THE Federal Government has spent more than $5 million on court cases and compensation involving veterans of the British atomic tests, it has emerged.

Industry Science and Resources Minister Nick Minchin has revealed 79 court cases have been started since the program finished in SA in the early 1960s but only four have gone to trial.

The remaining cases either had been withdrawn or confidentially settled out of court, with only one resulting in a $867,100 payout ordered by a judge in 1989.

Senator Minchin said the total cost of defending the cases - and paying compensation - had reached $5.13 million.

More than 350 compensation claims had been lodged by servicemen, public
servants or civilians over the past 20 years, of which 27 had been successful.

Senator Minchin said 342 claims from servicemen had been rejected, including some where the Commonwealth "accepted liability for conditions arising from a member's service" but would not pay compensation.

Of the successful compensation claims, only nine payments had been paid to Australian servicemen since 1981, with seven cases still under consideration.

A further five payments had been made to Aboriginal people, three to civilians and 10 to families of veterans who had died.

Three of the payments, which averaged $126,561, had been made this year.

The Australian Democrats spokeswoman on nuclear affairs, Lyn Allison, said the Federal Government's treatment of the nuclear test veterans was "no better" than its Labor predecessors.

"It is tragic and heartless that Australian governments have knocked back 96 per cent of compensation claims by servicemen and civilians," she said.

RADIOACTIVE waste from the British atomic tests at Maralinga remains buried at the RAAF base at Edinburgh, it has emerged.

The material includes equipment used by aircrew when they flew through mushroom clouds as they tracked their movement across southern Australia, including Adelaide.

Former RAAF airmen and civilians have provided eyewitness accounts to The Advertiser of how contaminated aircraft parts were dumped in pits at the air base, the largest of which is less than 20 m from Heaslip Rd.

Documents obtained by The Advertiser also reveal radioactivity continued to be measured at a former decontamination facility at Edinburgh, known as Hangar 594, as recently as the early 1990s. The facility was established to wash and strip aircraft used during the Operation Buffalo and Operation Antler series of atomic tests at Maralinga in 1956 and 1957.

RAAF airmen who cleaned the aircraft have told The Advertiser that parts which could not be decontaminated were removed from the planes and dumped in the pit near Heaslip Rd, which is less than 5 km from the Angle Vale housing development. They also have provided statements detailing how sludge containing radioactive dust was washed into a sump near the facility and into the public sewerage system. Two Angle Vale residents who saw the pit in the late 1950s before it was sealed with concrete said it had been progressively filled with aircraft parts and equipment.

"There were gas masks, fibreglass cones and aluminium fittings," said one man, who asked not to be named because of his links to the defence industry.

Another former Angle Vale resident said that, as a 12-year-old, she had regularly seen the pit while riding her horse about the time the first Maralinga bomb exploded on September 27, 1956.

"It was this big rectangular pit and they put all sorts of things in there - gas masks, coils, furniture," said the woman, who also asked not to be identified.

The pit was one of six toxic waste dumps at the airfield identified by consultant engineers Rust PPK during a 1994 investigation into 172 contaminated sites at Edinburgh and the adjacent 1100 ha Defence Science Technology Organisation facility. However, unlike a similar dump at DSTO's Salisbury facility which contained radioactive material from the Woomera missile tests, the RAAF sites have not been remediated as they are located on land which has not been identified for potential residential development.

The DSTO radioactive waste was removed from a pit several years ago and is stored in drums at Salisbury inside a secure facility, Building 6, until it can be transported to a nuclear dump proposed for the state's Far North.

The RAAF sites are unlikely to be cleaned up because of the cost, with Rust PPK recommending to the Defence Department only those sites in areas earmarked for development be remedied.

While preliminary surveys confirmed the waste dumps were contaminated and contained various material, detailed investigations were not undertaken after Rust PPK said "detailed risk assessment is not
appropriate".

A separate investigation - by engineering consultancy ANSTO - into the DSTO dump found it contained "unusually high" levels of a carcinogenic radioactive material, caesium 137.

RADIOACTIVE waste from British nuclear tests at Maralinga contaminated ground water at the Defence Science and Technology Organisation facility at Salisbury, it has emerged.

Tests by the Australian Nuclear Science and Technology Organisation found "unusually high" levels of a radioactive material, caesium 137, in an unfenced pit in a paddock in the 1950s.

A confidential report prepared by ANTSO has revealed the caesium 137 was detected in ground water samples taken from the 20m by 30m pit as part of an investigation into 172 contaminated sites at the DSTO and the adjacent RAAF Edinburgh air base.

The DSTO later told employees the contamination was restricted to an area near the pit, with senior management saying there was no risk to public safety as it had not contaminated ground water used for irrigation by nearby market gardeners and orchardists.

The ANTSO report in 1993, never publicly released, said the caesium 137 was a "fall-out product from nuclear bomb testing" which had got into water beneath the pit from nearby radioactive waste dumped in the 1950s. "Since soil samples taken from this bore hole did not contain caesium 137, it is believed the caesium activity in the sample arose by migration of caesium 137 containing water into the bore hole during sampling," it said.

"As such, there is a strong suggestion that a source of caesium 137 is in the vicinity of the bore hole and, therefore, that an amount of bomb waste material may have been buried at Site Number Two (the official name for the pit)."

The buried material included contaminated aircraft and rocket components.

Caesium 137 is a highly carcinogenic compound which causes birth defects. It is found only in the radioactive fallout from nuclear explosions and even low levels of exposure are regarded as extremely dangerous. The material heavily contaminated RAAF aircraft which flew into mushroom clouds during the Maralinga tests in 1956 and 1957 to track the clouds' movements across southern Australia.

The material was washed off the aircraft by airmen working in purpose-built decontamination facilities. They either hosed it into drains at Edinburgh or collected it as sludge for disposal in sealed drums. Many of the airmen have since died prematurely from cancers, heart failures and brain tumours.

The ANTSO report found the DSTO did not identify the origin of the caesium 137. It said only that the "presence of this radionuclide, which is not natural, suggests a radioactive material has been buried in the vicinity of the bore hole from which the water sample was collected". The water sample was analysed by the ANTSO as part of a confidential investigation by environmental consultants Kinhill Metcalf Eddy.

The study began after plans were announced to reduce the size of the DSTO facility and Edinburgh from 1800ha to 700ha, with the remaining 1100ha to be sold for residential and industrial development. Investigations identified 172 contaminated sites.

Minister urged to support new tests to measure radiation in veterans

Documents retrieved by research fellow, Sue Rabbitt Roff from the Australian Archives in Melbourne, and made public today, show that Australian officials were alarmed by the level of radiation protection they were able to offer workers during the 1950s Maralinga weapons tests.

A memo in the Australian archives from late 1959 says the most senior person on the radiation safety team delegated to the Australian personnel "was not a qualified physicist or chemist but possessed qualifications approximately equivalent to the school leaving certificate in Victoria."

A report on a safety-training course commented, "It is a little difficult to realise why some of the army element were placed on the course, as they have such a lack of elementary arithmetic that they have difficulty in reading instrument dials.

Records show approximately 50 members of the Australian Radiation Detection Unit received radiation exposure on their training course even before they went to work to monitor radiation contamination at Maralinga.

Another document retrieved this week indicates that the Centurion Tank that was deliberately irradiated at 'ground zero' was taken to Puckapunyal where it was still 'hot' several months later.

Senator Allison has put a question to the Defence Minister on how this contaminated equipment was dealt with.

Sue Rabbitt Roff, a British researcher into the long-term health effects of nuclear veterans, is in Australia to discuss the way forward with the Minister for Veterans Affairs now that the list of participants has finally been prepared.

Ms Rabbitt Roff said, "Radiation protection regimes at Maralinga relied on very simplistic cleaning techniques including vacuuming of contaminated vehicles, scrubbing under finger nails, and washing garments separately used during decontamination.

"But now we have very sophisticated radio biological tests to measure radiation exposure in those people, even from 50 years ago.

"A consortium of researchers in Scotland and New Zealand has also begun to refine the tests specifically for nuclear veterans from the UK and French tests at Mururoa.

"I will be urging the Minister to participate in this consortium rather than undertaking a second epidemiological study which can only be inconclusive because it can never attain sufficient statistical power."

Democrats Nuclear Spokesperson, Senator Lyn Allison, said, "I challenge the minister to stop stalling, hiding behind epidemiological tests, and to participate in this consortium that will give veterans real answers about their exposure and be vital to cancer research in general.

"Epidemiological studies can't compare to state of the art blood and saliva tests which can tell us if a person was irradiated or what impact there has been on their chromosomes," Senator Allison concluded.

When the order was given, the men turned their backs and clasped their hands over their faces. There was a blinding flash and through his tightly closed eyes Peter Webb could see the bones of his fingers. He felt a scorching heat on the nape of his neck; as the shockwave thundered past, covering him in dust, he turned to see a mushroom cloud forming on the horizon.

Webb, a private in the Australian Army, was standing on a small hill 1,000 yards from ground zero when Britain exploded its third atomic bomb at Maralinga, in the middle of the vast South Australian desert. Three hours later, he was crunching around the lip of the crater, where the ferocious heat had transformed the red sand into glass. "Being an inquisitive little bugger, I thought 'I wonder if it breaks' and I gave it a couple of kicks," he recalls. "It was like kicking a block of concrete. It was that solid."

The detonation witnessed by Webb was one of the 12 atmospheric tests that Britain carried out in Australia during the 1950s in its quest to become the world's third nuclear power. He had just turned 21, it was the height of the Cold War, and the testing programme was shrouded in obsessive secrecy.

Some 16,000 Australian and 6,000 British troops served at Maralinga and at the Monte Bello Islands, off the coast of Western Australia. Another 16,000 Britons took part in weapons trials on Christmas Island in the South Pacific. Almost half a century on, surviving veterans are still trying to uncover the truth about what happened to them in these far-flung spots when they were little more than boys.

Now in their sixties and seventies, the men are haunted by questions. Why was so little heed paid to their safety at a time when the dangers of radiation were already well documented? Why have governments in London and Canberra resisted their compensation claims despite studies showing high rates of cancer and birth defects? Why has there been a concerted effort, which continues to this day, to conceal the consequences of Britain's ill-conceived rehearsal for Armageddon?
Lately they have added another, chilling question. Were they used as guinea pigs, deliberately exposed to nuclear fallout so that British scientists could assess the effects of radiation on the human body?

Peter Webb, an apple-cheeked 65-year-old who lives in Melbourne, is convinced of it. He was attached to the Indoctrinee Force, a special group of mainly British and Australian officers whose sole function was to observe atomic tests at Maralinga and then shortly afterwards to go to ground zero - the epicentre of the explosion - to analyse its impact on tanks, aircraft, artillery and military equipment.

But the men themselves were being analysed, too. Documents unearthed last month in archives in Canberra revealed details of an exercise in which 80 Indoctrinee Force members were ordered to run, walk and crawl through radioactive dust to evaluate the protection offered by different types of clothing.

A second set of papers outlined secret plans to station nearly 2,000 servicemen in trenches "as close as possible to ground zero" during four atomic blasts that were scheduled for 1958. That project did not go ahead, but only because the series was cancelled as a result of a temporary moratorium on testing.

The documents suggest that the British government was being disingenuous when it told the European Court of Human Rights in 1997 that it would have been "an act of indefensible callousness" to use its own servicemen as guinea pigs in an "appalling scientific experiment".

The veterans still have vivid memories of watching the atomic bombs explode, of birds tossed out of trees and fireballs blotting out the horizon. It was a different era; nuclear war seemed a real possibility then and Britain was determined to have its own weapons.

It could not have found a more compliant host for the tests than Australia's sycophantically Anglophile Prime Minister, Robert Menzies. Menzies reassured the Australian public that there was "no conceivable injury to life, limb or property". (In fact, one radioactive cloud reached as far as Adelaide.)

Australia's role was to supply troops and not ask too many questions; men such as Len Butterfield, who was sent to Monte Bello as a teenage navy rating in 1956, were colonial cannon fodder. Butterfield has since developed four separate cancers: skin, kidney, stomach and oesophageal. The first bomb was detonated at Monte Bello in October 1952; testing began in the desert the following year.

Maralinga, set in an arid landscape of spinifex grass and mulga trees, means "field of thunder" in an Aboriginal language. Aborigines were moved off their traditional lands, and the British dismissed concerns for their safety, remarking that "a dying race couldn't influence the defence of Western civilisation".

A British study published in 1998 found that the veterans have suffered from 10 times the average rate of a rare bone-marrow cancer called multiple myeloma. Another study identified a high incidence of stillbirths, miscarriages and deformities among their children and grandchildren. But it is virtually impossible to link a cancer with a specific cause, and only a handful of ex-servicemen in Australia have won compensation cases. In Britain, legislation prevents them from suing the government.

Men in both countries have campaigned in vain to be given war pensions on the grounds that their service at the test sites was hazardous. New Zealanders stationed on Christmas Island receive such pensions, while the US compensated its atomic veterans many years ago.

Webb has failed to persuade the Australian government that the numerous skin cancers on his back were caused by his time at Maralinga; he was informed in a letter in 1984 that he "did not enter areas presenting a radiation hazard". Clearly he did. But the Indoctrinees were not the only people placed at risk, whether for sinister motives or - as in most cases - out of a mundane but no less deadly disregard for their health. Men such as Lance-Corporal John Hutton, who was part of an engineer troop, worked month after month in the "forward area", as the increasingly contaminated test range at Maralinga was known.

Inhaling or ingesting radioactive dust is potentially lethal, as those running the trials were well aware, but Hutton, a 19-year-old Sydneysider, had no clue. He and his mates were "swallowing dust continually" as they dug up scientific instruments buried 100 yards from ground zero within an hour of three detonations in 1957. Once their task was completed, they washed the dirt off their shovels and used them as frying pans, cooking up steak and eggs over an open fire.

"You can't see radiation, you can't smell it, so we didn't even think about it," he says. "We were just kids and we did as we were told. We were lambs to the slaughter." Like many other members of his troop, Hutton fell ill with vomiting and diarrhoea - classic symptoms of radiation sickness - and spent 10 days on a drip in Maralinga Hospital. He developed massive stomach ulcers after he left Maralinga, and his health is poor.

"In the last three months, three of my mates from 1957 have died from three different cancers and a fourth has got prostate cancer," says Hutton, now 64. He adds, without a trace of self-pity: "I've got no doubt in the world that I'll finish up dying of cancer. We all worked together and ate together, so why should I miss out?"

As Peter Webb clambered over dust-coated Centurion tanks at ground zero in his regulation boots, shorts and short-sleeved shirt, he saw other men walking around in full-length white "space-suits" with gloves, hoods, masks and rubber boots. They were the scientists, and they always wore protective clothing in the forward area. The young servicemen who worked there almost never wore any protective gear. Webb was admitted to Maralinga Hospital with nausea and headaches, as were many others; the precise figure is not clear, as the hospital records have disappeared.
The average life expectancy of the men who helped Britain to achieve its place in the nuclear sun is 55.5 years. There are just a few thousand surviving veterans in Britain and in Australia, and they believe that their governments are simply waiting for them to die.

Frank Gray, from County Durham, was just 22 when he witnessed the first atomic test at Monte Bello from the deck of a naval ship, the Arvik. Two hours later, he sailed a landing craft through contaminated waters so that the scientists, dressed in protective gear, could collect their monitoring instruments. Other men were sent off to catch radioactive sturgeon. Gray died nine years ago, aged 62.

His wife, Sheila, who is the secretary of the British Nuclear Tests Veterans Association, miscarried their first child. They then had three children, including a girl born with a hole in her stomach and a boy who had duodenal ulcers by the age of two. All were virtually bald by the time they were 20. Mrs Gray also miscarried a six-month-old fetus that had no genitals.

The association's president, Peter Fletcher, is seriously ill with chronic obstructive lung disease; his consultant has told him that he hasn't long to live. His breathing problems began soon after he left Monte Bello in 1952.

"We've done our part for our country; now our country doesn't want to know us," Fletcher says. "They keep telling us the same thing: you were not harmed. They've ruined my life, that's for certain."

Forty-four years after the last of 12 British nuclear weapons trials were conducted on Australian territory, the Federal government has released a "preliminary nominal roll" of Australian participants some 16 years after it was recommended. Compiling this basic list was a key proposal in the 1985 report of the Royal Commission on British Nuclear Tests, chaired by former Labor minister and Senator, "Diamond Jim" McClelland (AS, July 2001, pp.37-41).

Bruce Scott, the Minister for Veterans' Affairs, said that the roll lists 3235 Royal Australian Navy, 1658 Australian Army and 3223 RAAF personnel (8116 troops in all) and 8907 civilians, a total of 17,023. This figure is at the mid-point of the 16,000-18,000 that the Australian Atomic Ex-Servicemen's Association has been claiming.

With British contingents numbering 22,000, New Zealanders 538 and Fijians about 300, the grand total of all participants in bomb trials both in Australia and British Pacific islands is nearly 40,000.

Scott also foreshadowed that another Royal Commission recommendation would now be implemented: "Two scientific studies, one to examine the causes of death and the other to investigate the incidence of cancer amongst this group of Australians". He said "a consultative forum representing the interests of veterans and other participants in the testing program" would be formed, and "a leading researcher", to be announced this month, will chair an "independent scientific advisory committee to oversee the conduct of the studies".

Scott appears to have a fight to gain the veterans' confidence. Their association has been fighting for comprehensive medical surveys and for compensation for claimed illness and premature deaths among its members, and dismissed the announcements by Scott, a member of the Queensland National Party.

In the Association's newsletter, Secretary Terry Toon described the studies as coming from "the dishonest and unprincipled misfits of the National Party" [who] do their utmost to conceal and disguise any publicity or information" regarding the cancer deaths of thousands of Australian military personnel from exposure to dangerous radiation and fallout".

Meanwhile, planning for the DNA testing of 50 New Zealand veterans (AS, July 2001, p.38) has been boosted by an additional NZ$40,000 from the NZ government to Dr Al Rowland's group at Massey University for a closely related study.

The New Zealanders are now well ahead of the Australians and even more so than the British in investigating the health status of veterans. Further, Chairman Roy Sefton says half of the government's grant of NZ$200,000 to the NZ Nuclear Test Veterans' Association is being devoted to preparing a legal challenge in England (the other half is supporting Rowland's study). The case against the British government will be for neglect of their duty of care on behalf of 220 surviving veterans, 50 widows and around 750 of the veterans' children.

Previous legal claims by individuals against the UK and Australian governments have been unsuccessful or settled out of court, but with no admission of fault by the two governments. If the NZ case is brought it will be the first time a class action has been filed on this matter.

The campaign by Australian, British and NZ nuclear veterans has now extended to the French, whose government conducted nuclear trials from 1960-96 in the Sahara Desert of Algeria and, most controversially, at Muroroa Atoll in Tahiti. Last month an association of French Tahitian nuclear veterans was formed in the presence, and with the advice, of Sue Rabbitt Roff of the University of Dundee, who has been campaigning to get British government support for DNA blood tests of British veterans, similar to those under way in New Zealand (the Australian studies will not involve blood tests).

Convenor John Taroanui Doom says 5000-6000 Polynesians were involved in the trials and 20,000-30,000 personnel came from France. The Tahitian Association has invited Bruno Barrillot, Director of the Centre of Documentation and Research into Peace and Conflict in Lyons, France, to study the effects of the nuclear blasts on health and the environment.

Roff later visited New Zealand and Australia to coordinate campaigns by nuclear veterans.

A document given by the Ministry of Defence (MoD) to a royal commission into Britain's atomic tests in Australia in the 1950s was doctored to remove details of Australian servicemen exposed to high levels of radiation.

The royal commission  which reported in 1985  was set up by the Australian government after pressure from test veterans who claimed that they suffer from accelerated rates of cancer and other radiation - induced illnesses.

British scientists monitored the exposure of some servicemen to radioactive fall-out after they witnessed nuclear blasts at two sites Maralinga, in the South Australian desert, and Monte Bello, off the coast of Western Australia  and worked in contaminated areas.

The MoD submitted a 41-page document to the royal commission that was supposed to be a complete list of Australian personnel, with daily radiation dosages recorded against their names. The original classified document, which is held by the Atomic Weapons Research Establishment at Aldermaston in Berkshire, contains a list that runs to at least 75 pages.

The Independent has seen a portion of the original document. A comparison with the royal commission's version shows names have been deleted, including those of men who recorded high radiation dosages.

The maximum permissible dosage was 0.5 millirems per year of radiation absorbed by the body. Yet some of the servicemen removed from the list received as much as 5.2mrem in a single hit. Those names struck out include members of the Indoctrination Force, a group of officers who watched detonations at Maralinga from close quarters, and personnel who were at Monte Bello for the first test, Operation Hurricane, and who are known to have been exposed to high levels of radiation.

Britain exploded 12 atomic bombs on Australian territory between 1952 and 1958, with tests also done on Christmas Island in the South Pacific. Some 22,000 British and 16,000 Australian servicemen took part in the trials.

The dosages were based mainly on data from radiation detection badges, which were worn by the men and contained a small piece of negative film. Some people were also swept with Geiger counters after they returned from contaminated areas. Many of the men were informed, misleadingly, that their badges would change colour if they were exposed to a dangerous level of radiation.

The royal commission found that only 40 per cent of badges functioned properly. Sheila Gray, secretary of the British Nuclear Tests Veterans Association, whose late husband, Frank, suffered multiple health problems after being sent to Monte Bello in 1952, said the badges were not taken seriously. Mr Gray told her that after he watched one detonation from a ship, the Narvik, "they threw the badges into a bucket, and when the bucket was full, they tipped it into the sea".

In Canberra, meanwhile, there were calls yesterday for an investigation into allegations reported by The Independent this week that disabled people were flown from Britain to Maralinga and used in experiments on the effects of radiation.

Lyn Allison, a member of the opposition Democrats in the Senate, said: "If it is true that people with disabilities were brought to Australia ... then there are some very serious questions about how they came to be here." A Royal Air Force pilot who claims to have flown disabled people to Australia has been identified as Allen Robinson, who went on to work in disability services in Perth.

RADIOACTIVE clouds from two atomic tests at Maralinga were swept across the Nullarbor Plain to Adelaide, classified documents have revealed.

Despite repeated official denials the fallout was dangerous, levels recorded at secret sampling stations exceeded those now permitted under federal health standards.

The Advertiser has obtained classified documents which reveal radioactivity was detected in Adelaide, Woomera, Oodnadatta, Ceduna, Giles, Cook, Cleve, Leigh Creek, Tarcoola, Marree, Port Augusta and Mt Gambier after atomic bombs were exploded at Maralinga in 1956 and 1957.

Fallout from the first SA tests at Emu Field, 480km northwest of Woomera, as part of Operation Totem was not officially monitored, but The Advertiser understands air sampling devices in the Adelaide central business district also detected radioactivity.

Fallout from the first Totem explosion on October 15, 1953, heavily contaminated nearby cattle stations, particularly Welbourn Hill and Wallatinna, with station owners, their families, workers and desert Aborigines exposed to a mushroom cloud dubbed "The Black Mist".

Adelaide was hit by radioactive fallout from the final and biggest explosion of the four-bomb Operation Buffalo series on October 22, 1956, with further fallout detected 12 months later after three bombs exploded during Operation Antler.

The contamination occurred when inversion layers either trapped the mushroom clouds and pushed them towards Adelaide or forecast winds changed direction and dispersed the clouds to the east, rather than north as planned.

The clouds were tracked across SA, Victoria, New South Wales and Queensland by RAAF aircraft, which became so contaminated they had to be cleaned at a special facility.

A national monitoring program established by the Menzies government in 1956 detected three nuclear byproducts - strontium 90, caesium 137 and radioactive iodine - in human and sheep bones, air samples, rainwater, soil, cabbages and flour in SA.

Similar results were obtained in Queensland, New South Wales, Western Australia, Victoria, the Australian Capital Territory, the Northern Territory and Tasmania.

Strontium 90 is one of the most dangerous nuclear fission byproducts. It has a half-life of 28 years and lodges in bone tissue, causing leukemia and cancer.

It was still being detected when the national program of testing the bones of dead children and adults was officially stopped in 1971.

The compound continued to be detected in milk samples randomly collected from Adelaide and other capital cities until 1984. No official monitoring for strontium 90 has occurred since then.

Caesium 137, which causes cancers and birth defects, was detected in SA children and adults during a Royal Adelaide Hospital study in 1962.

The results of the study were secretly presented to the Atomic Weapons Tests Safety Committee, established to monitor radioactive fallout two years after the first atomic tests were held at Emu Field.

The AWTSC assembled official data to deny radioactive fallout was dangerous, leading to a confrontation with Adelaide University biochemist Hedley Marston, who secretly gathered contaminated air samples at Urrbrae and Roseworthy.

The committee then tried to stop Dr Marston from publishing a paper detailing how his air samples and contaminated thyroid glands from sheep and cattle proved the SA public had been exposed to strontium 90.

Four Adelaide hospitals - the Institute of Medical and Veterinary Science, Adelaide Children's Hospital, the RAH and the Queen Elizabeth Hospital - provided bones from dead children, including stillborn babies, for strontium 90 testing for 14 years.

AWTSC chairman Sir Ernest Titterton told successive federal governments the levels were so low the radioactive fallout could not have endangered Australians.

THE Federal Government has released a preliminary list of more than 17,000 military and civilian personnel who served at the British atomic tests in the 1950s.

The register - first recommended by a royal commission in 1985 - will be used to conduct national studies into how many of the men have died since the tests, especially how many suffered from cancer.

The mortality and cancer studies are expected to confirm long-standing claims by veterans that thousands of army, navy, air force personnel and civilians died as a result of being exposed to radiation.

The veterans plan to use the register in their campaign to win compensation for mental and physical illnesses they believe were caused by their involvement with the nuclear explosions.

Their claims have been strengthened in recent months by the release of secret documents detailing how hundreds of servicemen were deliberately exposed to radiation as human guinea pigs.

The Advertiser has obtained new evidence that, in addition to servicemen, civilians were ordered to watch four explosions at Maralinga during the 1956 test series codenamed Operation Buffalo.

The Advertiser has also obtained documents which confirm earlier reports that inadequate attempts were made by the British and Australian governments to remove desert Aborigines from the vicinity of the tests.

The Veterans Affairs Department said it had been unable to compile a list of Aborigines who may have been involved with the 12 explosions at Emu Field, Maralinga and the Montebello Islands, off Western Australia, between 1952 and 1957.

Instead, the 257-page list posted on to its website yesterday contained the names of 1658 army, 3235 navy, 3223 air force and 8907 civilian personnel who were part of the five-year program. The list was compiled from extensive searches of Defence Department records, personnel files of private contractors, the 1985 royal commission report, security cards issued for Maralinga and lists previously prepared by veterans groups or government departments.

However, the Veterans Affairs Department warned the roll was likely to contain errors because "of the length of time that has elapsed and the difficulty in locating and verifying authentic records".

Veterans Affairs Minister Bruce Scott last night said a consultative forum would meet next month to determine how the health studies would be conducted, with a senior researcher expected to be announced in August.

"This is a major task and when complete will provide information about the nature and extent of any health problems suffered by veterans of the atomic tests," he told the SA RSL state congress in Adelaide.

The Atomic Participants Nominal Roll can be inspected on www.dva.gov.au while veterans or civilians with corrections or additions can call 1800 445 006.

BEVERLEY and Des Freeling will never know why their only child was born with severe disabilities, but they believe the British atomic tests at Maralinga are to blame.

Mr Freeling, 77, of Findon, was one of several hundred civilians ordered to gather on the Maralinga Village oval to watch the explosion of a nuclear bomb during the Operation Antler series in 1957.

He also accompanied a senior police officer on a sightseeing trip into a contaminated area to view a crater left by an explosion the previous year.

Mr Freeling spent considerable time at Maralinga, during and after the atomic tests, as the manager of Shell, which supplied bitumen and fuel for the top secret project.

He married Beverley in 1962 and their son, Darryn, was born four years later with multiple disabilities which have left him a quadriplegic confined to a wheelchair.

Mrs Freeling, 64, told The Advertiser she had always suspected 35-year-old Darryn's disabilities were caused by her husband's exposure to radiation at Maralinga.

"There will always be a question mark in my mind," she said. "I would like them (the Federal Government) to say to me, `No, it's definitely not Maralinga', but I don't believe they'll ever tell us the truth even if they do find out."
Mr and Mrs Freeling are among hundreds of atomic test personnel around Australia who suspect their exposure to radiation has led to infertility, miscarriages, stillborn babies and birth defects.

Health surveys obtained by The Advertiser detail a range of problems among the children of former servicemen. They include spinal problems, deformed teeth, misshapen limbs, enlarged hearts, melanomas, chronic asthma and cancers.

Many of the children died soon after birth, while others lived only until their early 20s or 30s. Mrs Freeling said Darryn barely survived birth and his disabilities became more evident as he grew older.

He required full-time care until he was 27, when respite accommodation was found for him after years of seeking help from government departments.

Mrs Freeling said she had sought blood test results for Darryn when he was younger but was denied access to the information by the Women's and Children's Hospital.

"I wanted to know what his blood group was but a specialist there told me it had nothing to do with me because I didn't need to know," she said.

"It was quite typical of how I've been treated over the years. It seemed nobody wanted to know about disabled children, especially those who needed full-time care. When I tried to find out about Darryn's disabilities, it's almost as if he never fitted in. The best they (medical specialists) were able to come up with was that he's a spastic quadriplegic."

Mr Freeling said he was never warned about the potential dangers of radiation during his various stints at Maralinga, which ranged from two years to several months. He remembered assembling with other civilians at Maralinga Village in September, 1957, when a British officer told them to turn their backs to the bomb and put their hands over their eyes.

"There was this boom and we were told we could turn around and look at the mushroom cloud (about 14km away)."

Many of Mr Freeling's friends and acquaintances at Maralinga have since died, with cancer particularly common. He suffers skin cancers, depression and high blood pressure.

JENNY Carson always suspected her father flew through the mushroom clouds of atomic bombs to track their movements across Australia.

But, until three days ago, all she knew for certain was that 35-year-old Squadron Leader Geoffrey Tuck died on April 8, 1955, from a rare form of testicular cancer.

Now, with the release of a list of 17,000 servicemen and civilians who participated in the British atomic tests in the 1950s, Mrs Carson, 52, of Aldgate, and her 77-year-old mother, Edith Avery, finally have the confirmation they have been seeking for 46 years.

Squadron Leader Tuck's name is one of the 3223 RAAF personnel listed by the Veterans' Affairs Department as being part of the 12 nuclear tests held in Australia from 1952 to 1957.

Mrs Avery wrote numerous letters to defence officials and politicians seeking information about her husband - and what he could have been exposed to during the two years they spent at Woomera, in the Far North.

Mrs Carson said her mother was never given answers, only statements that the information was classified.

"My mother tried to get files on my father," she said. "My mother sought confirmation he was part of the testing program but never got it.

"The lies and deception have just been unbelievable. These guys served their country and this is how they and their families have been treated."

Classified documents obtained by The Advertiser reveal - for the first time - that Squadron Leader Tuck was the officer in charge of the Airborne Radiation Detection Unit based at Woomera for the second test series, Operation Totem.

It was the role of Squadron Leader Tuck's fleet of 10 Lincoln bombers and two Dakota transporters to track the clouds from two nuclear bombs exploded on towers at Emu Field, 480km northwest of Woomera, on October 15 and 27, 1953.

The documents obtained by The Advertiser confirm earlier reports the aircraft and their crew were heavily contaminated as they flew within the clouds, using monitoring equipment to measure their radioactivity as they passed across the Australian mainland.

Squadron Leader Tuck, who supervised daily operations of the ARDU, was chosen after delivering the second of two new Canberra bombers in record time from London to Melbourne on March 16, 1952, for use in the nuclear testing program.

He was greeted on his arrival at the RAAF's Laverton base in Victoria by Mrs Carson, then two, her 11-month old brother, Michael, and their mother in a reunion photographed by the Melbourne Herald newspaper.

Mrs Carson said she did not have any pleasant childhood memories, only memories of her father dying.

"I don't remember anything about my father and childhood except death," she said. "I remember going to the hospital to see him and I remember him coming home once and I jumped on his lap and he screamed in pain."

Squadron Leader Tuck is one of an estimated 8000 servicemen who have died from cancers and other illnesses after taking part in the atomic testing program.

The Federal Government is to conduct a national health study into the deaths as part of a continuing campaign by veterans to obtain compensation for surviving participants and the thousands of widows and children left behind.

In the second part of a series on the British atomic tests in Australia, COLIN JAMES reveals how hundreds of civilians were exposed to radiation at Maralinga

ROBIN Craig had an unenviable task during his seven months as an SA police officer stationed at Maralinga for the British atomic tests in the 1950s.

Before each of three bombs exploded during the series codenamed Operation Antler, the 23-year-old constable had to assemble the civilian population of the Maralinga Village at its community oval. Mr Craig, 67, of Athelstone, was ordered by British military officers to conduct roll calls to ensure up to 400 people, from bankers to postal clerks, were accounted for before the devices were detonated.

He has told The Advertiser the civilians would gather on the oval, with the instructions they could not leave until after the bombs exploded on towers less than 40 km away, between September 14 and October 9, 1957.

"Everyone had to go to the oval about an hour before the bombs went off so they could be accounted for. We could see the towers from where we were," he said.

"When there was 10 minutes left to go, nobody could go anywhere. If they had to go to the toilet or anything, they had to do it in their pants.

"Instructions would come across from the British that we had to stand with our backs turned to the bombs and put our hands over our eyes.

"When they went off there would be this almighty flash which could blind you and it was like a hot towel was being put on the back of your neck.

"After that we were actually told it was all right to turn around to look at them. The last one was hotter than the other two, that's how close we were."

Soon after the explosions, the Maralinga Village was hit by strong wind gusts which coated buildings and equipment with contaminated radioactive dust.

Mr Craig was sent to Maralinga on May 15, 1957, where he was issued with a BSA Gold Flash motorcycle and sidecar, which he regularly rode through areas contaminated by tests during Operation Buffalo the previous year.

On one occasion, soon after his arrival, Mr Craig was told by a guard that "it was okay to go into the forward zone (where a bomb had exploded the year before) if I stayed between the yellow tapes on either side of the track". "The forward zones were really busy places, with a couple of thousand of civilians staying in camps doing building work, excavating and building roads." he said.

Mr Craig said he was never issued with protective clothing during his time at Maralinga - instead wearing khaki shirts and pants through highly contaminated areas.

The only protection he had was a "small, sticky radioactive badge which got all sweaty and dusty and was bloody useless, if you ask me".

"Nobody ever told me to shower or anything. I would bring my dirty clothes home and wash them," he said.

"I never saw any white radiation suits where I went."

Mr Craig, who is still fit and healthy, said many of the people he knew at Maralinga had since died from cancers and other illnesses, many of them when they were relatively young men in their 30s and 40s.

"There's a whole heap of blokes I knew who have died," Mr Craig said. "In fact, I'm one of the last left from the group I got to know."

Mr Craig was among 8907 civilians named last week by the Federal Government as being participants of the atomic tests held in Australia between 1952 and 1957.

The government has produced its long-promised list of 17,000 Australian servicemen and civilians who took part in the British nuclear tests of the 1950s and 1960s.

The list is the first step in a massive review of the health of those involved in the 12 British atomic bomb tests at Maralinga, Emu and Monte Bello, after renewed allegations that many were exposed to significant amounts of radiation.

Veterans' Affairs Minister Bruce Scott said the roll would form the basis of two scientific studies to examine the causes of death and cancer incidence among this group.

Investigations continue into the health of Aborigines who lived in the area at the time and who may have been exposed to radiation. They are expected to make the final roll.

Veterans and their relatives can check the roll by telephoning 1800 445 006, or visiting the Department of Veterans Affairs' website.

Tonnes of depleted uranium (DU), the toxic radioactive metal blamed for causing cancers in the Gulf and Balkan wars, were blasted into the environment by Britain's nuclear weapons tests in the Pacific and Australia in the 1950s, the Sunday Herald can reveal.

The disclosure has shocked veterans of the nuclear tests, who now suspect that DU may be implicated in the illnesses that many of them have suffered in the years since. And scientists are calling for the government to reopen its inquiry into the health of the 21,000 British servicemen who took part in the tests on Christmas Island and at Maralinga in the Australian desert.

'It beggars belief,' said Sheila Gray, the secretary of the British Nuclear Tests Veterans Association. 'They gave us the impression that DU had never been used before the Gulf war and now it turns out it was used in the 1950s. It's yet another hazard our men had to face.'

Last week the Sunday Herald revealed that the government had a top-secret plan, codenamed Operation Lighthouse, to put hundreds of British and Australian troops 'as close as possible' to nuclear explosions at Maralinga in 1959 to test the effects of the bomb. On Wednesday, that prompted the Australian federal government to launch an inquiry into whether servicemen had been used as radiation guinea pigs.

Bruce Scott, the veterans affairs minister, was seeking an urgent briefing on 50 classified documents posted on the internet which outlined the planned operation. He is also investigating another disclosure by the Sunday Herald in April that two dozen soldiers tested protective clothing by crawling, marching or driving through a fall-out zone three days after a nuclear test at Maralinga in 1956.

The first confirmation that DU was present in the Pacific tests came in a private letter last month from the Ministry of Defence to a Scottish veteran from Fraserburgh, Bob Brown. 'There were quantities of depleted uranium used in the weapons tested at Christmas Island,' wrote an MoD official from Whitehall.

The official said that much of the DU would have been consumed in the nuclear explosion, but that some would have been shot upwards in a fireball and contained in the mushroom cloud. Brown, who was at Christmas Island in 1957 and 1958 and now chairs a veterans' research group known as G2, feared that DU could turn out to be the cause of much illness.

The uranium was wrapped around the core of bombs to boost their yield because it was cheap and available, said Brown. 'But they have kept it under wraps until now. I believe the MoD knew about the effects of the weapons, including DU, long before the Gulf war but they kept it quiet.'

Evidence that DU was also used at Maralinga came in an e-mail to an Australian veteran, Major Alan Batchelor, from the Australian Radiation Protection and Nuclear Safety Agency. The agency's Geoff Williams said that more than eight tonnes of uranium was 'dispersed' by explosions at Maralinga.

The British government had admitted that this consisted of 7.4 tonnes at Kuli, 47.3kg at Taranaki and the rest at a series of 'minor trials'. The uranium, which included both the 235 and 238 isotopes, 'formed very fine particles under implosion'.

According to Batchelor, the British bombs contained up to 20 times as much uranium as plutonium. 'These materials, when vaporised in the fireball, would condense out as finely divided invisible oxides of these metals, potentially lethal or capable of causing cancer in the lung, liver, kidney or blood-forming bone marrow.'

The uranium from a bomb would form much smaller particles than the DU from a shell and would be easier to inhale, argued Batchelor. If DU had harmed soldiers in the Gulf, he said, 'this could have been worse for servicemen working in areas close to ground zeros (the sites of nuclear explosions), and with no follow-up actionwouldhavegone unnoticed.'

However, last week the MoD argued that there was no comparison between the DU used in armour-piercing shells during the Gulf and Balkan wars in the past decade and that exploded in nuclear tests during the 1950s. Except in the most extreme circumstances, the metal posed no significant threat to human health, a spokeswoman claimed.

But Malcolm Hooper, emeritus professor of medicinal chemistry at the University of Sunderland, disagreed. 'You can't distribute small aerosol particles of DU and then deny there is a hazard,' he said. 'They are trying to belittle what is a serious problem.'

THE FEDERAL Government has not inspected 176 classified files on Maralinga atomic tests despite contrary claims by federal Veterans Affairs Minister Bruce Scott.

The Veterans Affairs Department this week wrote to a Senate committee saying it had not requested access to the Defence Department files which Mr Scott said two weeks ago were being examined.

He told The Advertiser on May 25 he had asked the Veterans Affairs Department to investigate if the documents had been provided to a royal commission ordered by the Hawke Labor government into the British atomic testing program in Australia.

"We (the Veterans Affairs Department) are getting the documents scanned today (May 25) to see if there is anything there which is important. I have issued instructions to the Veterans Affairs Department to scan through the documents," Mr Scott said. "If there are any relevant documents in these 179 files we will know very shortly".

Mr Scott earlier revealed on ABC Radio 891 that the Defence Department had provided the files to the National Australian Archives in 1986, the year after royal commissioner Jim McClelland delivered his findings.

Veterans Affairs Department secretary Neil Johnston on Monday, however, wrote to a Senate committee saying the files were "ones which have not yet been examined by the NAA to determine open access" by the public.

"The Department of Veterans Affairs has not made a request to (the archives) for access to these files and therefore does not possess these files or copies of the files," he said.

Mr Johnston said the "176, not 179" files were under the control of the Department of Prime Minister and Cabinet as "I believe" they were part of the McClelland royal commission.

"Accordingly, my department is unable to comply with the request, as the files in question are not under the control, possession or jurisdiction of the department to provide."

Mr Johnston was responding to a request for Mr Scott to provide the files to a Senate estimates hearing.

Democrats Senator Lyn Allison asked the Foreign Affairs, Defence and Trade Legislation committee to seek the documents after Mr Scott said he wanted "no stone left unturned" to ensure there was "no cover-up" over the 12 British-Australian nuclear tests throughout the 1950s and early 1960s.

Senator Allison said yesterday it was "time to lift the lid on the cover-ups over the British tests", in which about 20,000 military personnel, civilians and Aborigines are believed to have been exposed to radiation.

"The royal commission findings have been ignored, the clean-up was botched and inadequate, veterans have died fighting the Government for compensation in the courts and the secrecy that started in the 1950s continues today," she said.

A spokesman for Mr Scott, Mark Croxford, said last night the files had not been inspected as they had not been cleared by the National Australian Archives. Mr Scott had written to Arts Minister Peter McGauran to expedite the process.

"We are taking action but these things take time," he said.

Up to 16,000 Australians found to have participated in the British nuclear tests at Maralinga are about to undergo comprehensive health testing.

A spokesman for Veteran Affairs Minister Bruce Scott said last night the names of the 16,000 have been compiled for a nominal roll to be used for the cancer and mortality study - the first to be conducted on Maralinga veterans.
Concern was expressed in Britain yesterday about the lack of comprehensive health studies of Maralinga servicemen in the wake of revelations that depleted uranium was used in the blasts.

But Mr Scott's spokesman dismissed the revelations as "not new" and said a comprehensive Australian health study would start next month. He said it had been known since 1986 that depleted uranium was used in the tests.
When the McClelland Royal Commission into the tests released its report that year, it revealed that about seven to eight tonnes of depleted uranium was used in minor testing at Maralinga in the '50s and '60s, he said. "Very few, if any, Australians were actually involved in that aspect of the testing according to the McClelland Royal Commission."

The names of 25 Australians sent into "hot areas" were recently found in documents at the Australian National Archives by senior research fellow at Dundee University, Sue Rabbit Roff.

The spokesman said that, of the 25, only three had died of cancer or cancer-related illness. Another eight had died of natural causes. But as this was only a small sample, the larger sample was warranted, he said.

Around half the Australian names on the nominal roll compiled for the study were military personnel, he said. The rest were civilians.

The roll will be completed next month - when members of the public, those who served or worked at Maralinga during the '50s and '60s, and their families - can propose changes to the content.

The spokesman said Mr Scott had met John Speller, the British Minister for the Armed Forces two weeks ago. The latter had indicated that the British would provide Australia with any information needed for the study.

The next phase of the study will focus on an examination of the national death and cancer registers to be compared against the nominal roll by a team led by expert scientists.  Those findings will then be checked against the community norm.

THE Federal Government will conduct a health study of thousands of Australians living in the vicinity of the 1950s British nuclear tests after today confirming up to eight tonnes of deadly depleted uranium (DU) was blasted into the air during the trials.

Federal Veterans' Affairs Minister Bruce Scott said use of the deadly DU during the Maralinga nuclear tests was identified by a royal commission 14 years ago, but the then Labor government failed to act on the information.

"I can confirm that (DU) was used in part of the atomic tests at Maralinga," Mr Scott said. "That information was also available to the ... royal commission that was conducted while the Labor Party was in government."

DU is an extremely dense metal used in shells which can pierce the armour of a tank. On impact, it vaporises into a gas which scientists fear can be inhaled or ingested by people nearby.

The toxic radioactive metal has been blamed for higher rates of leukaemia among Italian peacekeepers in Kosovo, and was previously thought to have been first used in the Gulf War in 1991.

Mr Scott today said the government would next month release a nominal roll detailing all Australians involved in the 1950s British nuclear tests, with the numbers expected to be in the thousands.

As well as soldiers, the list would also include Aboriginal and other civilian populations in the testing area at the time.

The government would then undertake a health study of all participants, including the causes of death of those who had since died, he said.

"You've got to have the nominal roll of the people who were there so that then you can establish the cancer incidence rate or any other element that might come to light during the health study," he told reporters in Melbourne.

The study could include blood and urine testing of all participants, and those found affected would all be eligible for compensation under military or safety stipulations.

Mr Scott said federal Opposition Leader Kim Beazley should have ordered the roll and the health study when he was a senior Labor minister.

"We have got to condemn the Labor Party for their lack of action in relation to royal commission findings ... " he said. "This should have happened 14 years ago."

The health study would follow the same path as similar surveys of Vietnam War veterans.

The news follows revelations that the British government planned to put hundreds of British and Australian troops as close as possible to nuclear explosions at Maralinga in 1959, and that two dozen soldiers tested protective clothing by crawling, marching or driving through a fallout zone three days after a nuclear test at Maralinga in 1956.

Mr Scott was in Melbourne inspecting progress on a new memorial to Australians and Greeks who fought during World War II.

The Australian Hellenic Memorial, being built in the city's Domain gardens area, is due for completion in September.

New Zealand, Australian and British servicemen may have been exposed to depleted uranium, which has been blamed for higher cancer rates in Gulf War veterans, during British nuclear tests in Australia and the Pacific in the 1950s.

The Australian government has confirmed that more than eight tonnes of depleted uranium were blasted into the air during weapons tests in the South Australian desert. The British Ministry of Defence (MoD) has
admitted that the material was also dispersed during explosions at Christmas Island in the Pacific.

The confirmation followed revelations earlier this month that 24 soldiers tested protective clothing by crawling, marching or driving through a fall-out zone three days after a nuclear test in Australia in 1956.

It had been thought that depleted uranium - a radioactive heavy metal that is used in shells and can pierce the armour of a tank - was first used during the Gulf War in 1991.

The British and Australian governments offered urine tests to soldiers exposed to it there and in the Balkans, after scientific studies linked it with a slightly higher rate of lung cancer among veterans.

No such investigations have been carried out among the thousands of servicemen who took part in the nuclear weapons tests.

The Australian Veteran Affairs Minister, Bruce Scott, yesterday said that a health study is to be conducted among surviving Australian test veterans, and causes of death of those who have died will also be established.

Twelve atomic bombs were detonated on Australian territory between 1952 and 1957 - nine at Maralinga and three on the Monte Bello islands, off Western Australia. Geoff Williams, head of the Australian Radiation Protection and Nuclear Safety Agency, in an email to an Australian test veteran, Major Alan Batchelor, made the disclosure about depleted uranium, which on impact vaporises into a gas that can be inhaled or ingested.

Mr Batchelor said that it was "capable of causing cancer in the lung, liver, kidney or blood-forming bone barrow". He said that if depleted uranium had harmed soldiers in the Gulf, "this could have been worse for servicemen working in areas close to ground zeros [the site of nuclear explosions], and with no follow-up action would have gone unnoticed".

The MoD says material used in the 1950s was different to later versions and posed no significant threat to human health, except in extreme cases. Some scientists disagree.

- INDEPENDENT

Scientists are racing against time to pore over the chromosomes of New Zealand survivors of Britain's 21 nuclear bomb tests in the Pacific and Australia in the 1950s.

The Nuclear Test Veterans' Association is sending a high-tech microscopy expert from Massey University in Palmerston North to Scotland to study the latest techniques in radiobiological analysis. But with the age, and in some cases ill-health, of the survivors the project has taken on some urgency.

Liz Nickless, of Massey's Institute of Molecular Biosciences, leaves for St Andrews University next month to learn how to use the techniques to scrutinise blood samples from New Zealand test veterans for any excessive genetic impairment.

Veterans' association president Roy Sefton, whose organisation has a $200,000 Government grant for legal and medical research, is pleased others are getting behind the project. The original plan had been to conduct research on British veterans, as it would have been impossible to send blood, saliva and tissue samples from New Zealand to Scotland without spoiling them in transit. But then he got talking to Massey chromosome researcher Dr Al Rowland and found most of the work could be done at his institute, with some training assistance from St Andrews. Palmerston North-based Mr Sefton says researchers are starting to realise time is running out for studying such a unique collection of medical cases, given that most veterans are aged over 65 and many are in ill health.

Such is the mounting scientific interest that the Cancer Society and Royal Society are chipping in for Liz Nickless's air fares and accommodation, he says. She will work after her return with Dr Rowland to analyse samples from 30 to 45 of the veterans, although the exact number to be randomly tested has yet to be determined.

Dr Rowland says new technology developed at St Andrews, a world leader in radiobiological analysis, is applicable across a wide field of genetic damage and cancer research.

Mr Sefton, one of 551 Navy crewmen who sailed with the frigates Pukaki and Rotoiti into nuclear test zones around Christmas (now Kiritimati) and Malden Islands, also welcomes research contributions from Palmerston North Hospital cancer specialists. He says four oncologists and a radiologist intend spending time each week on the project, without cost to his association or the university.

It is unknown how many of the original crew members are still alive, and how many may have died prematurely, but Mr Sefton says his organisation represents 220 survivors and 50 widows. Association research officer Ruth McKenzie, a retired nurse and school-teacher and widow of a chaplain on one of the ships, told a Government committee of inquiry two years ago that only 209 of 475 children born to 282 veterans were in good health. She said then that 25 died in childhood; 15 had severe heart problems; 18 had cancer; 25 had skeletal deformities; 11 had deformed internal organs; 23 had intellectual handicaps or psychiatric disorders; 16 had bone problems; and 54 had serious skin ailments.

There had also been 145 miscarriages and 18 stillbirths, and she noted that only 2.5 per cent of the general population could expect to be impaired genetically.

At least six New Zealanders were also exposed to radiation at British test sites in Australia, with the British Government forced to acknowledge five of them were among a select group of officers put close to the blasts for experimental purposes.

Another was a Royal Air Force helicopter pilot whose family wonder if his death of a heart attack at 46 was related to radiation exposure both in Australia and at Christmas Island.

Unlike the United States, which has paid compensation to hundreds of nuclear test veterans and civilians exposed to atomic fallout, Britain has steadfastly denied any responsibility for health problems among Commonwealth forces.

But the New Zealand association is expecting legal advice in the next few weeks on whether it has a strong enough case for a class lawsuit, which it believes will gain strong assistance from the British admission about the Australian tests.