As all the letters, photos, articles etc. in the magazine are about Christmas Island. I thought I ought to give you my part of Operation Hurricane 1952, Monte Bello Islands.
I got married on April 7th 1952. Late May 1952 on HMS Plym, we set sail from Chatham for Sheerness, where took the bomb aboard, then off to Gibraltar, Freetown, Simonstown, Mauritius finally Perth after a few days, off to Monte Bello where we anchored off Trimouille Island “with 6 Blocks of concrete” as anchors well we didn’t want the ship to move and disturb the bomb, after all, we got it this far without trouble. The following weeks we entertained ourselves the drinking the odd can of beer, fishing, sailing, football, hockey and cribbage, what a riotous time we had, still it kept boredom away.
The ship’s company was reduced, till, the day before when it was reduced still further to 2AB’s, 1 Stoker, 1 Steward and me, oh yes 2 Officers and I think 4 Boffins. After breakfast lAB the steward and myself were taken to HMS Campania After the bomb was exploded and made a mess of “Plym”, I am told that sometime later a few bits of “Plym” were found.
When all the excitement died down, me and my cooks mate were ferried to the Island (I think Hermitage Island) where we joined the shore party who were charged with cleaning up all the articles put there to find out what effect the radiation had. This was the first time we had experience of “Camp Cooking” though the Corporal and Private I suppose, were used to it. still, we through and nobody died of food poisoning!!
We sailed home on “Campania” arriving December, just in time for Xmas.
Danny Pullen
