Description
Book SynopsisSHORTLISTED FOR THE WA PREMIER''S BOOK AWARDS - BOOK OF THE YEAR 2024
SHORTLISTED FOR THE MARGARET MEDCALF AWARD 2024
''I remember seeing a flash, I turned around and heard a roar like a train approaching in a tunnel. Then a tremendous crack like a whiplash passed directly overhead. I saw a mushroom cloud ... There was black and white smoke, orange and red flames ascending through the centre of the mushroom.'' RAN Able Seaman Vince Douglas, participant in Operation Hurricane
At 8.00 a.m. on Friday 3 October 1952, Britain''s first atomic bomb was detonated in the hold of a surplus frigate, HMS Plym, moored in the Montebello Islands, 50 miles off the North West Coast of Western Australia. The blast vaporised the Plym, produced a mushroom cloud 2 miles high, and covered the islands and parts of the Australian mainland with fallout.
The test, codenamed Operation Hurricane, was the culmination of years of top-secret planning in
