Did you know... British Nuclear Test Veterans Association Memorial

The Nuclear Test Veterans Memorial

On 19 February 1991, a new memorial stone was unveiled in the Cathedral’s Garden of Remembrance. The stone is dedicated to a little-known and largely unrecognised group of servicemen – the British Nuclear Test Veterans, whose Association (BNTVA) was formed to campaign for the recognition and restitution of servicemen who participated in the British Nuclear Tests, effectively as human ‘guinea-pigs’.

Between 1946 and 1996 the United States, Britain and France conducted Cold War programmes of nuclear testing in the deserts of Australia and the atolls of the central and south Pacific. The British nuclear testing programme ran between 1952 and 1991; it was the largest tri-service operation since the D-Day landings, and more than 22,000 servicemen participated. Weapons tests were carried out at Montebello Islands off NW Australia, Emu Field & Maralinga (S Australia), and Christmas Island and Malden Island in the Pacific Ocean, as well as Nevada in the USA. British forces also took part in the American ‘Operation Dominic’ series of tests in the Pacific in 1962. Over five decades, more than 315 nuclear tests were held across the region.

The trials were designed to test the safety and security of British nuclear weapons in case of an accident and to improve the trigger mechanisms, which were subjected to chemical explosions, heat and other tests. The resultant destruction produced plumes of radioactive material in the form of fine particles and this caused long-term illnesses among the servicemen who were stationed at those locations. A 1999 study for the British Nuclear Test Veterans Association found that 30 per cent of those veterans involved had died, mostly in their fifties, from cancers.

Descendants of these unique servicemen continue the fight for recognition. It is believed that around 1,500 of the veterans are still alive. There have been recent calls in parliament for a medal to be awarded - posthumously where appropriate - to these ex-servicemen.

The memorial stone at Portsmouth Cathedral can be found in the centre of the Memorial Garden, as you look to the east. Its unveiling, in February 1991, coincided with the end of the Cold War and the time when British tests ceased. In 2011 the BNTVA National Standard was laid up in the Cathedral, and in 2019 a bench for the Memorial Garden was presented by the Portsmouth branch of the BNTVA; it is located adjacent to the memorial stone.