Antinuclear

Australia’s forgotten soldiers, victims of Maralinga atomic bomb testing

he was required to sign the official secrets act when returning from Maralinga, which prevented him from talking about the site for 30 years.

McGee’s lost men forgotten in fallout , Adelaide Now, Bryan Littlely, April 24, 2010 FRANK McGee is looking for the lost men of Maralinga, but fears most of his lads have died without recognition for the work they did cleaning up our nuclear disgrace

• The former Royal Air Force Flight Lieutenant commanded a party of 35 airmen whose task it was to collect, bury and salvage items from the Maralinga atomic test sites over two years from 1966. Dressed in shorts and shirts only, and never told the materials they dealt with could be radioactive, the men salvaged whole planes to be returned to service and other scrap materials for auction at Salisbury….”At no time were the words `atomic’ or `nuclear’ mentioned, and I personally had no knowledge of what the UK had been doing in Australia.”

  Mr McGee, who was the eldest of the party at age 41, has traced just seven of those young men and believes many must have died from ailments linked to exposure to radiation and poisons at Maralinga.

  “Most of them were only 18 or 19 at the time . . . they should all still be alive,” Mr McGee said.
  Mr McGee said he was required to sign the official secrets act when returning from Maralinga, which prevented him from talking about the site for 30 years…….Mr McGee, in 1980, “went blind overnight” in his left eye, his treating doctor telling him there was evidence of “radioactive material” in his eye. A plastic lens was used to restore his sight and, about a year later, the same thing happened to his right eye.. McGee’s lost men forgotten in fallout | Adelaide Now

April 24, 2010 - Posted by Christina Macpherson | AUSTRALIA - NATIONAL, weapons and war | antinuclear, Australia, Maralinga, nuclear wastes, nuclear weapons, radiation, radioactive