Sapeer Mayron, Stuuf NZ, Aug 05 2023 When 85-year-old Gerald ‘Gerry’ Wright was 19, he saw his own skeleton through his momentarily transparent skin. He was standing on board a Royal New Zealand Navy frigate, hands over his eyes, 130 kilometres away from the spot a nuclear bomb was tested off Kiribati, then called Christmas Island. As…
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, Harrowing stories reveal decades of fallout for nuclear test veterans, STUFF, Jimmy Ellingham , June 12 2021 More than 500 young Kiwi sailors were unwitting witnesses to British nuclear testing in the Pacific in the late 1950s. Jimmy Ellingham talks to three men who were there. One by one they spoke of cancers and birth…
One by one they spoke, of cancers and birth defects in their children. “Everyone cried. It was so terrible. We decided that we’ve got to do something about this.”
Jimmy Ellingham May 17 2021 Pacific nuclear test veterans are encouraged their quest to gain a long-awaited apology for being exposed to radiation appears to have ministerial support
Kiwi sailors on the decks of the HMNZS Rotoiti and HMNZS Pukaki witnessed atomic explosions and collected weather data during Operation Grapple, Britain’s Pacific nuclear testing programme of the 1950s.
The New Zealand Nuclear Test Veterans’ Association, which represents the more than 500 Kiwi sailors involved, is pushing for a meeting with Prime Minister Jacinda Ardern.
The association wants an apology for the sailors, and help for medical problems in their children and grandchildren.