Between 1956 and 1963, the United Kingdom conducted seven nuclear tests at the Maralinga site in South Australia, part of the Woomera Prohibited Area about north-west of Adelaide. Two major test series were conducted: Operation Buffalo in 1956 and Operation Antler the following year. Approximate weapon yields ranged from . The Maralinga site was also used for minor trials, tests of nuclear weapons components not involving nuclear explosions. The tests codenamed "Kittens" were trials of neutron initiators; "Rats" and "Tims" measured how the fissile core of a nuclear weapon was compressed by the high explosive shock wave; and "Vixens" investigated the effects of fire or non-nuclear explosions on atomic weapons. The minor trials, numbering around 550, ultimately generated far more contamination than the major tests.
Operation Buffalo consisted of four tests; One Tree () and Breakaway () were detonated on towers, Marcoo () at ground level, and the Kite () was released by a Royal Air Force (RAF) Vickers Valiant bomber from a height of . This was the first drop of a British nuclear weapon from an aircraft. Operation Antler in 1957 tested new, light-weight nuclear weapons. Three tests were conducted in this series: Tadje (), Biak () and Taranaki (). The first two were conducted from towers, while the last was suspended from balloons. Tadje used cobalt pellets as a tracer for determining yield, resulting in rumours that Britain was developing a cobalt bomb.
The site was left contaminated with radioactive waste, and an initial cleanup was attempted in 1967. The McClelland Royal Commission, an examination of the effects of the minor trials and major tests, delivered its report in 1985, and found that significant radiation hazards still existed at many of the Maralinga sites. It recommended another cleanup, which was completed in 2000 at a cost of AUD $108 million (equivalent to $ in ). Debate continued over the safety of the site and the long-term health effects on the traditional Aboriginal custodians of the land and former personnel. In 1994, the Australian Government paid compensation amounting to $13.5 million (equivalent to $ in ) to the traditional owners, the Maralinga Tjarutja people. The last part of the land remaining in the Woomera Prohibited Area was returned to free access in 2014.
By the late 1970s there was a marked change in how the Australian media covered the British nuclear tests. Some journalists investigated the subject and political scrutiny became more intense. Journalist Brian Toohey ran a series of stories in the Australian Financial Review in October 1978, based in part on a leaked Cabinet submission. In June 1993, New Scientist journalist Ian Anderson wrote an article titled "Britain's dirty deeds at Maralinga" and several related articles. In 2007, Maralinga: Australia's Nuclear Waste Cover-up by Alan Parkinson documented the unsuccessful clean-up at Maralinga. Popular songs about the Maralinga story have been written by Paul Kelly and Midnight Oil.
Background During the early part of the Second World War, Britain had a nuclear weapons project, code-named Tube Alloys, which the 1943 Quebec Agreement merged with the American Manhattan Project to create a combined American, British, and Canadian project. The British Government expected that the United States would continue to share nuclear technology, which it regarded as a joint discovery, after the war, but the US Atomic Energy Act of 1946 (McMahon Act) ended technical co-operation. Fearing a resurgence of United States isolationism, and Britain losing its great power status, the British Government restarted its own development effort, under the cover name "High Explosive Research".
In the 1950s Britain was still Australia's largest trading partner, although it was overtaken by Japan and the United States by the 1960s. Britain and Australia still had strong cultural ties, and Robert Menzies, the Prime Minister of Australia from 1949 to 1966, was strongly pro-British. Most Australians were of British descent, and Britain was still the largest source of immigrants to Australia, mainly because British ex-servicemen and their families qualified for free passage, and other British migrants received subsidised passage on ships from the UK to Australia. Australian and British troops fought together in the Korean War from 1950 to 1953 and the Malayan Emergency that lasted from 1948 to 1960. Australia still maintained close defence ties with Britain through the Australia New Zealand and Malaya (ANZAM) area, which was created in 1948. Australian war plans of this era continued to be integrated with those of Britain, and involved reinforcing British forces in the Middle East and Far East.
The Australian Government had hopes of collaboration with Britain on both nuclear power and nuclear weapons, and was particularly interested in developing the former, for at that time the country was thought to have no oil and only limited supplies of coal. Plans for nuclear power were considered along with hydroelectricity as part of the post-war Snowy Mountains Scheme, but Australia was not a party to the 1948 Modus Vivendi, the nuclear agreement between the US and UK which superseded the wartime Quebec Agreement. This cut Australian scientists off from technical information to which they formerly had access. Britain would not share it with Australia for fear that it might jeopardise the far more important relationship with the United States, and the Americans were reluctant to do so after the Venona project revealed the extent of Soviet espionage activities in Australia. The creation of North Atlantic Treaty Organization (NATO) in 1949 excluded Australia from the Western Alliance.
On 3 October 1952 the United Kingdom tested its first nuclear weapon in Operation Hurricane in the Montebello Islands off the coast of Western Australia. A year later the first nuclear tests on the Australian mainland were carried out in Operation Totem at Emu Field in the Great Victoria Desert in South Australia, with a detonation on 15 October and a second one, two weeks later, on 27 October. The Australian Minister for Supply, Howard Beale, stated in 1955 that "England has the know how; we have the open spaces, much technical skill and a great willingness to help the Motherland. Between us we should help to build the defences of the free world, and make historic advances in harnessing the forces of nature."
Maralinga site
Selection Neither the Montebello Islands nor Emu Field were considered suitable as permanent test sites, although Montebello was used again in 1956 for Operation Mosaic. Montebello could be accessed only by sea, and Emu Field had problems with its water supply and dust storms. The British Government's preferred permanent test site remained the Nevada Test Site in the United States, but by 1953 it was no closer to securing access to it than it had been in 1950. When William Penney, the Chief Superintendent Armament Research, visited South Australia in October 1952, he gave the Australian Government a summary of the requirements of a permanent test site. In May 1953, the UK Chiefs of Staff Committee were advised that one was needed. They delegated the task of finding one to Air Marshal Sir Thomas Elmhirst, the chairman of the Totem Executive (Totex), which had been formed in the UK to coordinate the Operation Totem tests. He wrote to J. E. S. Stevens, the permanent secretary of the Australian Department of Supply, and the chairman of the Totem Panel that coordinated the Australian contribution to Operation Totem, and outlined the requirements of a permanent test site, which were: A radius free of human habitation; Road and rail communications to a port; A nearby airport; A tolerable climate for staff and visitors; Low rainfall; Predictable weather conditions; Winds that would carry the fallout safely away from inhabited areas; and Reasonably flat terrain; Isolation for security.
Elmhirst suggested that a site might be found in Groote Eylandt in the Gulf of Carpentaria or north of Emu Field, where it could be connected by road and rail to Oodnadatta, and where water could more easily be found than at Emu Field. Stevens rated both as unsuitable; Groote Eylandt was wooded and rocky, with a pronounced rainy season, no port facilities, and a long way from the nearest major settlements of Darwin and Cairns; while the area north of Emu Field had scarce water, few roads and was on the axis of the Long Range Weapons Establishment (LRWE), which meant that there would be a competing claim on the use of the area. Group Captain George Pither conducted an aerial survey of the area north of the Trans-Australian Railway between Ooldea and Cook, South Australia. This was followed by a ground reconnaissance in four land rovers and two four-wheel drive trucks by Pither, Wing Commander Kevin Connolly, Frank Beavis (an expert in soil chemistry), Len Beadell and the two truck drivers. An area was found north of Ooldea, and a temporary airstrip was created in two days by land rovers dragging a length of railway line to level it, where Penney, Flight Lieutenant Charles Taplin and Chief Scientist Alan Butement landed in a Bristol Freighter on 17 October 1953, two days after the Totem 1 test at Emu Field.
The site, initially known as X.300, was nowhere near as good as the Nevada Test Site, with its excellent communications, but was considered acceptable. It was flat and dry, but not affected by dust storms like Emu Field, and the geologists were confident that the desired per annum could be obtained by boring. Rainwater tanks were recommended, and it was estimated that if bore water could not be obtained, a water pipeline could be laid to bring water from Port Augusta. This was estimated to cost AU £53,000 to construct and AU £50,000 per annum to operate. On 25 November, Butement officially named the X.300 site "Maralinga" in a meeting at the Department of Supply. This was an Aboriginal word meaning "thunder", but not in the Western Desert language of the local people; it came from Garik, an extinct language originally spoken around Port Essington in the Northern Territory.
On 2 August 1954, the High Commissioner of the United Kingdom to Australia lodged a formal request for a permanent proving ground for multiple series of nuclear tests expected to be conducted over the course of the next decade and a preliminary agreement between the Australian and British Governments was reached on 26 August. A mission consisting of six officials and scientists headed by J. M. Wilson, the under-secretary of the UK Ministry of Supply (MoS) visited Australia in December to evaluate the Maralinga site, and reported that it was excellent. The new site was officially announced by Beale on 4 April 1955, and the Australian Cabinet gave its assent on 4 May. A formal Memorandum of Arrangements for use of Maralinga was signed on 7 March 1956. It specified that the site would be available for ten years; that no thermonuclear tests would be carried out; that the British Government would be liable for all claims of death or injury to people or damage to property as a result of the tests, except those to British Government personnel; that Australian concurrence would be required before any test could be carried out; and that the Australian authorities would be kept fully informed.