Do you think those ships were a little to close?
Posted on 08/04/2008 9:20:48 AM PDT by BGHater
BRITISH Defence chiefs have admitted servicemen were exposed to dangerous radiation levels during nuclear tests in Australia and the South Pacific in the 1950s.
The dramatic admission, made after years of denials, features in papers filed with the High Court in London by Ministry of Defence lawyers.
The Sunday Mirror newspaper said the court papers reveal that the Ministry of Defence now believes that nuclear tests were responsible for the deaths of some British servicemen.
However, the MoD insists that only 159 men were affected out of the 20,000 who were present.
About 800 former servicemen from Britain, New Zealand and Fiji earlier this year launched a multi-million dollar lawsuit against the MoD, claiming they had been exposed to dangerous levels of radiation during tests at sites including Maralinga in South Australia and Christmas Island.
While the case is not due to start until January, court documents seen by the newspaper show that two British Royal Air Force servicemen Eric Denson and John Brothers were irradiated after being ordered to fly through mushroom clouds of nuclear bombs to collect samples.
Film badges worn by the men recorded the amount of radiation they were exposed to.
"Eric had a dose equivalent to 190 years of background radiation," the newspaper said.
"John's was 107. The MoD's maximum safe dose was just 30."
Mr Denson's widow Shirley Denson, who is part of the group suing the MoD, said she hoped the truth about the tests would finally be revealed.
"Hopefully this will mean they have to admit everything else," she told the newspaper.
"There were 20,000 others there. They and their families suffered just as badly.
(Excerpt) Read more at news.com.au ...
Well, so did these guys get cancer, leukemia or other diseases associated with radiation exposure? It says Denson’s widow is pursuing this, but this was in the 50’s, so he’d probably be in at least his eighties if still alive. So did he die 5 years later of leukimia, or last year by stepping in front of a bus he didn’t see or hear cause he was old?
Maybe a giant bug from Mars might have crushed him, or a freak tornado blown him to Oz. All the same, the Gov messed up those men, not the other way around.
My father was on a ship at Bikini Atol when they fired off a nuclear test. He’s talked to me about it. I believe they turned their backs and they felt the warm blast pass. They got shore leave a day or two later and went ashore in the area, not at the direct site of the blast. I’m not actually sure if that one was on land. Some of the men swam in the ocean. My dad did not.
My dad is 82. To my knowledge he has suffered no ill effects whatsoever.
Proximity, wind strength, wind direction, rain, exposure to contaminated surroundings... it’s all pretty much a mater of luck for these men. If you’re too close, there’s nothing much that luck has to do with it. Faulty decisions make other factors fade in significance the closer you are.
Many more of these stories will be printed, some real and others not, as more of the subjects discuss nuclear power.
Gotta get the soccer moms riled up and scared again.
Lucky you, my dad was in the Navy and at Anawetok Atoll (sp?). He’s been dealing with skin cancer. He won’t tell his doc about the test and he’s only talked to me about it once.
I’m not trying to give you a hard time, but some people are prone to skin cancers. I’ve known people who were not anywhere near these types of tests, who came up with skin spots needing to be removed every few years or so. From what I understand it has a lot to do with how you protected yourself from the sun when you were young. I don’t buy into that completely, but I do believe there is some truth to it.
Your dad’s problem may be testing related, so don’t get me wrong. Then again, it may not be too. By the time folks get to be 75 to the mid 80s, I’ll bet there are a lot of people who need skin care of this type.
I am sorry your dad experiences this. Mine does too, but he was an active kid when he was young and he readily admits to spending a lot of time outside without any protection at all. He believes that is what caused his problem. I was born before his exposure, and I see the first signs of my having to have skin care as well. I’m 57.
My dad was at Anawetok, Bikini Atol and White Sands, NM. He was there for it all and saw it all. He died of cancer (of course), at the age of 84 in 2004. A week after he died, a letter arrived from the Pentagon admitting to him that these tests were most probably the cause of his cancer. My mother survives with this disability benefit (thank God), which he worked so hard to prove in those last years.
He was a hell of a man and I miss him everyday...from D-Day, to Tokyo, through these tests, on to Korea and Vietnam he was truly among the greatest generation...God bless them all.
I don’t know if they are related or not, I just wish he would tell his doc so that he would be on the watch for anything that might be related. I don’t take any offense to your post at all. I’m 50 and is 75.
I think that is a reasonable suggestion. You take care. I wish your dad many more good years.
I’m 50 and is 75.
That should be “ i’m 50 and DAD IS 75.”
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