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The Chair of the UK/Ireland Nuclear Free Local Authorities has today written to the new Veterans Minister calling for the issue of the Nuclear Test Medal to the Service and civilian personnel who were involved in monitoring the atmospheric nuclear tests carried out by the French and Chinese in the Pacific.
The date is particularly significant because it is the 73rd anniversary of the first British atom bomb test off the West coast of Australia.
The NFLAs have been strong advocates for justice and compensation for Britain’s nuclear test veterans and their families.
The Nuclear Test Medal can currently be awarded to ‘UK Service and civilian personnel, and civilians of other nations, who served at the locations where the UK atmospheric nuclear tests were conducted, including the preparatory and clear-up phases, between 1952 and 1967 inclusive’, or to their surviving relatives.
However other veterans are excluded from receiving it, including those air and naval crews who monitored the fallout clouds which followed French and Chinese atmospheric testing by flying or sailing through them, and the groundcrews who subsequently decontaminated the monitoring aircraft. They were exposed to radioactive contamination, and their health has suffered as a result.
To NFLA Chair Councillor O’Neill this seems ‘not only unjust, but also bizarre and perverse’ given these veterans faced the same dangers as their colleagues who engaged in ‘sniffing’ duties on British tests and who have received the medal.
The NFLAs have therefore made a plea to the Veterans’ Minister, Louise Sandher-Jones MP, to do justice by these excluded nuclear test ‘sniffers’, the men of 27 and 543 Squadrons RAF and the Royal Fleet Auxiliary vessel, Sir Percivale, by issuing them with the medal.
Ends://..For more information please email NFLA Secretary Richard Outram at richard.outram@manchester.gov.uk
The letter sent today to the Veterans Minister reads:
The Rt Hon Louise Sandher-Jones MP,
Parliamentary Under Secretary of State
(Minister for Veterans and People),
C/o Office for Veterans Affairs at The Cabinet Office
3 October 2025
Dear Minister,
Congratulations on your recent appointment.
The UK/Ireland Nuclear Free Local Authorities have been strong advocates for justice and compensation for the victims of Britain’s atomic and nuclear test programme, namely the military veterans who were involved, often unwillingly, and the Indigenous communities impacted and left with the consequences.
Today is the 73rd anniversary of the first British atom bomb test in Western Australia. It therefore seems a fitting date to write, following the recent meeting between the Secretary of State for Defence John Healey and then Veterans Minister Al Carns with a delegation from the nuclear veterans’ community campaign group LABRATS International, to make an earnest plea that your department issue the Nuclear Test Medal to a forgotten group of test veterans.
The Nuclear Test Medal can currently be awarded to ‘UK Service and civilian personnel, and civilians of other nations, who served at the locations where the UK atmospheric nuclear tests were conducted, including the preparatory and clear-up phases, between 1952 and 1967 inclusive’ (or to their family members where the person eligible is sadly now deceased).
Consequently, the current criteria exclude RAF air crew who were assigned the dangerous task of flying or sailing through the radioactive clouds of nuclear bomb tests carried out by France and China, and the ground crew tasked with the hazard of decontaminating the aircraft.
Although Britain conducted 45 tests in Australia, the Pacific and in the United States, British personnel were also ordered to fly or sail through the radioactive clouds of over 40 atomic and nuclear atmospheric tests carried out by China and France. These personnel were the air crew of the RAF 27 and 543 Squadrons and the sailors aboard RFA Sir Percivale, who were responsible for conducting air sampling at great personal risk. In support were the crews faced with cleaning the radioactive contaminants from the aircraft. These veterans are colloquially known as ‘Sniffers’.
RAF 543 Squadron was home-based at RAF Wyton from 1955 to 1974 and operated variants of Victor aircraft.
On overseas assignment operating from Lima, Peru, between 1966 and 1974, 543 Squadron Victor B2 (SR) aircraft, flew through the debris clouds of 27 French nuclear tests, conducted at Moruroa Atoll in the Pacific.
Operating from several airbases in South-East Asia, the Pacific, and the United States, between 1966 and 1974, 543 Squadron Victor B2 (SR) aircraft, flew through the debris clouds of 16 Chinese nuclear tests, a series titled Lop Nur.
After the squadron’s disbandment, 3 modified Victor B2(SR) aircraft, known as Victor Flight, remained at RAF Wyton until Operations Aroma 3 and Vellum were concluded. Sadly, a fourth assigned aircraft was lost in an accident in May 1973.
On 1 March 1974, RAF 27 Squadron was reformed at RAF Scampton with Mark B2 Maritime Radar Reconnaissance (MRR) Vulcans. Some were modified with radioactivity sensors and the capability to carry air sampling pods, thus enabling the squadron to continue the RAF ‘sniffing’ operations.
27 Squadron continued to perform Strategic Reconnaissance duties, including ‘sniffing’ the clouds of test clouds of the emerging nuclear powers in the Indian sub-continent and South-East Asia, mainly China.
The last Chinese “Upper Atmospheric” test CHIC-27 was carried out on the 16 October 1980. Producing a yield of 1 Megaton, this was to be the last atmospheric test in the world.
In 1982, RAF 27 Squadron disbanded at RAF Scampton after eight years of air sampling operations.
The aircrew of 543 and 27 Squadrons flew in sampling aircraft whose cockpits were contaminated. These contaminated aircraft were worked on and wiped down by Crew chiefs and groundcrew at their overseas operational bases. And, when these aircraft eventually returned to the UK, they remained contaminated with radioactivity, and they were decontaminated by washing by groundcrew. Many of these groundcrew were unaware of the levels of radioactivity on the aircraft.
Consequently, many of these air and ground crew developed cancers and other health conditions related to exposure to ionising radiation, some repeatedly. Some personnel died and others were able to access a War Pension as a result.
Several 543 Squadron aircraft also participated in air sampling operations in support of the British atomic bomb tests in South Australia, with air and ground crew also exposed to ionising radiation.
These personnel are considered ‘nuclear test veterans’ and are eligible for the Nuclear Test Medal, but those involved with foreign nuclear test are not.
A recent article on BBC Breakfast (24 September) highlighted the role that seventeen vessels of the Royal Fleet Auxiliary, with Service and civilian crews, had played in support of Operation Grapple, the testing of Britain’s hydrogen bomb, between 1956 and 1958. These personnel are eligible for the Nuclear Test Medal; yet the men who served on RFA Sir Percivale who manned the vessel from 1970 to 1974 and who witnessed and sampled the French nuclear tests are not. Even year for five years, the crews would sail though and collect air samples of the radioactive fallout using monitors attached to helium balloons.
Ministry of Defence Factsheet 5 – UK atmospheric nuclear weapons tests – identifies the top five groups of personnel exposed to the greatest radiological hazards during British testing. The top three are:
- RAF aircrews involved in sampling from airburst clouds
- RAF decontamination flight crews who sluiced the aircraft
- RN crews who sailed through the fallout cloud[i]
RAF and Royal Fleet Auxiliary personnel carrying out duties in connection with the foreign atomic and nuclear tests fall into these categories, yet, despite being exposed to similar radiological dangers and in some cases having been awarded government War Pensions due to health problems associated with exposure to ionising radiation, they remain excluded from the award of the Nuclear Test Medal.
Minister, frankly this seems not only unjust, but also bizarre and perverse.
Even John Healey thought so; for on 17 April 2023, as Shadow Defence Secretary, Mr Healey tabled a Parliamentary written question: ‘To ask the Secretary of State for Defence, whether veterans who served as (a) pilots and (b) ground crew for 543 Squadron to track and photograph nuclear tests conducted by other nations will be eligible for a Nuclear Test Veteran Medal.’
Although well intentioned, the question was factually incorrect as 543 Squadron Victor aircraft, as we have seen, did not track and photograph, but rather tracked and air sampled debris from the Chinese and French Nuclear Test Clouds.
Defence Minister Dr Andrew Murrison compounded the error, but made clear that they would not, responding thus on 24 April 2023: ‘The eligibility criteria for the Medal do not include personnel who tracked and photographed nuclear tests conducted by other nations’.
To his credit on becoming Defence Secretary Mr Healey ordered an urgent review of the eligibility criteria for the Nuclear Test Medal and, in the NFLA’s view, it is now about time that the veterans of 27 and 543 Squadron RAF and RFA Sir Percivale were included within them.
In making this plea, I would echo the words of Mr Healey in his reply to Minister Murrison: “This decision is unnecessarily divisive and dismissive. It’s high time ministers recognised the pride our UK veterans feel about their part in the early nuclear test programmes.”
Minister, please do the right thing and issue these medals now to our nation’s gallant ‘Sniffers’.
Thank you for considering this request.
Yours Sincerely,
Councillor Lawrence O’Neill,
Chair, UK/Ireland Nuclear Free Local Authorities
