Nuclear weapons tests veteran receives medal 66 years later

A VETERAN of nuclear weapons tests in the late Fifties has finally received a medal of recognition.

Roger Filby, 85, of Greystoke Road, Caversham, said he was pleased to be recognised following years of campaigning.

In November last year, the Government announced a new medal for veterans and civilians who were involved in nuclear testing programmes to mark the 70th anniversary of the first one. About 22,000 people were eligible.

The medal is made of silver and features an engraving of an atom which is surrounded by olive branches and is inscribed with the words “Nuclear Test Medal”. On the other side there is an effigy of the King.

Mr Filby said: “We have done an awful lot for the country and we were entitled to be recognised.”

Originally from Canterbury, he was 18 when he joined the RAF and was working at RAF High Wycombe, the HQ of Bomber Command, when he was chosen to be part of the Christmas Island mission in 1957.

Operation Grapple was a series of British tests for early atomic and hydrogen bombs carried out on Malden Island and Kiritimati (Christmas Island) in the Pacific Ocean.

Mr Filby was part of the ground signals team. He said: “We weren’t told anything at all about Christmas Island or what we were going there for, or what sort of duties we were going to perform.

“It was only when there was an influx of bomber planes on the islands that the ground personnel started to realise that we would be working on something pretty important to the country. We were all pretty nervous when we realised that it was nuclear.”

Mr Filby said none of the men really knew where the bombs were going to be exploded and were unaware of the size of the bombs.

He said: “We later learnt that the bombs were going to be exploded about one and a half miles above sea level on the island of Malden, which was around 30 miles south of Christmas Island.

“We all expected massive waves to be washing over the island — we were very concerned about that.”

He felt the blast before hearing an explosion and seeing a “dreadful bloom” in the sky.

Mr Filby said: “There was a bubbling of the sky — the red, the orange, the blue of the sky was turning that colour, and then later on there was the fading of the explosion and it was just a massive cloud that drifted across the island.”

After the explosion no one spoke much. “There wasn’t a lot to say,” said Mr Filby. “I think I wrote home and said that it was dreadful. It was something that I did not want to experience again but we had to — it was our duty.”

On his return to England, he was placed in isolation due to the radioactive nature of the mission.

Mr Filby said: “They took blood samples and urine samples but, touch wood, I am free of the harmful toxins.”

He stayed in the RAF for another four years. He was promoted to senior aircraftsman and then corporal and was put in charge of the Home Command Signals’ headquarters in Maidenhead.

Here he met his wife Pamela and they were married in 1960.

Mr Filby worked in insurance and rhe couple moved to Caversham about nine years ago.

When he found out that he was eligible to receive the medal, Mr Filby filled out a form detailing his role in the mission and sent it off. Three weeks later, the medal arrived in the post.

He said: “It wasn’t even presented to me and my name was not on it either. It’s quite sad really.”

He keeps his medal in a box next to his bed and intends to get his service number and name engraved on it along the circumference of the medal.

The colours on the medal ribbon represents the heat, the land and the sea.

Mr Filby wore his medal at the Remembrance Sunday service at the war memorial in Caversham last month.

In his spare time, Mr Filby enjoys art. He sketches and paints watercolours and has taken part in a number of craft fairs in the Caversham area.

By coincidence, one of his fellow servicemen in the Pacific was Angus Murray, who came from Caversham.

Mr Filby said: “We had never met until we landed on Christmas Island together.

We lived in the same tent for 12 months but didn’t relate about where we came from. When Angus came back he returned to Caversham and continued to be a butcher.

“We stayed in touch for some time but life got in the way.

“Then he found out that I was living in Caversham. My name must have come up somewhere and someone had directed him to my house.

“There was a knock on the door one day and he stood there and said, ‘Roger?’ and then ‘Angus’ and it twigged straight away.”

The two men stayed in touch until Mr Murray passed away in 2021 with cancer.

Thinking about those tests more than six decades ago, Mr Filby said: “It does dawn on you, what you have been through. It wasn’t nice, not nice at all.”