The UK government has announced that more British veterans will now be eligible to receive the Nuclear Test Medal in recognition of their contributions to nuclear weapons development.
The expanded eligibility criteria will include veterans who supported the United States’ atmospheric nuclear test programme, according to a statement from the Ministry of Defence.
This expansion follows an urgent review ordered by Defence Secretary John Healey, aimed at broadening recognition for those who participated in nuclear testing efforts with the UK’s closest ally. The change reflects the government’s commitment to acknowledging those who served in these pivotal roles.
The first medal under the updated criteria was awarded to Squadron Leader Pete Peters, a former RAF Canberra pilot, by Al Carns, Minister for Veterans and People, in a ceremony at Peters’ home in Lakenheath, Suffolk. Squadron Leader Peters participated in American nuclear tests in 1954, undertaking high-altitude air sampling missions to collect critical data.
Reflecting on the contribution of nuclear test veterans, Carns stated, “The work that the Nuclear Test veterans did… laid the foundation for the decades of security and safety that our society benefits from even today.”
The Nuclear Test Medal was originally introduced nearly two years ago to honour veterans and foreign personnel who directly contributed to the UK’s nuclear deterrent during its atmospheric testing programme in the 1950s. With His Majesty The King’s approval, the expanded criteria now include those who played an active role in American atmospheric tests, allowing additional veterans and their families to seek recognition.
To date, nearly 5,000 medals have been awarded to veterans and next of kin. The government encourages all eligible veterans, civilian staff, and their descendants involved in American tests during the 1950s to apply for their medal.
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Delighted that our nuclear test guinea-pigs are at last getting recognition, after years of official denials.
There is a great deal of victim blaming going on with regard to the current epidemic of cancer. You got bowel cancer because you ate too much red meat. You got lung cancer because you used to smoke tobacco. You got skin cancer because you had too many holidays in the sun. The elderly get cancer because they live too long. Every day in the media new foods that “cause” cancer are listed.
But in reality, the cause of the current cancer epidemic is staring us in the face – it started with the atmospheric nuclear bomb tests in the 1940s. Roughly 1700 atmospheric bomb tests were conducted before the 1963 Partial Test Ban Treaty prohibited all test detonations of nuclear weapons except for those conducted underground.
Vast amounts of highly radioactive and long-lived fallout was sucked up into the atmosphere by the nuclear tests and distributed around the globe. Then there was Britain’s Chernobyl, the disastrous Windscale fire of 1957, which burned for three days and nights and irradiated Britain and Western Europe. Today, inhabitants of nearby villages are still finding small lumps of plutonium in their back gardens.
Windscale – Three Mile Island – Chernobyl – Fukushima. Maybe the anti-nuclear Greens are right, the risks with nuclear power are too great.