Latest news with #OperationGrapple
Otago Daily Times
2 days ago
- General
- Otago Daily Times
Nuclear test participants' stories spotlighted
A photography exhibition documenting the stories of sailors who took part in British nuclear tests in the 1950s held its opening night at Central Stories Museum and Art Gallery in Alexandra on Friday. "Operation Grapple — We Were There", by photographer Denise Baynham, tells the stories of the men aboard the ships HMNZS Pukaki and HMNZS Rotoiti who took part in the tests and their lives afterwards. Both ships were deployed to support the nine nuclear detonations around Kiribati during 1957 and 1958. The crews of the ships would witness the blast and collect weather data from as close as 37km from the blast site. One of the speakers at the opening was Alexandra woman Sue Douglas, who told the story of her brother, Peter Wright, an officer in the Royal New Zealand Navy who participated in Operation Grapple. "He was dressed in a special suit and was told to turn his back to the bomb that hangs over his eyes. He could see his bones light up through the skin in the blast." After 10 years of miscarriages, Mr Wright and his wife were gifted with two girls, she said. Mr Wright would go on to have a successful career in the navy where he rose to the rank of commander and commanded the HMNZS Taranaki. In the late 1960s, Mr Wright was diagnosed with multiple myeloma and his health began to deteriorate. "[Peter] shrank from a handsome 6-foot man with his bones like hokey pokey in terrible pain." Mr Wright would die in 1982, four years after his father. His wife Jan would die by suicide in 1984. "Life was just too much without him, the girls were perilous and still in high school." One of the daughters would go on to become a lawyer and worked with another Grapple veteran to fight for recognition from the government. "The government were hoping they would all die before they made that decision. Read the truth of their stories of the few who are still alive. "I'm honoured to open this exhibition," Mrs Douglas said. Central Stories manager Paula Stephenson said Mr Wright's portrait and his story would be put up on display alongside the portraits of the exhibit. The first-of-its-kind exhibit was powerful and about a subject unknown to most New Zealanders, Ms Stephenson said. "It's important to ensure that people do know about it." The photographer decided to create the exhibit in an effort to raise awareness of the effects the Grapple tests had on the men and their families, who had been fighting for an apology and compensation from the government for decades, Ms Stephenson said. The exhibition will run until August 31.
Daily Mirror
29-06-2025
- Politics
- Daily Mirror
Video of Labour's broken promises to nuke veterans gets 3 million views
Labour is under pressure to act on the Nuked Blood scandal after a video of ministers' broken promises was seen by 3 million people The 3 Cabinet ministers who made promises to nuke veterans A video detailing Labour's broken promises to nuclear veterans has been seen by more people than the 10 o'clock news. Growing awareness of the goverment's failure to resolve the £5bn Nuked Blood scandal is now putting ministers under pressure to come up with answers. A defence minister is expected to make a written statement to the House of Commons tomorrow to reveal interim findings of a review into allegations of human radiation experiments carried out on troops in the Cold War. And it comes as more evidence emerges of veterans' medical records being tampered with to remove evidence of monitoring them before, during and after they served at nuclear weapons tests. Peter Stefanovic, lawyer and founder of the Campaign for Social Justice, has compiled clips of Defence Secretary John Healey, Deputy Prime Minister Angela Rayner and Armed Forces Minister Luke Pollard while in Opposition, all calling for the Tories to set up compensation schemes for the veterans. In just six weeks it has been viewed by 3 million people - more than watch the 10 o'clock news on either BBC or ITN. * You can support the veterans' fight for justice HERE "That doesn't happen unless the public get behind something. It illustrates to the government that public consciousness and outrage continues to grow," said Mr Stefanovic. "We are hitting the public and the government in the face with this every day. Something has to give." Lawyers acting for the veterans have threatened to launch a £5bn lawsuit for the missing medical records, unless the government accepts a cheaper offer of a one-year special tribunal, with capped costs, to investigate the cover-up. And police are assessing a criminal complaint of misconduct in public office, linked to a secret database with information about blood and urine testing of troops, unlawfully locked behind national security at the Atomic Weapons Establishment. After the Mirror forced some of the files open, the entire archive is due to be declassified. Now veteran Dave Whyte - who has been ruled "vexatious"| by the Ministry of Defence over a long Freedom of Information battle aimed at discovering his radiation dose after he was sent into Ground Zero at Operation Grapple in 1958 - has discovered a huge bundle of his personal medical records have gone missing. After more than a decade and campaign group LABRATS raising his case with the Veterans Minister Al Carns, Dave, 88, of Kirkcaldy, Fife, has been sent his medical notes from his 10 years in service. It contains just 13 sheets of paper, some of them duplicates. His 10 years of annual medical examinations are missing, along with 12 sets of clinical notes and 8 records of visiting the medic. The papers show two blood tests and a chest x-ray were administered for no clinical reason, but only one set of test results is in his file. And the results of a gland biopsy, conducted two years after the nuclear tests when his lymph nodes swelled up and doctors decided he had a blood disorder, are also missing. Dave said: "I've asked again about my records from the decontamination centre I was sent to, and have been informed that I am still barred from asking FOIs. It is 14 years since I have been banned, convicted murderers serve less time." The Mirror's evidence of the Nuked Blood scandal featured in a BBC documentary last year, called Britain's Nuclear Bomb Scandal: Our Story, and in a Newsnight special report last week.
NZ Herald
30-04-2025
- Entertainment
- NZ Herald
Bay News: Waitangi exhibition honours Operation Grapple veterans
Tere Tahi, one of the survivors of Operation Grapple. The story of the veterans who witnessed the nuclear tests is told in a photographic and story exhibition at Waitangi Museum. New exhibition for Te Kōngahu Museum of Waitangi The Waitangi Treaty Grounds has announced its latest exhibition. It is called Operation Grapple – We Were There, which opened on April 18 and will run until July 6, 2025. Photographer Denise Baynham has created an exhibition highlighting the stories of 19
NZ Herald
24-04-2025
- General
- NZ Herald
Anzac Day 2025: Northland Navy veteran Russell G. Hockley's memory of hydrogen bomb tests
Hockley had been a signalman on the HMNZS Rotoiti, charged with monitoring the weather during the United Kingdom's 1957 hydrogen bomb tests at Christmas Island in the Pacific Ocean. After the Second World War, the United Kingdom had considered developing atomic and thermonuclear weapons a critical national policy. Hockley would don his 'anti-flash' gear consisting of cotton headgear, gloves, and goggles when a bomb was to be dropped. 'We'd hear the pilot talking through, saying 20 seconds to bomb drop, 10 seconds, nine, eight, seven ... bomb gone.' Then came the blast. 'They would say stand up and face the bomb burst and we would see the mushroom forming,' Hockley said. The cloud from the fourth bomb was 'huge'. 'You could actually see flames drawing from the bottom of the mushroom and pulling all of this stuff out of the sea,' Hockley said. 'It was just developing layer after layer after layer.' Overall, nine bombs were dropped as part of Operation Grapple but Hockley's ship returned after the fourth. He had been pleased when a King Charles III Nuclear Medal was made available for the people who served in Operation Grapple. He was awarded his medal last year by his son Russell Hockley Jnr at a ceremony at the Kaitāia RSA, where he is a life member and former patron. 'There wouldn't be many people who had pinned a medal on their father, I would think,' Hockley said. Russell Hockley Jnr, who also served in the Navy, thanked his dad for his service to the country – a calling that came about after a headmaster told a young Hockley two terms in that the school wasn't big enough for the two of them. 'One of us has to move on,' Hockley recalled. The headmaster told the teen that a naval recruiter was in town. 'I went down there and got all the paraphernalia and I trapped my mum and dad into signing, and I joined the Navy as a 15-and-a-half-year-old boy. 'I finished up doing 22-and-a-half years,' Hockley said. In the early days, his naval career was spurred by a want to provide for his young wife Hoana and their children. He said while the wage wasn't so great, the cheap housing was. Hockley found leaving his family to serve abroad to be a painful downside to a naval career. But Hoana, who died in 2012, had been 'amazing'. 'She was a great mother and a great partner. She was of that ilk that understood my life was the Navy,' Hockley said. Fortunately, all four of his children had been born while he was home. Impressive given he had served in 10 different shore establishments and 10 naval ships. 'Plus a 48-hour posting on submarine as the guy had an impacted tooth and couldn't sail,' Hockley said. 'That was an experience on its own ... I found it very difficult.' Hockley had joined the Navy shortly after the Korean War ended in 1953, and in 1955 found himself part of the conflict unfolding in Indonesia. He was also part of a bombardment on Borneo. He retired on a naval pension aged 38 and headed to the Far North with his family. 'I had a good career. I enjoyed the Navy,' Hockley said. His time serving had led him to rub shoulders with royalty in Christchurch during his time with the 1974 Commonwealth Games ceremonial committee. 'I met the Duke then met him a second time. I met the Queen twice, Princess Anne once, and the King once.' Hockley's contribution in the games and naval sport in general, given he coached nearly everything, saw him awarded the British Empire Medal in 1975. Despite the highs, his lifetime insight into war has stayed with him and he makes sure to never miss an Anzac Day. For 15 years, Hockley travelled 60km to Kaitāia for its dawn parade. Then home again to Te Kao for an 11am service before driving 20km down the road to Houhora for its 2pm Civic Service. But with his Navy mates dwindling in numbers, he decided to attend only the dawn parade. 'There used to be 10 or 12 of us. Every Anzac we would meet and enjoy ourselves. Swing the lantern as the Navy would say, telling stories,' he said. But parading alongside Hockley today in an Anzac Day 'highlight' were his son and two sons-in-law who all served. Hockley believed Anzac Day had remained resilient thanks to the many people who keep the memory of those who served alive. 'We don't forget and we'll never forget.'
NZ Herald
23-04-2025
- Politics
- NZ Herald
Lest we forget? Aside from Anzac Day, NZ has been slow to remember its military veterans
The Government will also establish a new national day of tribute for veterans. This falls somewhat short of a recommendation from the 2018 independent review of the Veterans' Support Act which stated the Government should accept it has a 'moral duty of care to veterans'. But if adopted, this would create a missing ethical compass - all democracies should have to acknowledge responsibilities to those who risked everything in service of their country. The same report also recommended better financial support for veterans, but so far the Government has been reluctant to review the adequacy of veterans' pensions. None of this is particularly surprising, given NZ's history of sending people to fight and then rejecting their claims for recognition and compensation when the war is over. Some of this may also come to light in the Waitangi Tribunal 's current Military Veterans Kaupapa Inquiry, with potentially strong evidence of discrimination against Māori service personnel in particular. Sacrifice and compensation When NZ gave out its first military pensions in 1866, only the victors of the NZ Wars received them. For Māori allies, equity was missing. Pro-Government Māori troops were eligible, but at a lower rate than Pākehā veterans. It was only in 1903 that specialist facilities such as the Ranfurly war veterans' home in Auckland were created. The initial treatments for those who suffered 'shell shock', especially in the World War I, were atrocious. Their placement in mental institutions only ended after public outcry. Some veterans of the NZ Wars were compensated by being granted confiscated Māori land. It wasn't until 1915 that a new system was formalised. This provided farm settlement schemes and vocational training for World War I veterans. The balloted farmland was largely exclusionary as Māori veterans were assumed to have tribal land already available to them. The rehabilitation of disabled service personnel dates back to the 1930s, before being formally legislated in 1941. But the focus faded over the following decades, with the specific status of veterans blurring as they were lumped in with more generic welfare goals. It took until 1964 for the Government to pay war pensions to those who served in Jayforce, the 12,000-strong NZ troops stationed in Japan as part of the postwar occupation from 1946 to 1948. From atomic tests to Agent Orange A decade later, more than 500 NZ navy personnel took part in Operation Grapple, the British hydrogen bomb tests near Kiribati in 1957–58. Despite evidence of a variety of health problems – including cancer, premature death and deformities in children – it was not until 1990 that the Government extended coverage of benefits to veterans who had contracted some specific listed conditions. It took another eight years before the Government broadened the evidence requirements and accepted service in Operation Grapple as an eligibility starting point for additional emergency pensions. Last year, the United States declared a National Atomic Veterans' Day and made potentially significant compensation available. But neither NZ nor Britain even apologised for putting those personnel in harm's way so recklessly. During the war in Vietnam, some of the 3,400 New Zealanders who served between 1963 and 1975 were exposed to 'Agent Orange', the notorious defoliant used by the US military. Some of them and their children experienced related health problems and higher death rates. The Government did not accept there was a problem until 2006 and apologised in 2008. Advertise with NZME. Assistance and compensation were based on evidence of specific listed conditions. And although the list has expanded over time, the legal and medical burden of proving a link between exposure and an illness falls on the veteran. This is the opposite of what should happen. If there is uncertainty about the medical condition of a veteran, such as a non-listed condition, it should be for the Crown to prove an illness or injury is not related to military service. This burden should not fall on the victim. Lest we forget Today, support for veterans remains limited. There is still a reluctance to systematically understand, study and respond to the long-term consequences of military service. For many, service develops skills such as resilience, confidence and flexibility which are sought after in civilian life. For some, their experiences lead to lingering trauma and even self-harm or suicide. While Britain and Australia can track the incidence of veteran self-harm, NZ lacks robust data. Beyond some early research, the prevalence of suicide in the veteran population is unknown. Despite recommendations from the 2018 report that this data gap should be plugged, it means that when three self-inflicted deaths of veterans occurred within three weeks earlier this year, this couldn't be viewed within any overall pattern. This makes appropriate support and interventions harder to design. This all points to the same problem. While we intone 'lest we forget' on April 25, a day later most of us are looking the other way.
