3rd October 1952: Britain conducts Operation Hurricane, its first test of an atomic bomb

Scott Allsop (0:00)

On 3rd October 1952, Britain conducted Operation Hurricane, its first test of an atomic bomb, off the coast of Western Australia. Welcome to HistoryPod.

British scientists had played an important role in the American Manhattan Project, but in the aftermath of the Second World War, the British government became concerned that the country would be excluded from the development of nuclear weapons. In January 1947, the British government formally decided to produce a British atomic weapon and began work at several research facilities, primarily the High Explosives Research Establishment at Fort Halsted in Kent. The weapon was similar in design to the plutonium implosion bomb developed during the Manhattan Project. Australia agreed to provide the Montebello Islands as the location for the test, and engineers prepared Hurricane to be detonated just above the seabed to investigate the effect of a nuclear explosion on a port. The device was placed inside the hull of the former naval frigate HMS Plim, which was anchored in a lagoon between the islands. At 8am local time, the bomb was detonated. With an estimated yield of 25 kilotons, the explosion destroyed the ship and produced a large column of radioactive material. This made Britain the third country to successfully develop and detonate a nuclear weapon after the United States and the Soviet Union.

Operation Hurricane was an important development in Britain's post-war defence policy. The new nuclear capability strengthened the country's position as an independent military power, which was important at a time when the Cold War was becoming increasingly defined by the nuclear arsenals of the United States and the Soviet Union. Britain subsequently developed its own operational nuclear weapons and carried out further tests in Australia and the Pacific.