New Zealand Nuclear Test Veterans’ Association
-Operation Grapple
January 2, 2024.
(Introductions, showed him my research, talked about the history of their genetic study- “We do want research,”
When talking about Al Rowland’s study:
Roberts:
I have all the numbers and all the scores but I don’t know who they are… I am the only person that I know who was a participant in his research, and I rang him today to say “who has got the code?” He [Al Rowland] said it has probably been destroyed because once the research is done, it was pure research, it wasn’t the personalities so in fact the numbers there, each person got their own score, we don’t know and he has no idea. Roy Sefton who has now passed may have had it in his archives, but doesn’t know and doesn’t think he did.
Roberts:
We all have a similar story about turning our backs to the bomb, feeling the flash on our back, and then turning around and you’ve got the x-rays in your vision, and you’ve turned around and the seething mass. I mean all those stories must be quite similar.
Decision to do an interview.
Shimasaki:
What was your role in the Navy?
Roberts:
I joined the Navy in May of 1957, at the age of 18, 3 months. Cause in ‘57 was the first year of Grapple, well we were doing our training and then in December of ‘57 we came out of our basic training in Motuihe Island which is down in the Hauraki Gulf, and we went up to Philomel and then we started our basic specialisation course. I was a seaman and my specialisation became sonar, which is the anti-submarine hence my nickname, ‘pingping’ because I was ambitious that I wasn’t going to stay at the bottom of the tree and so people thought I was being a bit too much overtime. But, I didn’t want to stay at the bottom, I wanted to climb the ladder and in fact, from joining the Navy in May of ‘57, I was a leading seaman by January 1961. That was only four years, and three years later I was a petty officer. That is fairly quick promotion, probably now I would say now, I did not spend enough time in the mess deck because I got out of it. I mean I had ambition and I climbed so I was a senior NCO within seven years of joining the Navy.
Shimasaki:
What inspired you to join the Navy?
Roberts:
I came from a farming family out of west Hamilton, a place called Te Kowhai and dad was a farmer. I had two older sisters; one is eight years, the other is six years older than I am. Probably, my elder sister who is a researcher in her own right, lives in Canada and she’s got a PhD in ecology, and she has done a lot of research; she actually worked for the United Nations Food and Agriculture for a period length in Canada and lived in Rome for about eight years and worked. She is now back in Canada and she just turned 92 and she is still doing research. But anyway, to me, why did I join the Navy? I thought I wanted to go into farming but as a young kid back in the mid-50s, dad had milked cows and I hated cows, so I went general farming, sheep and cattle but the places I was on were remote and after about 12-18 months I did not really like it. I mean, there was no social life, I had no way of getting to town, I had a bicycle (laughs), and I did not have a car, and my dad had discouraged me, he said, “when you are earning a certain amount of money,” I think he said, “when you are earring ten pound a week,” he said, “I might help you buy a car.” It never got to that. I didn’t like it. I probably upset my bosses, I wasn’t as enthusiastic as what they wanted and I ended up, my dad had a shop in Hamilton, and I ended up working for him for a period but he said to me, “this shop is not something that can support both of us.” My mother had recently passed away and so behind the scenes he had been talking to one of his friends who happened to be a naval liaison officer in Hamilton, I think he was an accountant. Anyway, I was steered into the region of the Navy recruiting board and I went to them, passed the recruiting- that would have been about the February of 1957 and the May I found myself in the Navy. Looking back before that in school, I went to school in New Plymouth in a boy’s high school there as a border. My father, being an Englishman, thought it would be good that his son probably had what he called a public school education like in England which he had, but I guess I was probably a late developer. I did not achieve what my education intended. In New Plymouth, it was a port city, and I was fascinated by the port and what went on, especially if a Navy ship came into New Plymouth which they periodically did and I would inadvertently go down there to gaze in awe at these great ships with sailors wearing, you know, little round hats. But, it never occurred to me that it could be a job, not at that stage, but I was fascinated by the Navy and I do remember at one stage a ship came in and they took some of our classmates, some of our students to sea. They were students from the engineering classes, I was in a general class, but the engineering students got on board and took them out and gave them a bit of a demonstration, probably weapons firing, things like that and then brought them back alongside but I wasn’t entitled. At school I joined the Air Training Corps and we did get to fly in a Harvard so that was it but I had never at that stage thought of the Service as a career. When I look back now, I think I was always destined to have a maritime era because it turns out from my sister’s research that I had a great-grandfather who was in the Royal Navy and in one of my exchanges, I did some exchanges in the eighties, an exchange with HMS Victory- Lord Nelson’s Ship, you know Battle of Trafalgar and all that? Well I did an exchange on that back in 1984 and my sister’s research tells me that my great-great grandfather was also attached to HMS Victory back in 1865. So, I served on the same ship as my great-great grandfather although by that time the ship did not go to sea, it was an accommodation ship and administration.
Shimasaki:
That’s an amazing thing to be able to say.
Roberts:
Yes, not many people can say that.
Shimasaki:
No, definitely not!
Roberts:
Not to prove it anyway! Yes, so I guess I had a heritage. Then going back into research which my sister is still doing, our Scottish side of our family was the name of ‘Johnstone’ it was just ‘Johnston, s-t-o-n,’ but subsequently ‘e’ was added to it to become ‘Johnstone.’ And, the current research she is still finding out, but basically there was a David Johnston who was a, his death certificate said he was a ‘gentleman’ but he had been a shipper. He had been a privateer, in other words he was a pirate but he was a legitimate pirate, but he was also, his descendants were, or in his trading he was also a slaver and his descendants, many of them were illegitimate. So, back in the 1700s one of our forefathers who is a direct line down to ourselves in this day had a chequered career if you like. So don’t be proud, you might have some good heritage but there’s also some funny stuff that went on…
Shimasaki:
You said that you were accepted in the Navy back in May 1957, Grapple followed quite soon after. So, can you explain your experience of Grapple and that test series?
Roberts:
I went to Pukaki, and I joined Pukakai in June of ‘58, bearing in mind that Grapple had started in May of ‘57. Of the two ships, Rotoiti and Pukakai, Rotoiti did two trips up there only and I think they observed three bombs and then one bomb, I think they had four bombs. But Pukakai was there for all four trips and so there were nine bombs in all, and I was there for the last four bombs which were Grapple Zulu and they were the four bombs; two of them were air dropped from Valiant Bomber and two of the bombs were suspended from balloons. So I was there for the four of them. But by the time we went there, it had become a bit blasé although we were becoming closer and closer. Initially ships were about 150 miles away but in our time my recollections is we were between 50 miles and 20 miles from ground zero. Because as they got more familiar with what they were doing and learnt, the scientists realised but they still wanted the ships closer and closer because we learned later, that they wanted to know what would happen to a ship and its contents when deliberately exposed to a nuclear detonation, and I guess how long it could continue to operate in that nuclear environment.
We didn’t know. We were kids, we did what we were told, we were mustered on the upper deck, we did all the things; we turned with our backs to the bomb and puts our hands over our eyes and from the air dropped ones you got to count down from paxton to the aircraft that dropped them about 40 seconds, we dropped the bomb then you saw the explosion through the back of your head and your hands and the heat on your back and then I think about 15 seconds later you turned around and looked at this evolving mushroom cloud. The airdrop ones were bigger, they were all big but the airdrop ones were bigger, a higher yield bomb than the balloon ones, and they were in the megaton range. But, this was the 50s and it was only in the 80s that people started questioning, not so much Roy then, I only met him when NZNTVA was actually formed and I went to the meetings in Palmerston North but, there was a guy Graham Galbransen I think he was some sort of researcher at Auckland University and I remember having some correspondence with him and he started asking question and we started giving answers but we weren’t, it was not something that really came to light until after I left the Navy. I mean I knew we had been involved and I knew there were people, I am not sure if you are aware of Graham Galbransen or the name. Anyway, I mean it is just in my mind that he did something and we answered his questions and it was only when Roy called us to Palmerston North to the meetings and where Ruth McKenzie started taking statistics and we started realising that, hey, there is something wrong here. I mean, he found out because all his shipmates were dying, or many of them at a very young age and so we joined and by this time I left the Navy- I stayed in the Navy for 36 years, and I left in 1993. Well by that time he had formed the New Zealand Nuclear Test Veterans Association and called these meeting and so I made it a point that my wife and I went to all the meetings they had in Palmerston North and was there when the funding, we eventually got $200,000 which Winston Peters had been the initial perpetrator of but when he was, Jenny Shipley rolled Jim Bolger as Prime Minister and she became Prime Minister, she sacked Winston Peters and consequently our funding that he was going to take to Cabinet never eventuated and it became Labour that Helen Clarke-led government that did come across with $200,000 of which was to initially half of it was for a class action against the British Government and the other half for research into genetics and of course is now proven. Our case went to Court in Britain, the High Court, but it wasn’t into our genetics, it was only into, because they considered we were out of time to fly, so they were only seeking a judicial that we were actual within time to take a case to the Court but because we were out of time and it was lost at a split decision 4:3. So, it wasn’t so much that there was nothing wrong with it but our case was never actually heard as to whether our genetics were damaged but the questions were always asked of the British Government by Roy and all of the stuff he did was; from my knowledge and I don’t know a lot about that because although he communicated a lot and put a lot of stuff out there, but he never got answers from the British Government. And I believe there was a piece I was reading that said something about, 1993 or something, New Zealand didn’t sign some sort of agreement but basically was told ‘I understand by the British that if they do too much favour to the New Zealand Grapple Veterans then it will be considered an unfriendly act by the British Government.’ As you know now, and it was Borris Johnson, that ‘yes, you guys did have a raw deal so we will give you a medal’ but it is pertinent that this is a commemoration medal it is not an operational medal so it is only, ‘well, you were there so we are giving a medal to prove that you went to the bomb tests.’ It’s not a medal to say that you suffered any danger. Although, the New Zealand Grapple medal, the nuclear test medal, is considered an operational medal in the fact that if you went to Christmas Island, you got considered under the War Pensions Act for health treatment under the same as attending you know, operations under World War II or Korea, or Vietnam, etc. So, that is where the British medal is not in that category, in fact, the role that it will be worn, it will be the last medal that we wear before foreign decorations. [Shows me the medal.]