Bryan Hackett was born in Milford Haven in 1936. After leaving school he worked alongside his mother at the local smokehouse before joining the police cadets. Hackett then joined the Royal Air Force (RAF), and, excited by the idea of participating in atomic weapon tests, he volunteered to travel to Maralinga in Australia. Later in life Hackett returned to his studies, enrolling at art college. Hackett currently lives in Milford Haven.
Interview extracts
Description
Born in 1936, Bryan Hackett joined the RAF before travelling to Australia in 1956 to be part of Operation Buffalo. While at the Maralinga test site he worked as a clerk and acted as a typist for Sir William Penney, who had overseen Britain’s first atomic test as part of Operation Hurricane in 1952. In this clip, Hackett describes the sheer power of the explosion and recalls being able to see the bones in his hands, a common experience among British nuclear veterans. He also mentions being equipped with a film badge dosimeter to record the level of radiation he was exposed to during the detonation. Readings from these badges were rarely made known to servicemen. Hackett later went to art college and was a practicing artist before retiring.
This is a short extract from an in-depth interview. Bryan Hackett was recorded for the Oral History of British Nuclear Test Veterans project in 2024. The interviewer was Joshua A Bushen. This project was run in partnership with National Life Stories and the full interview can be accessed at the British Library.
Transcript
We knew which direction it was because we had to turn our backs to it, and it was exciting time, we didn’t know what was going to happen. And we turned our backs to it, our hands over our eyes closed tight, and ten, nine, so on like that. The first test was a ground test. Three, two, one, flash! Turn round, and the flash went off, you could see the pink bones in your hands, that was so good. And I turned round and saw this puff of smoke going all across the horizon. And as it went across, there was a small bit of cloud in the sky, and as the blast approached, these clouds disappeared, until it hit us, bang. And it tugged at your clothes. Now I stood on a packing case and I nearly fell off, because that was that…yeah. And that was like fifteen, twenty miles away. I forget for sure now. So anyway, the cloud went in, red hot fire went up in the air, okay? And at this time we all had to wear from there up, before then, we all wore badges that recorded any radiation you had. And you had to give that in every now and then and they cleared you an’ all. So, that was that. And, right everybody, you can go back home now. And so we went back to the billets then. But such a, quite a surprise. But the feeling I got, to be honest with you, wasn’t that it was an explosion, but that was like a change in nature. It really struck me as quite strange. It wasn’t just a bomb going off, there was something happened in nature and that really struck me and I still feel like that.
[ends at 0:02:01]
