The Secret of Emu Field by Elizabeth Tynan

Author:Elizabeth Tynan
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: NewSouth Publishing
Published: 2022-03-29T00:00:00+00:00

[t]he Monte Bello trial is possibly a beginning of a series of further trials to be conducted at Woomera, and it is essential to establish the place of the Australian Government Machinery … The initial step is to clarify the status of the Defence Scientific Adviser … We are not of course interested in the weapon itself, but only in its effects and the general set-up of the test. It is agreed that Professor Martin should accompany Dr. Penney on a visit to Woomera [just before Hurricane] in view of the probable use of the range there.18

In contrast, Titterton’s involvement was announced by press release. Additionally, Titterton was allowed access to detailed scientific measurements from the Totem series and made many measurements of his own, whereas Martin, like Alan Butement, chief scientist from the Department of Supply, was an observer only.19 Titterton was always part of the British camp; Leslie Martin was not.

A small hint at the impatience the Australians were feeling at the British demands comes through in McKnight’s closing comment in his letter to Davey, largely devoted to dealing with the British concerns about Martin. Right at the end, the Australians asked for their own assurances of secrecy over the use of Emu Field for atomic tests. ‘May I raise one [point of concern] on our side? We would like all communications which mention the possibility of Woomera as an atom weapon test sight [sic] to be classified “Top Secret”’.20 Does this also hint at extremely secret plans for the Woomera rocket tests, apparently completely separate to the AWRE activities at Emu, to be part of the atomic experimentation being conducted in Australia? While the covert activities of Emu and Woomera had some limited crossovers, they were not closely related projects.

Media stories at the time were often wrong or distorted, in large part because misinformation filled the vacuum created by the strict management of information. The Australian media had also signed on, secretly, to self-censor through D-notices. For example, the Argus of 3 August 1953 stated that ‘[a]mong the weapons will be a medium sized atom bomb – Britain’s second – which will plunge to the desert floor from an Australian-manned Canberra jet bomber’.21 Both Totem tests were low-yield and detonated from towers, not dropped from aircraft. This story made the outlandish claim that ‘[t]he October tests will make Australia one of the world’s Big Four in atomic research – with the U.S., Russia and Britain’.22 This was in no sense true. Australia was not then and never has been part of the club of nuclear armed nations. Even at the time, such a claim must have seemed a laughingly gross over-statement to any British personnel who happened to read it.

The Age speculated on the same day the weapon was tested, quoting information from the RAF:

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