Second French test an anti-climax

Press, Volume CXIII, Issue 33290, 30 July 1973, Page 1

Second French test an anti-climax

(From CHRIS TURVER, N.Z.P.A. staff correspondent aboard H.M.N.Z.S. Canterbury) AT SEA, July 29. France produced a virtual anti-climax over Mururoa today by detonating a nuclear device so small that all that could be seen was a fluffy white powder puff, fragmented within 10 minutes by the wind.

It was, however, in line with France’s attempts to perfect an atomic trigger for its nuclear armaments.

The mini-explosion came four hours after it was originally scheduled and the only drama surrounding the atmospheric test was how long it would take French technicians to solve an apparent fault in the firing system. The detonation was recorded by the New Zealand frigate Canterbury at 1 p.m. (11 a.m. N.Z. time) but sighting of the fireball was missed entirely by the six men allowed on the bridge because they were wearing dark goggles. Two minutes after the expected explosion the frigate’s commanding officer, Captain D. Cheney, took off his goggles to find it all over. Captain Cheney, who served on board a New Zealand warship 16 years ago when a British one-megaton blast at Christmas Island was witnessed, described today’s explosion as “more like a poisonous toadstool than a mushroom.’’

The yield was so small that Mr J. McCahon, principal radiation officer at the National Radiation Laboratory in Christchurch, said it could not be measured accurately. , This afternoon he checked! all radiation monitoring! instruments in the Canter-; bury, and they all registered zero fall-out. The frigate was up-wind and west of Mururoa, and was kept company by up to nine French warships at a time, the nearest coming within half-a-mile. From 8 a.m. the frigate was closed and the hull was sealed against possible radiation. The crew of 253 wore

white anti-flash clothing, including headgear and gloves. On the bridge were the captain, the navigating officer, Lieutenant A. ClaytonGreen, the Chief Yeoman B. Cookson, and reporters from the New Zealand Press Association and the New Zealand Broadcasting Corporation.

They were later joined by the Minister of Immigration (Mr Colman) who triggered the camera used to record the explosion. French techicians failed to detonate their nuclear device, apparently another in the series to perfect the small atomic trigger for France’s nuclear armaments, on time. From soon after 9 a.m. there was a continuing flurry of helicopter flights from a French ship offshore to the atoll and back, which strongly suggested the firing system was faulty. Several times during the ■morning the ship’s crew was !put on stand-by waiting for the blast but each time until the device finally went off the French evidently struck a hitch.