Clouds of Deceit Read Online Free PDF

ashore to unload the equipment needed for the next test.
    Perkins was on duty in the wireless office when the first explosion of this new series took place. He was in touch with two RAF Canberras which were to fly through the atomic cloud, while another telegraphist in a separate room was in radio contact with the scientists on the island and the ship’s bridge. At first, according to Perkins, the conversation between the two Canberra pilots was largely technical. ‘Then they reported that they were going into the cloud. I distinctly heard one pilot say to the other, “How does the second hottest pilot in the RAF feel?” I thought at the time that this referred to the heat of the fireball rather than radiation.’ Perkins kept in touch with the pilots while they flew through the cloud; when they headed for home, he went up on deck and saw the plume of smoke from the explosion.
    After the first bomb had been exploded, Perkins and his colleagues were allowed ashore on the islands. ‘There was a beer tent where we were allowed to go with our beer to drink it,’ he recalled. ‘There was nothing to look at and it was boring.’ Perkins and a couple of other radio operators asked an army man if they could go to examine the spot where the bomb had gone off. ‘He said we could if we wanted and that no one was stopping us. I would estimate this was approximately seven days after the blast.’
    Perkins and his two friends set off on foot. ‘There had been a slight hill with a tower on it, and the hill had been flattened by the explosion, and the tower had disappeared. There was afused, glass-like substance on the floor, looking like ice.’ The men’s dress for this outing could hardly have been less suitable. They were bare to the waist, wearing shorts and sandals. As a gesture to safety precautions, they put their radiation film badges on their shorts.
    The run-up to the second explosion of the series was fraught with difficulties. Because of poor weather, there were three or four abortive countdowns. ‘Everybody was getting very fed up and one or two sailors were taken off the ship to hospital since they had had breakdowns,’ Perkins recalled. ‘There was very great tension in the air. I remember talking to one scientist who was working on a timing device. He said that the long wait was because the weather had to be right, but that they had to hurry up because of time and money. He said that the weather was about to close up and the winds change. He said that if the second explosion was going to take place, it would have to happen soon, and that if it did not it would be the most tremendous waste of time and money.’
    Perkins was off duty when the second explosion took place, so he watched it from the deck of the
Narvik,
about five miles from the blast. ‘There was a big Geiger counter on the aft deck which went berserk after the second explosion. There was also one on the superstructure. My recollection is that it was ticking for a few days after the bomb, weaker all the time.’
    On board the
Narvik,
there was a rumour that the fireball from this second explosion had finished very close to the bunker where the scientists had been positioned. The rumour gathered strength on the day after the test, when the ship sailed back into the islands to pick up the scientists. ‘I stood on the upper deck watching it,’ Perkins recalled. ‘A motor boat came towards us. There were two men with protective clothing on and five or six scientists, all of whom had blankets wrapped around them, looking as if they were in shock. I looked down on them from about twenty-five yards away. They were brought to the ship’s side and came up the gangplank, and had to be helped up. Nobody saw them again. I believe they were taken from the ship at night. To the best of my recollection, they were wearing sandals, khaki shirts, stockings and shorts, with no