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[Background] [Project] [In Their Own Words] [Source Material]

Maralinga Theatre Project/ Half a Life: Stories of British Nuclear Testing at Maralinga Alphaville

Australian Nuclear Veterans Association, British Nuclear Veterans Association and University of New South Wales

Australia

Background

One of the most significant impacts of the Second World War was the development and use of nuclear weapons against Japan. When the UK sought to obtain their own nuclear weapons in the post war years, the Australian government offered remote desert land to be used for nuclear testing. The British government carried out nuclear tests at Maralinga between 1956 and 1967 and used military personnel from the UK and Australia as test subjects to research the effects of nuclear bombs on human beings, as well as giving them responsibility for cleanup after individual tests. Approximately 22,000 British military personnel and 8000 Australian military personnel plus an unknown number of Aboriginal people were affected by the tests. Both the British and Australian governments have acknowledged that the tests may have caused ill health effects for some soldiers, however because the Maralinga test site was never officially regarded as a 'war-zone' by the Australian government, medical benefits and compensation have been virtually impossible to achieve. Although moves towards remuneration exist, military personnel seeking damages are still burdened with 'proving' they were at the test site; a problem made more difficult by the secrecy surrounding the tests themselves.

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