1323 Flight Raf, Where & what

Hello,

Wondering whether anyone had details or ideas on the composition and role of this early 50's unit in Australia? Circa 1953 to 1954 it seems.

Perhaps Woomera or maybe Atomic Tests support or something even more "Royal"

Waiting with "worm on tongue"

Best
Gordy B)

Hi Gordy

There doesn't seem to be much info easily available about 1323 Flight but it was apparently equipped with Canberra PR7s (possibly PR3s also) in the early 50s and carried out a monitoring role related to the atomic tests. One RAF history suggests that it was based at Goose Bay in Labrador while another suggests it was based in the UK. Neither would be very convenient for Woomera so perhaps there were detachments over here. It appears to have been officially disbanded in late October 1955 with its monitoring role taken over by 542 Squadron RAF . I've got a memory of seeing an article about Canberras monitoring the tests but can't remember where so will need to do some fossicking in the garage.

Joe

Thanks Joe,...a lead

Gordy :)

Sorry to resurrect such an old thread, but in case anyone is stll interested ...

1323 Flt had a detachment of Canberras at Laverton in the spring of 1954, carrying out atmospheric gas sampling for nuclear intelligence purposes. Another detachment was stationed on Kwajalein (supported via Darwin) to sample the US Castle hydrogen bomb trials.

The full story of the detachments is told in "Sniffing and Bottling: 1323 Flight and its successors", available from lulu.com.

Hi abadonna, welcome aboard our humble forum.
No need to apologise for resurrecting an old thread, history doesn't have a use by date!
Thanks for the information


This photo may be of interest

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The back of the photo.
(Got to love how they used to publish service personel addresses on such things!)

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a tip off from the Phantom
http://www.pprune.org/aviation-history-nos...fic-1954-a.html

Martin,

thanks for that. Very nice. It's a photograph of Operation HOT BOX. The RAF wanted to know whether aircraft would be too irradiated for further use after delivering a nuclear strike (due to radioactive contamination). Sqn Ldr Wilson suggested he fly a Canberra through the clouds from the two Totem atomic tests to find out. The initial plan was to use a RAAF Canberra - but understandably the RAAF wasn't too keen on having one of their expensive shiny new aircraft used on such a risky venture. So Wilson used an RAF Canberra instead. A secondary goal was to take samples from the cloud for scientific analysis. The first sortie was deemed a success - but the crew took a such a large radiation dose that they decided not to repeat the exercise on the second test.

abadonna

Any info on what would have been that high dosage of radiation and the long term effects to those people?

Given stories I cannot imagine it would have been good...

Thanks for the pointer. Note though that the account on pprune is not entirely accurate - more information has come to light since that was written.

The official dose for the Hot Box crew was around 10R (which was the upper limit permitted for the trial). However, some of the measuring instruments disagreed (some suggested a much higher dose) so the figure is really an estimate.

I'm not sure what happened to Anderson but I believe that Wilson and Dhenin survived into their 90s. (AVM Dhenin passed away last May at the age of 93). Which, I suppose, just goes to show how the effects of radiation can vary from person to person.

I've seen a few references to WH962 being the Hot Box aircraft. I think that story originates from the Robert Jackson book on the Canberra (Canberra The Operational Record) which is pretty inaccurate in a number of areas. The aircraft is actually B.2 WH738, later lost en-route to Kwajalein in Feb 54.

The following is from http://users.pipeline.com.au/~burst/emuflying.html

Canberra Bomber WH738
An RAF Canberra crew came, I assume, as passengers in another aeroplane to inspect Emu airfield for use by their Canberra that was specially equipped for sampling radioactive atmosphere. They decided that Emu airfield was unsuitable and should only be used in an emergency. Presumably the loose stones could be injested into the engine air intakes. On the morning of Totem 1, the Canberra flew from Woomera, over Emu's Totem weapons' area but did not land at Emu. It was the first manned aeroplane to penetrate a still billowing, dark, atomic bomb cloud. The Canberra, WH 738 was fitted with special filters to collect radioactive debris for analysis at Woomera. After returning to Woomera this aeroplane was parked in a romote location at Woomera, and washed down until it was no longer considered a radiation hazard. It did not fly through the second explosion's cloud because its crew had been exposed to a relatively large amount of radiation and were not to be further exposed so soon after.

Is it possible that WH692 was used for the second explosion?
If so that may be why we have references to two different Operation Hot Box Canberras

Martin,

the Totem shots were in October 1953. WH962 was a B.6 and was delivered off the production line in February 1955. I'm pretty sure the myth that WH962 was flown during Totem came originally from Jackson's book - which is littered with inaccuracies. I suspect he noted that WH962 had been at the Institute of Aviation Medicine and assumed it must have been the Hot Box aircraft. In fact WH962 was at the IAM in the second half of 1955, nearly two years after Totem.

abadonna

Amen to that - Welcome aboard abadonna!

Darren's remark about the radiation prompted me to look through my file on 738. It seems that Operation Hot Box came in for some criticism by the Australian Royal Commission looking into the atomic trials. WH738 was decontaminated shortly after the sortie. This was carried out by a small number of RAAF groundcrew, using a detergent spray and a water tanker to wash the radioactive dust off the skin of the aircraft. According to the book "Fields of Thunder" there was strong criticism by the Commission that the groundcrew weren't issued with respirators for this operation. Although Wilson reckoned the aircraft could have been flown after this it was later discovered that it was still pretty hot and the decontamination had to be re-done a day or so later. (There is apparently an 1953 RAAF Report on the decontamination, R137.001).

The Report of the Royal Commission into British Nuclear Tests in Australia (link below) mentions the decontamination proceedures of both the Canberra and the RAAF Lincolns involved.
With the benefit of hindsight it seems wholly inadequate

http://www.ret.gov.au/resources/radioactiv...A%20VOL%202.pdf

Hindsight tells you flying through the cloud was a bad idea to begin with...

A snippet from NAA via the Phantom

"...not only was this possibly hazardous..."


Unbelievable

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Martin,

thanks very much indeed for those two references. I hadn't seen them before. Very interesting. I hadn't realised the Royal Comission Report was on-line.

You may already have seen it, but Anderson wrote an account of the operation for "The Aeroplane" - it was published in December 1953. I can provide scans if anyone is interested. An interesting read.

abadonna

Thanks Everyone, that was superb

Best
Gordy ;)