test as Penney when he heard the scientist talking about how the re-entry parties had been given head to toe protection from the radioactive fallout. And he should know: he was in the very first re-entry party that stepped ashore after the bomb was detonated. The only protective clothing he had on was an overall and bush hat.

  This is how the former 19-yr-old squaddie remembered the event: “We went in on a little rubber dinghy and hit the beach on the run. As soon as we stepped ashore it was clear the whole place was crackling with radiation. I had a small hand-held Geiger counter and it was going crazy. I was wearing just a thin overall and a bush hat. Even I knew that wasn’t enough. But being young we had this sort of couldn’t-care-less attitude to the dangers and we just got on with the task in hand. We didn’t think we were in any danger and enjoyed all the excitement.”

  For several hours Wilson and the other soldiers wandered around the scorched island collecting the scientific paraphernalia used to record the effects of the blast wave. They checked damaged buildings, and collected food stocks and other items for measurement back on the ship. They also had to bag and take back with them hundreds of dead seabirds that littered the island. It was all done beneath the blazing sun, and the smoke and heat from
dozens of scrub fires ignited by the blast.

  At last it was all over and Wilson and his band returned to their ship. Each man had to enter a special decontamination unit, and throughout the afternoon the clicking of Geiger counters were a constant feature. The men were ordered to strip, and their clothing was immediately consigned to the bottom of the sea encased in concrete. It was then into the showers where they were vigorously scrubbed down until the counters stopped ticking. Despite three scrub downs, Wilson remained radioactive for hours. A note in his Army paybook records: “1952 atomic tests. Radiation received 1.99 Roentigens.”

  Another serviceman who knew things hadn’t all gone to plan was Royal Marine commando Frank Gray. Not long after the bomb went off, he and a small detachment of specially trained men were sent skimming in a dinghy across the highly-radioactive lagoon where Plym had been vapourised to rescue a group of scientists left in a forward area bunker. Mr Gray recalled: “We were told the scientists were in trouble because the fireball had finished very close to the bunker. We were dispatched to get them back. One thing I remember very clearly was the thousands of dead fish scattered all over the lagoon. And I remember we even had to avoid a sick whale that was thrashing about. When we got to the bunker which was built into the side of a hill we found it charred and smoking. The first thing I saw was two men in protective clothing and several others who were shaking and wrapped in blankets. They were only wearing sandals, shirts, stockings and shorts with no headgear. I was told they were scientists, but they didn’t say anything and seemed to be in deep shock. We took them in two dinghies back to the ship. They had to be helped up the gangplank and a couple of them collapsed onto the deck. I believe they were taken from the ship later that night, and that was the last anyone saw of them.”

  Thomas Wilson and Frank Gray were to suffer terrible health problems in later life which they always blamed on their involvement in Operation Hurricane. Their complaints, however were dismissed as ‘fanciful’ by doctors, and disdained by politicians; the same depressing response was experienced by many hundreds of servicemen in the years to come.

  But there was no doubting the technical success of Hurricane; it brought heady days for Penney who now found himself a national hero, feted and lionized wherever he went. His home-coming was pure Hollywood. He arrived back in Britain from the Monte Bello islands on October 15. The press and newsreels clamoured for news. They descended on the airfield at RAF Lyneham in Wiltshire after it was leaked that his plane was going to land there. They were herded into the airfield cinema and held for hours as the excitement mounted. At 4.20 and 4.25pm, two Hastings aircraft touched down. The press surged forward…

  Was Penny on board? Officials said they couldn’t say; it was secret.

  Which plane was he in? That was a secret too.

  What was in the other plane? That was also a secret.

  As the press hubbub reached a crescendo, the object of all the excitement suddenly appeared round a corner. Penney was surrounded by RAF policemen and he looked stunned by all the attention.

  The press swept forward. Penny managed a smile as he blinked into the combined light of scores of flash-bulbs. The cameramen wanted to know if he could be snapped by the aircraft he had arrived in? The answer was “no.”

  Penney kept smiling as his security detail cleared a path for him. After some whispered discussions, Penney was persuaded to move to a bank of microphones set up by the newsreel men. An official handed out a typed slip. It was a statement from Penney: “Naturally I am glad to be home. The test was most successful. I can say no more about it until I have made my report to the Government.”

  Would he speak about the atom test, they wanted to know.

  No.

  Would he say what it looked like?

  No.

  Would he say what the weather was like?

  Emphatically, no.

  Penney seemed relieved when asked what he did in his spare time: “What spare time I had in Australia I spent golfing. Golf is the complete relaxation. After completing my report I expect to be off on holiday…I should get some golf in.”

  After imparting this pearl of news, Penney was bundled into a waiting saloon car which roared off toward his tightly-guarded home in Idminster Road, Norwood, London. By this time Penney had remarried and his new wife Joan, a midwife, was a no-nonsense woman who ran the Penney household, and his two sons, with commendable efficiency.

  A journalist who managed to get a word with Mrs Penney reported the following exchange (revealing that Mrs Penney was just as closed-mouthed as her famous husband):-

  What had she cooked him for dinner?

  “Brown stew,” said Mrs Penney.

  What was in it?

  “Don’t ask.”

  What did Dr Penney do after dinner?

  “Why, the washing up of course. I washed, he dried. Being a great man doesn’t excuse him from chores, you know.”

  Penney celebrated with a champagne lunch at his favourite Soho restaurant, the Pe’re Auguste. Sitting on his left was his wife who kept a close eye on her husband’s alcohol consumption. On his right sat General Sir Frederick Morgan, controller of atomic energy at the Ministry of Supply. A group of sharp-eyed special branch detectives had taken up strategic positions at nearby tables. A man with Penney’s secrets was far too important to be left unguarded, even at lunch.

  Newsreels showed him blinking owlishly behind his spectacles as the flash-bulbs popped around him. Observers noted 43-yr-old Penney looked the quintessential English boffin. He wore a rumpled old tweed suit with a tie knotted untidily round an ill-fitting shirt collar. His unruly hair flowed over his forehead in schoolboy style. A fountain pen was stuck carelessly in his breast pocket. He had ‘a mischievous grin’ and seemed to be perpetually amused as he talked brightly about atomic energy and how this new force could be harnessed for the greater good of humankind. His grin widened when he saw the menu specially prepared by the maitre d’hotel: Sole Monte Bello, Pommes de Bateau Vaporise, and Bombe Isotope.

  As a scientific achievement, Penny undoubtedly deserved all the plaudits, and the champagne lunch. Almost single-handedly he had designed and built an atomic bomb with a fraction of the resources of America and the Soviet Union. In the finest traditions of British ingenuity, he was said to have confounded the Americans and nonplussed the Soviets by assembling the bomb with little more than “string and sticking plaster.”

  Penney had been to see Winston Churchill, and was still glowing with pride from the unrestrained praise he had received from the Great Man. In triumphal mood, Churchill had announced that the successful detonation of Britain’s first atomic bomb was ‘among the finest scientific achievements of the 20th Century.’ Penney was hailed as the hero of the hour and Downing Street announced he was to be knighted.

  ARMAGEDDON

  The euphoria surrounding Penney’s stupendous achievement lasted all of two weeks. On November 1st, 1952 the Americans exploded an awesome new weapon on a remote Pacific atoll. It wasn’t a bomb in any conventional sense; it was basically a giant flask containing a liquid hydrogen isotope whose energy was released by an atomic bomb “trigger” in a process called fusion. There was no way of delivering the device which was so big it had to be housed in a 30-foot tall building. But the explosion was the equivalent to 1,000 Hiroshima bombs, and it was clear the hydrogen or “super” made atomic bombs obsolete even before they had left the production line.

  This was the ultimate kind of weapon. It could destroy whole cities, kill millions of people at a stroke and end civilisation. It was glumly recognised that the Soviets would not be far behind, and Britain would have to play ‘catch up’ all over again. The order went out from Downing Street that Britain had to build weapons to match the superpowers. Failure to do so would lead to an inevitable loss of prestige and influence in the world.

  In a momentous speech in the House of Commons Winston Churchill said the H-bomb placed Britain and mankind in a situation “both measureless and lade
n with doom.” He went on: “I find it poignant to look at youth in all its activity and ardour and, most of all, to watch little children playing their merry games, and wonder what would lie before them if God wearied of mankind.” Safety, he said, had to be the “sturdy child of terror,” and Britain needed its own hydrogen bomb if it was to survive as a world power. Fine words by Churchill, but he knew he had to back it up with action and despite the risks and scarce resources everything was thrown into the project. To build and test the hydrogen bomb would be the biggest peacetime military operation Britain had ever undertaken. But there was no choice.

  A chilling assessment of the likely fate awaiting the UK was contained in a 1955 report produced by the Joint Intelligence Committee whose function it was to bring together the intelligence flowing into the UK from overt and covert sources. Its chairman Sir Patrick Green set out the likely Soviet objectives which were: To knock out as quickly as possible those airfields from which nuclear attacks could be launched; to destroy the organization of government and control; and to render the UK useless as a base for any form of military operations. Sir Patrick warned the Russians would regard the UK as such a threat that, “they will aim to render it unusable for a long period, and will not hesitate to destroy great parts of the UK to achieve this aim.”

  Other reports give spine-chilling accounts of what, for example, would happen to a major city after a hydrogen bomb explosion at 20,000 feet: “A megaton delivery on a city such as Birmingham would render ‘ineffective’ 50% of the population within a radius of about 20 miles, including e.g. Coventry, where people would see, hear and smell what happened to Birmingham, and would either take to their cellars or get into their cars and drive to where they think they might be safe.”