ATOMIC WAR EXERCISE

Press, Volume XCIII, Issue 28002, 23 June 1956, Page 9

ATOMIC WAR EXERCISE

N.Z. Troops To Participate MELBOURNE. June 22. New Zealand troops will be in the military task force takinr part in “live” atomic warfare at Maralinga, Central Australia, late thia year or early in 1957, the “Melbourne Herald’’ defence correspondent said tonight.

The force would be composed mainly of British troops, but would include Australians. New Zealanders, and Canadians.

The first explosion at the new Maralinga range, said the correspondent, would come from a devise of about the same strength as the bomb dropped on Hiroshima in 1945. The exercise would follow the pattern of an exercise in Nevada in 1953, when a division of American troops moved into an atomic blast area soon after the explosion. The troops are not likely to wear much protective clothing. They would probably carry respirators —to avoid breathing in particles of radioactive dust. The troops would carry personal “detecting” instruments to warn them of dangerous radioactive concentrations. One of these instruments, called a “dosimeter,” looks like a fountain pen. and reacts in the same way as a geiger counter. Photographic film tablets would hang on the soldiers’ equipment. These were designed to fog on exposure to radiation, and would later oe developed and studied by the scientists. Many pieces of military equipment, weapons and tanks, would probably be directly exposed to the Maralinga explosions, the correspondent said. Buildings of various types would probably be tested also.