The day the bomb dropped

4:15am Sunday 20th July 2008

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THERE are few who can honestly say they witnessed a truly momentous, world changing event, but 69-year-old John Brewster from Hythe can rightly make that claim.

In 1957 John, then serving in the Army, found himself standing on a beach, on an island in the middle of the Pacific Ocean, when he saw a sight, so fierce in its awe-inspiring power, that it has been indelibly etched on his mind for more than half a century.

John was there when Britain exploded its first nuclear bomb on Christmas Island and he still vividly recalls the day which quite literally shook the earth.

His account of the explosion and its aftereffects is dramatic in its understatement. John tells his story in the very matter of fact way of someone who is now unshockable. He has, after all, looked the unthinkable in the face.

"We knew that a new type of bomb was going to be exploded but back then no one really thought too much about it as we thought it was just another weapon being tested,'' said John.

"When the day arrived we were ordered to securely tie down all our tents and then we walked down to the beach. None of us was given any special protective clothing, all of us were wearing just a jacket and long trousers.

"It was broad daylight and we just stood there looking at the sun on the water. Then over a loudspeaker system we heard a voice saying: Bomb gone'.

"Everyone was ordered to turn around, close their eyes and then put their hands over their face.Within seconds there was an enormous flash and I will always remember at that moment I could see all the bones in my hand stand out like an X-ray.

"Then I had this feeling as if someone was holding the bar of an electric fire close to the small of my back and then slowly running it up to my shoulders.

"We were then ordered to turn around to face the explosion. I will never forget that terrifying, magnificent sight, there are no words, good or bad, able to describe what I saw.

"The top of the mushroom cloud was brilliant white, like it was snow, while bright red and yellow flames boiled in an enormous tower above the waves. I saw a strange black line rushing towards me which turned out to be the sonic boom from the explosion and then when it reached the shore it was so powerful that it knocked many of us off our feet and all the time the cloud was getting higher and higher.

"We discovered the voice we had heard over the loudspeaker was the pilot of the aircraft that dropped the bomb and when we went back to our tents they had all been flattened.

"Everyone was told that the bomb had been dropped 25 miles out to sea but I have always believed it was closer.

"There were no special preparations and the Army's attitude was that we were soldiers there to do a job - to shut-up and get on with it.

"We had no radiation meters to measure the amount of fall-out we experienced and even to this day the British authorities refuse to admit that our health had been put at risk.

"I have had beautiful children, grandchildren and great-grandchildren but I'm a member of the British Nuclear Tests Veterans Association and I know of many others not so lucky. At one point I was going to three or four funerals every month.'' Over the following weeks John and his comrades went on to witness a further three nuclear explosions, each many times more powerful than those dropped on Japan at the end of the SecondWorld War, as the programme of testing continued on Christmas Island.