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Testing the Bomb: Maralinga and Australian

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BLACK MIST BURNT COUNTRY Testing The Bomb: Maralinga and Australian Art AN EDUCATIONAL RESOURCE FOR YEARS 9–12 BLACK MIST BURNT COUNTRY Testing The Bomb: Maralinga and Australian Art AN EDUCATIONAL RESOURCE FOR YEARS 9–12 “We seen this smoke…it was black, greasy, sort of shiny…it was rolling up to us through the mulga. We thought it was a mamu, a devil spirit. The old people got their woomeras to wave it away, but it was a very strong mamu.” Yami Lester – Yankunytjatjara man and victim of the Emu Fields atomic tests in 1953. The Black Mist Burnt Country Timeline of Nuclear Testing in Australia 2 exhibition explores the British The Development of the A-Bomb 4 atomic testing that occurred at the Monte Bello Islands (WA), Emu Field The Bombing of Hiroshima 8 (SA) and Maralinga (SA) between 1952 and 1963, and reflects British Tests in Australia 13 on the subsequent human and environmental impact of the tests. Maralinga: Ground Zero 16 Indigenous Culture and Land Rights 20 Each chapter of the Black Mist Burnt Country story is linked to a Impact on Country and Environment 24 key artwork. When you see this symbol, stop in front of the relevant The Clean Up 27 piece and complete the analysis task. Victims and Survivors 30 ‘Ban the Bomb’: The Australian Anti-Nuclear 33 Movement Australia’s Nuclear Future? 36 Timeline of Nuclear Testing in Australia September 1942 to undertake atomic weapons tests. The general US General Leslie Groves assigned to command public is largely unaware of the nature and risks of secret Manhattan Project. Groves hires Robert testing program. Oppenheimer to run the scientific development of the atom bomb. The project eventually employs October 1952 130,000 people First UK atomic test in Australia, codenamed Hurricane. Bomb is exploded inside the hull of 6 August 1945 frigate HMS Plym, which is mostly vapourised in the Enola Gay drops Little Boy. 70,000 are killed blast. William Penney supervises test. immediately. October 1953 9 August 1945 Totem 1 and Totem 2 atomic tests at Emu Field Bockscar on mission to drop plutonium bomb Fat (SA).‘Black mist’ incident affects the health of Man. Smoke from fire-bombing prevents targeting Aboriginal people in the area. of Kokura. Bockscar is diverted to Nagasaki but misses target. 40,000 die instantly. May 1955 British and Australian governments announce January 1946 permanent test site at Maralinga, South Australia. UN Assembly calls for the elimination of atomic weapons. May–June 1956 Operation Mosaic: UK conducts conducts two September 1950 atomic weapon tests at the Monte Bello Islands, Australian PM Robert Menzies receives request the second of which (G2) spreads fallout across from British PM Clement Attlee to test atomic mainland Australia.” Australian Labor Party weapons in Australia. Menzies agrees. withdraws political support for the British tests in the wake of Mosaic G2 test. March 1951 British seek to use Monte Bello Islands (WA) for tests. September–October 1956 Four atomic devices are trialed at Maralinga 1952 codenamed Operation Buffalo. Himsworth and Ooldea Aboriginal Reserve closed to move people Bronk reports on hazards of radioactive fallout and away from weapons tests. Anangu Pitjantjatjarra strontium-90. are displaced and re-settled at Yalata on the Great Australian Bight. May 1957 The Milpuddie family incident. Artists demand June 1952 immediate end of nuclear tests from Liberal government passes Defence (Special Australian government Signatories include Dargie, Undertakings) Act, which allows the British Waller, Counihan, Howley, French, Perceval and Government access to remote parts of Australia Blackman. with the track Maralinga reaches top of Australian September 1957 charts. Britain commences Operation Antler, which includes April 1983 three precursory tests for British hydrogen bombs. Palm Sunday rallies call for the end of the arms race. More than 150,000 protest in Australian January 1958 major cities. Australia’s first nuclear reactor goes critical in Lucas Heights, south of Sydney, which is built for May 1984 research and production of medical radioisotopes. A scientific mission to Maralinga exposes a hitherto unknown distribution of plutonium contamination April 1963 at Maralinga. Britain concludes ‘minor’ trials program at Maralinga ibefore Test Ban Treaty comes into 1984 place. The South Australian Government passes Maralinga Tjarutja Land Rights Act, which grants traditional 1964 owners freehold title to an area of 81,000 sqkm. Partial cleanup of Emu Field and Maralinga commences. August 1984 Royal Commission into British Nuclear Tests 1965 established. PM Menzies commissions report into a possibility of a nuclear weapons program in Australia. November 1985 Royal Commission hands its findings to the Federal May 1967 Government, including recommendations amounting PM Harold Holt commissions study to assess the to compensation for victims (servicemen, Aboriginal possibility of domestic manufacture of nuclear people and civilians) and full clean-up of test sites. weapons. 1990 August 1967 Lin Onus creates sculpture Maralinga, the first Britain completes clean-up operation at Maralinga, artwork by an Indigenous artist inspired by the Operation Brumby, and vacates the site. nuclear tests in Australia 1967 1993 A Federal referendum on allowing the UK government agrees to pay £20m on an ex Commonwealth to make laws in respect of gratia basis towards the cost of the Maralinga site Indigenous people, and for Indigenous people to rehabilitation. be counted in the Census, receives overwhelming support. July 1996 Soil excavation starts at Maralinga’s Taranaki site. 1968 Pearce Report reveals that 20kg of highly toxic March 2000 plutonium are buried at Maralinga’s Taranaki site. Maralinga Rehabilitation Project declared Most of the plutonium is later found to be scattered completed which Science Minister Nick Minchin around the site. declares as “world’s best practice” and announces the site “clean and safe”. December 1976 Avon Hudson, RAAF veteran, reveals on TV that 2009 he had “helped bury 26 boxes of radioactive Section 400 at Maralinga is handed back to plutonium waste at Maralinga under just three traditional owners encompassing 3000 sq km, metres of sand”. including the ‘forward area’ where seven nuclear devices were exploded and almost 600 so-called June 1978 ‘minor tests’ were conducted. Australia joins UN Committee on Disarmament. November 2014 May 1980 Maralinga-Tjarutja people receive unrestricted The Advertiser in Adelaide runs a story about Yami access to Maralinga. The site was limited because Lester. it was part of the Woomera restricted area. 1982 January 2016 Midnight Oil album 10, 9, 8, 7, 6, 5, 4, 3, 2, 1, The Bulletin of Atomic Scientists leave Doomsday 4 Development of the Atomic How an Atomic Bomb Bomb Works The atomic bomb or A-bomb was developed by a group of international scientists during World War II as part of a top-secret American weapons program called the Manhattan Project. The project was led by Lieutenant General Leslie Groves of the United States Army and physicist J. Robert Oppenheimer. By 1945, the Manhattan Project had become the first program to successfully develop a nuclear weapon. Atomic bombs were designed to wipe out large areas when dropped from a single aircraft. Their destructive nature had many effects on humans and the environment. The initial blast killed victims instantly, flattened buildings and incinerated all combustible materials. 5 Manhattan Project scientists, 1940 The physical impact of exposure to term impacts affected generations, as radiation included nausea, vomiting, victims exposed to the blast died slowly headaches, fatigue, fever and a red skin and horribly from radiation sickness, rash. The lands became contaminated and often their children developed with radioactive material that worked cancer. In many ways, the A-bomb was a its way into the ecosystem. The long- devastatingly perfect weapon. How an Atomic Bomb Works 6 7 Stop, See, Interpret, Share Hilda Moodoo (Pitjantjatjara, b.1952) Maralinga Bomb 2009 acrylic on canvas 40 x 50 cm Produced for Maralinga, The Anangu Story by Yalata and Oak Valley Communities with Christobel Mattingley, first published by Allen & Unwin in 2009. © Maralinga Tjarutja Inc. representing the Oak Valley and Yalata Communities, 2009 View the artworks in the exhibition and respond to the questions below. 1. How many times is the symbol of the mushroom cloud used in the exhibition? 2. Why do you think so many of the artists have included a mushroom cloud? 3. Which artwork in the exhibition uses the mushroom cloud to the best effect? Explain your answer. 4. What other symbols or images occur often in the exhibition? 8 The Bombing of Hiroshima After the successful development of the the pilot, Colonel Paul Tibbets. While atomic bomb and a test-firing in New the US government justified its decision Mexico the United States government to drop the bomb by claiming that the authorised the dropping of an atomic action shortened World War II, it remains bomb on Hiroshima, Japan in the closing a contentious historical issue. months of World War II. Eyewitnesses recalled that the impact of On 6 August 1945, at 8.15am, the Enola the bomb was accompanied by a blinding Gay, a B29 Superfortress bomber, flash and a loud boom. ‘Little Boy’ missed dropped an atomic bomb (named ‘Little its planned target of the Aioi Bridge, Boy’) on Hiroshima with devastating but instead detonated over the Shima consequences. The aircraft was named Surgical Clinic. after Enola Gay Tibbets, the mother of General panoramic view of Hiroshima after the bomb. Official U.S. Army photo. Library of Congress Prints and Photographs Division, LC-USZ62-134192. 9 “Many people on the street were killed almost instantly. The fingertips of those dead bodies caught fire and the fire gradually spread over their entire bodies from their fingers. A light gray liquid dripped down their hands, scorching their fingers.
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