NUCLEAR bombs stored at British military bases in the late 1950s could have
exploded by accident, according to declassified Royal Air Force papers. Just one
going off would have been like 25 Hiroshima blasts.
Rushed into service as a stop-gap while Britain developed its own H-bomb, the
gigantic devices held so much fissionable material that they risked going
critical when armed, the documents reveal.
Up to a dozen of the huge fission weapons, based on a design codenamed Violet
Club, were supplied to RAF bases including those at Finningley in South
Yorkshire, Scampton in Lincolnshire and Wittering in Cambridgeshire between 1958
and 1960.
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But the RAF was worried that when the bombs鈥� safety mechanism was disabled
there was a 鈥渞isk of catastrophe鈥�. In one memo dated 12 January 1959, a Group
Captain Tait wrote: 鈥淎 high-yield nuclear explosion would be possible if the
weapon were jettisoned, or in the event of a crash on return, or an accident in
诲别-产辞尘产颈苍驳.鈥�
The evidence was unearthed from the Public Records Office in London by Lesley
Wright at John Moores University in Liverpool, David Wright of the University of
Manchester and military historian Nicholas Hill. They say each bomb held around
70 kilograms of uranium-235, enough to create a 500-kiloton explosion.
But each weapon, made by the Atomic Weapons Research Establishment at
Aldermaston, was packed with 450 kilograms of steel balls while on the ground to
separate the sections of the uranium so that it could not accidentally form a
critical mass.
To minimise the risk of stray neutrons from one radioactive mass triggering a
chain reaction in another, the RAF initially stored the bombs in separate
buildings, but later they had only to be 1.8 metres apart.
The bombs also took too long to arm. In the event of a nuclear attack, the
RAF was meant to be able to launch a nuclear-armed aircraft within 15 minutes,
yet Tait鈥檚 memo warns that removing the metals balls that would arm a Violet
Club bomb took at least 20 minutes.
Lesley Wright argues that the unwieldy weapon was imposed on the RAF because
the British government wanted to keep up with the US and the Soviet Union, who
were already testing fusion bombs with yields in the megaton range. 鈥淭his is a
prime example of how the pursuit of superpower status and fear overcame rational
decision making,鈥� she says.
A Ministry of Defence spokesman says the bombs were supplied as a kit for
Vulcan bombers 鈥渨hich could be assembled and deployed in a national emergency鈥�.
But the MoD insists that there was 鈥渘o risk鈥� of an accidental explosion because
it 鈥渢ook all the necessary precautions to ensure that [Violet Club] was
transported and stored safely鈥�.