'NUCLEAR BOMB TESTS WILL COST ME MY LIFE'
KEITH ROSSITER POLITICAL REPORTER
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7:30 - 22 January 2008
At the height of the Cold War in 1956, Plymouth sailor Doug Atkinson was one of hundreds of servicemen callously exposed to fallout from atomic weapons in Britain's battle to stay ahead in the arms race.
Today, aged 75, he lives with his wife Kathleen in a Crownhill sheltered flat, his spine and stomach riddled with cancer that doctors say will kill him within two years. The cancer is a direct result of the 1956 tests, he believes.
Despite being dosed up on morphine, the pain makes it difficult for him to sit down. And he rarely leaves the flat except for regular radiotherapy.
Other countries have compensated the servicemen and their families, many of them damaged by birth defects caused by radiation.
But the "morally bankrupt" British Government is hiding behind a technicality to avoid paying out, say the London solicitors Rosenblatt, who are fighting on behalf of the British Nuclear Test Veterans' Association. Mr Atkinson is part of their class action - in fact the solicitors have told him that his detailed evidence is the driving force behind the case.
Mervyn Fudge, a consultant for the law firm, said the Government was using legislation that sets a time limit on claims that will delay the case until late in 2010, by which time Mr Atkinson and many others are likely to have died.
The Limitations Act says that any claim must be made within three years of the incident or of the victim becoming aware of the damage.
"That's morally bankrupt," Mr Fudge said.
Last week Mr Atkinson relived the weeks more than 50 years ago when his country sacrificed his health in the cause of national security. When his ship, HMS Diana, arrived in the Monte Bello Islands northeast of Australia in 1956, the waters were already hot with radiation from earlier tests, according to Mr Atkinson, who was a leading cook on the Devonport-based destroyer.
"We waited weeks before the scientists were ready," he said. "We spent our time watching films and fishing. We weren't allowed to land the fish because of the radioactivity, but they still desalinated seawater for us to drink. That removed everything - except the radioactivity.
"When the scientists were ready we were ordered to sail into the fallout area to see what effect the radiation would have on the equipment and the men.
"We were just guinea pigs. We sat on deck, wearing only white shorts and sandals. We were about eight miles from the island, with our backs to the explosion, and we were told to close our eyes and cover them with our hands.
"When the bomb went off there was a brilliant white flash, so bright that I could see through my hands. I could see the bones like it was an X-ray.
"There was a tremendous wave of heat and then a roaring noise. You couldn't describe the noise - it was not like any ordinary high explosive.
"When we turned around we were looking straight up, under the mushroom cloud. It was rising fast, black like soot and red with flames.
"They made us stay on deck for three minutes, then we were ordered down below to 'deep sheltered stations'. There we stayed for 13 hours, then the ship left the fallout zone. Within days my back and chest came up with golfball-size ulcers, and they burst, running with pus and blood. My shirts were saturated with blood.
"I couldn't get to see the doctor at first. Where there was usually a queue of about a dozen men waiting to report sick every morning, after the explosions there were 150 a day.
"Joe Nolan, a leading seaman from Plymouth, used to bathe my back for me.
"When I saw the doctor he said it was tropical ulcers, but I had already served 11 years east of Suez and never suffered from tropical ulcers."
HMS Diana and her crew, under their Captain, John Gower - the uncle of England cricketer David Gower - went through a second blast before they were allowed to return to Devonport.
"None of the scientists we carried made it back to Britain," Mr Atkinson said. "They had been even more exposed than we were."
Back in Plymouth in 1957, the ship's crew were paid off. Mr Atkinson was posted to HMS Raleigh at Torpoint, where he met his future wife, Kathleen - and he obediently kept his secret for 30 years.
But the consequences of the tests may have been affecting him already.
Mr Atkinson was infertile and the couple were unable to have children. They eventually adopted two girls, who have given them five grandchildren and two great-grandchildren.
Ten years after the tests, Mr Atkinson had all his teeth pulled, and began to suffer back trouble.
After leaving the Navy, he went to work for Mother's Pride as confectionery supervisor, but took early retirement at the age of 49 as the discs in his spine crumbled.
"I told one of the doctors that I had been involved with the atomic bomb and he said it could be connected," Mr Atkinson said. "I asked him to put it in writing, but by the next day he had disappeared.
"My condition was one of the symptoms seen after the bombs were dropped on Hiroshima and Nagasaki in 1945. All the information they needed they already had from Japan so there was no need for these tests."
He says that evidence from Hiroshima and Nagasaki showed that cancers lurked in the bones. Three months ago, on his 75th birthday, Mr Atkinson was diagnosed with inoperable cancer of the spine.
He said that only about 60 of HMS Diana's 308-strong crew still survived - many of them are believed to live in Plymouth.
The Ministry of Defence said this week: "The UK Government recognises the vital contribution service personnel played in nuclear tests during the 1950s.
"This group action refers to events which took place more than 50 years ago and in these circumstances it is appropriate for the MoD to rely on a statutory defence based on the Limitation Act 1980.
"It will ultimately be the courts - not the MoD - who decide whether this group action can proceed.
"Compensation claims are considered on the basis of whether or not the Ministry of Defence has a legal liability to pay compensation. Where there is a proven legal liability compensation is paid."
But Mr Fudge said: "These people were soldiers of this country and it's time we honoured our duty to them before they die."
He said that recent research in New Zealand had demonstrated a clear link between nuclear explosions and chromosome damage leading to the kind of cancers the veterans suffer.
"They were all conscripts and they were not told that they were going to be subjected to nuclear tests," Mr Fudge said. His message to the Government is: "Come clean. Be fair to the veterans and give us justice.
"It may be too late for a lot of veterans but many of them have dependants who are struggling. Many children were born with deformities - and it could go on for generations because of the chromosome defects."
krossiter@eveningherald.co.uk
Gregor Gable
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