Operation Hurricane

For the Allied air forces' show of force over Germany during World War II, see Operation Hurricane (1944). For the Canadian Forces maintenance mission in the Arctic, see Operation Hurricane (Canada).

Hurricane
Hurricane exploded in the hold of a frigate
Information
Country	United Kingdom
Test site	Montebello Islands, West Australia
Period	1952
Number of tests	1
Test type	barge
Max. yield	25 kilotonnes of TNT (100 TJ)
Navigation
Next test series	Operation Totem

Operation Hurricane was the test of the first UK atomic device on 3 October 1952. A plutonium implosion device was detonated in the lagoon between the Montebello Islands, Western Australia, just over three years after the Soviet Union detonated a similar plutonium implosion device in September 1949.

Several key British scientists had worked on the Manhattan Project and after returning to the UK worked on the British atom bomb project, so unsurprisingly the weapon had a close similarity to the Fat Man (the device used against Nagasaki) weapon, although the McMahon Atomic Energy Act of 1946 prevented any British access to the US design data. The design used a hollow core, unlike the gadget tested at Trinity. This increased the expected yield of the bomb to 30 kilotons, although the actual yield was closer to 25 kilotons. The bomb core used 7 kg of plutonium produced mainly at Windscale (now Sellafield) in Cumbria with a low Pu-240 content of only 2%.

Pu-240 is an unavoidable contaminant of Pu-239 produced by irradiation of uranium in a thermal reactor; its effect in a bomb core is to increase the risk of a "fizzle" or pre-detonation. The only way to keep it within acceptable limits at that time was to limit the time the reactor fuel was exposed in the reactors. The Canadian Chalk River plant supplied 5 kg of plutonium by April 1952, and by August 1952 the Windscale plant had supplied 18 kg. No records exist to show whether any of the Canadian material was used in the Hurricane test device; more than one fissile core was prepared for the trial, each to a different design.

To test the effects of a ship-smuggled bomb (a threat of great concern to the British at the time), Hurricane was exploded inside the hull of HMS Plym (a 1,370-ton River class frigate) which was anchored in 12 metres (39 ft) of water, 350 metres (1,150 ft) off Trimouille Island. The explosion occurred 2.7 metres (8 ft 10 in) below the water line, and left a saucer-shaped crater on the seabed 6 metres (20 ft) deep and 300 metres (980 ft) across.

Summary

See also: List of nuclear weapons tests of the United Kingdom

United Kingdom's Hurricane series tests and detonations

Name	Date time (UT)	Local time zone	Location	Elevation + height	Delivery, Purpose	Device	Yield	Fallout	References	Notes
Hurricane	3 October 1952 00:59:24	aWST (8 hrs)	Montebello Islands, West Australia	0 - 2.7 m (8 ft 10 in)	barge, weapon effect	American Mark 3 design, levitated pit	25 kt			Exploded in the hold of the HMS Plym (a 1,370 short tons (1,240 t) River class frigate).

Front page of The West Australian from the day after the weapons test

Further reading

• Bird, Peter (1989) Operation Hurricane Worcester: Square One Publications. ISBN 1-872017-10-X First published: 1953.

External links

• AWE history
• Original AWE page available from archive.org
• British nuclear weapons testing in Australia
• Operation Hurricane - Ministry of Supply made documentary
• Better quality extract from the same video of the Hurricane Nuclear Test
• Atomic Forum
• Britain's Nuclear Weapons-From MAUD to Hurricane
• Operation Hurricane by National Archives of Australia - Vimeo
• Declassified AWRE reports and National Archives files on Operation Hurricane's scientific and civil defence implications

• The National Archives, London, ES 1/11.