Page 24 - BNVTA News November 2020

22
campaign Summer 2020
A Report from Ceri McDade, Ron Watson and John Lax
A meeting with the Kiribati Ambassador
regarding Nuclear Testing
Christian Ciobanu, the New York Representative of the Nuclear Age Peace Foundation invited John Lax (Operation Dominic) and Ron Watson (Operation Grapple) to speak at the New Horizons for Victim Assistance and Environmental Remediation Conference, held virtually online on 13 October.
The event was chaired by His Excellency the Kiribati Ambassador to the United Nations and United States, and the Kiribati Ambassador Designate to Mexico and Canada.
Delegates included the Permanent Mission of Kiribati, Harvard Law School’s International Human Rights Clinic, the Centre for International Security and Policy, ICAN France, and the Vatican. Although the BNTVA does not take a stance on nuclear weapons, we felt it important to attend for John and Ron to share their experiences of Christmas Island and health effects affecting themselves and/or their families. Their transcripts are below:
Ron:
“I am a retired UK servlceman, and now the Treasurer of the British Nuclear Veterans Association, who witnessed five nuclear bomb tests in 1958. I arrived on Christmas Island in January 1958, along with a complete regiment of close to 1,000 soldiers, having left England, by boat, on New Year's Eve 1957. At the time, I do not remember being told why we were on the Island, and, when notified, along with most of my friends, it meant nothing as we
had no real idea what a nuclear bomb was.
During my time on the Island I never met any of the local inhabitants. In the beginning, I lived in what we called the Main Camp, now where the Captain Cook Hotel is located, and in the first four months, worked at the docks, now London, the Main Airfield and, for a time, prior to April 1958, along with a complete Squadron of Soldiers, lived at the Control Centre in the Bay of Wrecks, that was known as C Site. The first bomb I witnessed was called Grapple Y. This was the largest bomb that the UK tested and it took place on the 28th April 1958.
Following this, I continued to work and travelled to the C Site and the South East Point of the Island, where there were banks of cameras set up to film the H Bomb explosions, which exploded about five miles south of the Island. During the period of April-September there were a total of three H bombs, and two atom bombs tested. The two atom bombs were suspended in a basket, that was attached to a vertical row of four barrage balloon's about 400 metres above the ground, and approximately, half way between the South East Point of
the Island the Control Centre.
I mentioned earlier that I never met any of the local inhabitants and, in 2018, changed this by returning to the Island, now Kiritimati, along with a group of other veterans, and their wives, to commemorate the 60th Anniversary of the Grapple
Y test. This took place on the 28th April, at a Memorial, which had been specifically designed and built for this ceremony, and located in London. During the week I was on the Island in 2018. I met many government officials, the members of the Island's Nuclear Victims Association and members of the population, that I have maintained contact with, via social media, and can now call them my friends. In fact, the Leader of their Association, Teeua Taukaro, refers to me as "Bro" when she sends me messages.”
John:
“I arrived on Christmas Island, as a 20 years old Senior Aircraftman in the Royal Air Force, in September 1961. My role was to service and maintain aircraft radio communication equipment and some navigation aids. At that time, we were not made aware of any proposed Nuclear Tests in the immediate future, there