0:00:06 > 0:00:08In November 1957,
0:00:08 > 0:00:12Britain exploded its first megaton hydrogen bomb...
0:00:13 > 0:00:17..over 100 times more powerful than the one dropped over Hiroshima.
0:00:18 > 0:00:23This is the story of an extraordinary scientific project,
0:00:23 > 0:00:26which, against almost insuperable odds,
0:00:26 > 0:00:29made Britain a nuclear superpower.
0:00:30 > 0:00:33It is told through unprecedented access
0:00:33 > 0:00:37to Britain's top-secret nuclear research facility at Aldermaston...
0:00:38 > 0:00:42..including the only interview ever by the man who was, for decades,
0:00:42 > 0:00:45this country's bomb-maker-in-chief.
0:00:47 > 0:00:50Here we have the first hydrogen bomb
0:00:50 > 0:00:54that went into service with the RAF for the United Kingdom.
0:00:55 > 0:00:57With archive footage and photographs
0:00:57 > 0:00:59especially released for this programme...
0:01:01 > 0:01:04This is the very, very early stages of the weapon going off,
0:01:04 > 0:01:07running at about 125,000 frames a second.
0:01:08 > 0:01:11..including interviews with scientists and veterans,
0:01:11 > 0:01:14many speaking for the first time.
0:01:14 > 0:01:20A bomb came loose whilst the aircraft was flying over Dorking.
0:01:22 > 0:01:25He said, "Well, the government's just announced that
0:01:25 > 0:01:27"we're going to make a hydrogen bomb.
0:01:27 > 0:01:30"We don't actually know how to do it. Have you got any ideas?"
0:01:31 > 0:01:36This is the inside story of how Britain's bomb was built.
0:01:45 > 0:01:49- OVER RADIO:- 'Copy. Receiving you loud and clear, over.
0:01:49 > 0:01:54'Minus 25 seconds. 203.'
0:01:54 > 0:01:56On November 8th, 1957,
0:01:56 > 0:01:59an RAF bomber was flying to Malden Island
0:01:59 > 0:02:01in the middle of the Pacific.
0:02:01 > 0:02:03It was carrying a bomb that would transform
0:02:03 > 0:02:05Britain's place in the world.
0:02:05 > 0:02:09'Telemetric to Internal. Minus 20 seconds.'
0:02:09 > 0:02:11It was a mission fraught with danger.
0:02:12 > 0:02:15We were flying between 40,000ft and 50,000ft
0:02:15 > 0:02:18and we were given the clearance to go ahead.
0:02:18 > 0:02:19'Bomb doors open.'
0:02:19 > 0:02:22The actual point that the bomb had to explode at
0:02:22 > 0:02:25was at 8,000ft and several miles off the island
0:02:25 > 0:02:27over the sea.
0:02:27 > 0:02:31'Minus 10 seconds. 202. Steady.
0:02:31 > 0:02:36'Steady. Steady, steady, steady. Bombs away.'
0:02:38 > 0:02:41At 17.47 Greenwich Mean Time,
0:02:41 > 0:02:43the Valiant bomber dropped its payload -
0:02:43 > 0:02:45a massive hydrogen bomb.
0:02:45 > 0:02:48The crew then had just one minute to escape the blast
0:02:48 > 0:02:52with a sharp 140-degree turn.
0:02:52 > 0:02:57When we did release the bomb, we had to do a quick getaway -
0:02:57 > 0:03:01we called it an escape manoeuvre - away from the danger zone,
0:03:01 > 0:03:05so that the bomb didn't explode immediately underneath us.
0:03:07 > 0:03:11My job, as a co-pilot, was to monitor an accelerometer
0:03:11 > 0:03:13which told the captain how much
0:03:13 > 0:03:18G-force he could pull without the aircraft stalling.
0:03:18 > 0:03:19In the event,
0:03:19 > 0:03:22as we rolled into this tight turn,
0:03:22 > 0:03:26a wire broke off at the back of the instrument
0:03:26 > 0:03:29and so I wasn't able to tell the captain
0:03:29 > 0:03:32he was getting near the limits of how tight a turn he could do.
0:03:32 > 0:03:34And at that instant,
0:03:34 > 0:03:36the aircraft started to bounce around
0:03:36 > 0:03:38as though we were coming to the stall,
0:03:38 > 0:03:42and the engines also started to have a little bit of a burble,
0:03:42 > 0:03:45which meant that things were not quite right.
0:03:46 > 0:03:50The bomb aimer was thrown back into the nose of the aircraft
0:03:50 > 0:03:53by the extra G-force placed upon it.
0:03:54 > 0:03:56It was dangerous. We didn't have time to think of,
0:03:56 > 0:03:58"How have we got to get out of it?"
0:03:58 > 0:04:02It was just pure flying skills to correct the stalling
0:04:02 > 0:04:06and we just turned as hard as we could go
0:04:06 > 0:04:09and head away from the explosion.
0:04:11 > 0:04:13It was a close run thing,
0:04:13 > 0:04:15but the Valiant escaped from the blast zone.
0:04:17 > 0:04:21EXPLOSION
0:04:26 > 0:04:31The implications of this explosion continue to reverberate to this day.
0:04:33 > 0:04:37For better or worse, by developing its own hydrogen bomb,
0:04:37 > 0:04:43Britain had forced its way into the elite group of nuclear superpowers.
0:04:43 > 0:04:46It was the culmination of an extraordinary story
0:04:46 > 0:04:48of British scientific endeavour...
0:04:50 > 0:04:55..which began 40 years earlier with this man, Ernest Rutherford.
0:04:56 > 0:05:00In our laboratories today, we live in an atmosphere
0:05:00 > 0:05:04dim with the flying fragments of exploding atoms.
0:05:04 > 0:05:05And on this occasion...
0:05:05 > 0:05:09In 1911, he discovered the atom,
0:05:09 > 0:05:13the fundamental building block of every element in the universe.
0:05:13 > 0:05:17It soon became clear that if scientists could split the atom,
0:05:17 > 0:05:20it had the potential to release huge amounts of energy
0:05:20 > 0:05:22in a nuclear chain reaction.
0:05:24 > 0:05:27So, American scientists began building huge machines
0:05:27 > 0:05:31called cyclotrons to produce the several million volts
0:05:31 > 0:05:34they thought would be necessary to split a single atom.
0:05:36 > 0:05:40In Britain, one physicist, John Cockcroft,
0:05:40 > 0:05:41had a different plan.
0:05:42 > 0:05:45My father thought there was a probability
0:05:45 > 0:05:47that it could be done at a much lower voltage
0:05:47 > 0:05:48and he calculated
0:05:48 > 0:05:52300,000 volts instead of the several million
0:05:52 > 0:05:56and he then took those calculations to Lord Rutherford.
0:05:56 > 0:05:58Rutherford said, "Team up with Ernest Walton
0:05:58 > 0:06:02"and build the apparatus to prove that this is true."
0:06:02 > 0:06:06And I think, when he saw the opportunity to split the atom,
0:06:06 > 0:06:07he jumped at it.
0:06:07 > 0:06:09The two men still had to create
0:06:09 > 0:06:14their ambitious experimental apparatus from scratch.
0:06:14 > 0:06:16It was very Heath Robinson-ish.
0:06:16 > 0:06:19The box down at the bottom where the observations were made
0:06:19 > 0:06:22was, I think, constructed out of old tea chests.
0:06:22 > 0:06:24It must have been a bit cramped in there,
0:06:24 > 0:06:27though my father never actually remarked on how cramped it was,
0:06:27 > 0:06:30except when he mentioned that he had to try and squeeze Lord Rutherford
0:06:30 > 0:06:33into a small box, and he was a big man!
0:06:33 > 0:06:35This later version in the Science Museum
0:06:35 > 0:06:41shows how the 300,000-volt electrical charge was created.
0:06:41 > 0:06:44Well, this is known as the Cockcroft-Walton voltage multiplier
0:06:44 > 0:06:47because what it does is it takes a low voltage,
0:06:47 > 0:06:48steps it up to the high voltage
0:06:48 > 0:06:51that we need if we're going to split an atom.
0:06:51 > 0:06:54It's rather like a step of a staircase
0:06:54 > 0:06:56with a number of steps.
0:06:56 > 0:06:59Charge can flow up one step, then up the next step,
0:06:59 > 0:07:00and so on, right up to the very top.
0:07:00 > 0:07:03And at each stage, it is building up the voltage,
0:07:03 > 0:07:05so at the very top of the machine,
0:07:05 > 0:07:07you've got the high voltages that you really want
0:07:07 > 0:07:10if you're going to try and split a nucleus.
0:07:12 > 0:07:14The apparatus would fire high-energy particles
0:07:14 > 0:07:16at lithium atoms
0:07:16 > 0:07:20with the aim of splitting them into subatomic alpha particles.
0:07:21 > 0:07:26On the 14th of April 1932, Walton switched it on.
0:07:26 > 0:07:28And he saw these little sparkles of light.
0:07:31 > 0:07:34These photographs captured the results.
0:07:36 > 0:07:40We're looking at the paths that are left by the alpha particles
0:07:40 > 0:07:43as they speed away from the splitting nucleus.
0:07:43 > 0:07:46Now, we can't see the alpha particles themselves -
0:07:46 > 0:07:47they're much too small -
0:07:47 > 0:07:50but we can see the trails they leave behind.
0:07:51 > 0:07:54The atom had been split.
0:07:54 > 0:07:57It was a massive British scientific achievement.
0:07:58 > 0:08:02Now scientists worked to see if splitting the atom could go on
0:08:02 > 0:08:04to start a chain reaction,
0:08:04 > 0:08:07which would unleash extraordinary forces.
0:08:10 > 0:08:14When an atom is split, it produces smaller particles,
0:08:14 > 0:08:15most notably neutrons.
0:08:17 > 0:08:19In theory, it was possible these neutrons
0:08:19 > 0:08:22would go on to split other atoms...
0:08:23 > 0:08:27..so triggering more neutrons, leading to more splits,
0:08:27 > 0:08:29creating a chain reaction.
0:08:30 > 0:08:35This would release more energy than had ever been dreamt of.
0:08:35 > 0:08:37It seemed to be a thrilling prospect.
0:08:40 > 0:08:43PLANE ENGINE DRONES
0:08:46 > 0:08:53Then, in 1939, war broke out with Germany and everything changed.
0:08:53 > 0:08:56Now nuclear research became a matter of life and death
0:08:56 > 0:09:00because the scientists knew that it could also be used
0:09:00 > 0:09:02for a much darker purpose.
0:09:02 > 0:09:04EXPLOSIONS
0:09:07 > 0:09:09Scientists in Britain, both British-born scientists
0:09:09 > 0:09:12and some of the refugees from Europe, were
0:09:12 > 0:09:15very concerned about the threat that Hitler,
0:09:15 > 0:09:20that the Nazis would develop, successfully, an atomic bomb.
0:09:20 > 0:09:23They themselves started to think, "How was it possible?
0:09:23 > 0:09:26"What would you have to do to make this happen?"
0:09:28 > 0:09:32Scientists had worked out the major problem to overcome
0:09:32 > 0:09:36in order to create an atomic bomb concerned the fuel.
0:09:36 > 0:09:39The key material was uranium.
0:09:39 > 0:09:42Initially, it was thought that so much would be needed
0:09:42 > 0:09:44that a workable bomb was impossible.
0:09:47 > 0:09:50But two German physicists who fled the Nazis
0:09:50 > 0:09:53and came to Britain thought differently.
0:09:53 > 0:09:56Rudi Peierls and Otto Frisch made a breakthrough
0:09:56 > 0:10:01by working with a special type of uranium called separated uranium.
0:10:03 > 0:10:06From the theory of the fission process,
0:10:06 > 0:10:08we couldn't estimate how much you would need
0:10:08 > 0:10:12to produce a chain reaction in the separated uranium,
0:10:12 > 0:10:16and we were surprised to find how small it was - only a few pounds.
0:10:16 > 0:10:21It wasn't the tonnes that one intuitively had guessed before.
0:10:21 > 0:10:25This discovery was a major turning point.
0:10:25 > 0:10:29It showed that, in theory, a bomb could be built.
0:10:29 > 0:10:32And then we said, "It's frightening that the Germans
0:10:32 > 0:10:35"might have realised that, too."
0:10:35 > 0:10:39And the idea that Hitler would have this weapon
0:10:39 > 0:10:41before anybody else got it was frightening.
0:10:47 > 0:10:51The discovery meant it was now vital to beat the Germans to the bomb.
0:10:57 > 0:11:00Rhydymwyn, in North Wales,
0:11:00 > 0:11:03was one of the most secret places in wartime Britain.
0:11:06 > 0:11:11These buildings are remnants of a project code-named Tube Alloys -
0:11:11 > 0:11:14this country's attempt to build an atomic bomb.
0:11:16 > 0:11:21Eileen Doxford was one of the first to work here as a chemist, aged 19.
0:11:28 > 0:11:33I was calibrating an instrument every 20 minutes,
0:11:33 > 0:11:36but I didn't really know what I was doing.
0:11:36 > 0:11:43I was told that only two people knew what we were actually doing
0:11:43 > 0:11:46and that we had to just accept
0:11:46 > 0:11:51and do the job that we were given as well as we could.
0:11:51 > 0:11:55And we had not to discuss it with anybody,
0:11:55 > 0:11:57not even your dad!
0:11:59 > 0:12:01Eileen didn't know it,
0:12:01 > 0:12:04but the Rhydymwyn plant was designed to make uranium isotopes
0:12:04 > 0:12:07for the atomic bomb.
0:12:07 > 0:12:10The process was designed and supervised by Rudi Peierls.
0:12:11 > 0:12:15His daughter Jo remembers the pressures her father was under
0:12:15 > 0:12:17to force his technology to deliver.
0:12:19 > 0:12:21It was the forefront of science, what they were doing here.
0:12:21 > 0:12:23It had never been done before. It had never been tested.
0:12:23 > 0:12:27And it was back-of-an-envelope job that they were designing
0:12:27 > 0:12:31into something that became a huge industrial process.
0:12:31 > 0:12:35I think they were getting quite close to succeeding,
0:12:35 > 0:12:37but on the other hand, there was this feeling
0:12:37 > 0:12:39they were encountering more and more difficulties
0:12:39 > 0:12:41and more and more delays.
0:12:45 > 0:12:46Britain's lack of resources,
0:12:46 > 0:12:49combined with the continual threat of German bombing,
0:12:49 > 0:12:52led to a momentous decision.
0:12:52 > 0:12:55In 1943, the Prime Minister Winston Churchill
0:12:55 > 0:12:58agreed with US President Franklin Roosevelt
0:12:58 > 0:13:01that America should take over the project.
0:13:03 > 0:13:07All atomic bomb research in Britain was transferred to the USA.
0:13:11 > 0:13:14Britain sent 19 of its finest scientists
0:13:14 > 0:13:17to the huge nuclear research facility
0:13:17 > 0:13:20at Los Alamos in the New Mexico desert,
0:13:20 > 0:13:23part of the so-called Manhattan Project.
0:13:24 > 0:13:26One of them was Rudi Peierls,
0:13:26 > 0:13:30who was so eminent that he was able to choose who would go with him.
0:13:30 > 0:13:33One of the people that he asked to accompany him
0:13:33 > 0:13:37was Klaus Fuchs who apparently had the most brilliant mind.
0:13:37 > 0:13:39He was called a Calculator
0:13:39 > 0:13:42cos he was able to do calculations much better than anyone else.
0:13:49 > 0:13:52Fuchs and Peierls formed a very tight bond.
0:13:53 > 0:13:55Klaus was one of the family.
0:13:55 > 0:13:58My mother had a sort of maternalistic view towards him
0:13:58 > 0:14:01and would cook for him and look after him.
0:14:01 > 0:14:03Klaus Fuchs had a car.
0:14:03 > 0:14:06He would take them off onto various excursions
0:14:06 > 0:14:08so they could go further afield with him.
0:14:08 > 0:14:11So, there are all these souvenirs from Los Alamos -
0:14:11 > 0:14:15little things like this leaflet on hunting and fishing in New Mexico
0:14:15 > 0:14:18and also a guidebook of Santa Fe.
0:14:18 > 0:14:21I think being in Los Alamos
0:14:21 > 0:14:24was possibly one of the most enjoyable things that he did,
0:14:24 > 0:14:27because he was able to do all the physics he wanted to,
0:14:27 > 0:14:30there were these brilliant physicists that he could talk to
0:14:30 > 0:14:34and there was the countryside that they could go and explore,
0:14:34 > 0:14:35so they had a marvellous time.
0:14:42 > 0:14:45On July 16th, 1945,
0:14:45 > 0:14:47Peierls, the man who had first calculated
0:14:47 > 0:14:49that a bomb could be built,
0:14:49 > 0:14:52witnessed the first ever nuclear explosion
0:14:52 > 0:14:54in the American desert.
0:15:06 > 0:15:09I think there was a mixture of feelings.
0:15:09 > 0:15:12There was a vindication of his science -
0:15:12 > 0:15:14that these calculations that he and Frisch had done
0:15:14 > 0:15:19on the back of an envelope all those years ago had been right.
0:15:20 > 0:15:24It was the first time anyone had seen this mushroom cloud.
0:15:24 > 0:15:27There was a feeling of awe as this cloud built up
0:15:27 > 0:15:29and they could see the size of the explosion
0:15:29 > 0:15:32from a bomb that wasn't really that big.
0:15:35 > 0:15:39Within a month, atomic bombs were dropped on Japan,
0:15:39 > 0:15:40which ended the war.
0:15:45 > 0:15:48The atomic bomb had been the culmination
0:15:48 > 0:15:51of a joint effort between the British and American scientists.
0:15:53 > 0:15:56But that didn't mean the British knew how to build a bomb.
0:15:57 > 0:16:00British scientists came back from Los Alamos
0:16:00 > 0:16:02with a lot of knowledge about the nuclear weapon,
0:16:02 > 0:16:06but not with a complete picture or anything remotely like it.
0:16:06 > 0:16:12They had had a very close look at the detail of the weapon itself,
0:16:12 > 0:16:14but they had been excluded almost entirely
0:16:14 > 0:16:16from the production processes
0:16:16 > 0:16:19that went to making up the elements of the weapon.
0:16:19 > 0:16:21So, they were ignorant about,
0:16:21 > 0:16:24for example, creating nuclear reactors.
0:16:25 > 0:16:29The significance of these gaps in the British scientists' knowledge
0:16:29 > 0:16:31soon became painfully apparent.
0:16:34 > 0:16:38In 1946, the US Congress passed the McMahon Act,
0:16:38 > 0:16:41which prohibited any sharing of atomic information
0:16:41 > 0:16:43between Britain and America.
0:16:43 > 0:16:47To the British, who'd given so much to the Manhattan Project,
0:16:47 > 0:16:49it felt like betrayal.
0:16:51 > 0:16:52But in the United States,
0:16:52 > 0:16:55many felt enough had already been done
0:16:55 > 0:16:58to support Britain during the war.
0:16:58 > 0:17:00Senator Vandenberg said, "Well, look,
0:17:00 > 0:17:04"we bailed these fellas out to the tune of billions of dollars.
0:17:04 > 0:17:08"Why do we have to do any more for them in this very special field?"
0:17:08 > 0:17:11There was a lot of congressional opposition
0:17:11 > 0:17:15to dealing any further with the British.
0:17:15 > 0:17:17So, in 1946,
0:17:17 > 0:17:20the new Labour government faced a critical decision.
0:17:20 > 0:17:24The Prime Minister, Clement Attlee, chaired a top-secret meeting
0:17:24 > 0:17:28to decide whether Britain should go it alone and build a bomb.
0:17:28 > 0:17:30The need for post-war reconstruction
0:17:30 > 0:17:33had to be weighed against the controversial idea
0:17:33 > 0:17:37that, to be a superpower, Britain needed a nuclear bomb.
0:17:38 > 0:17:41Michael Perrin was at the meeting.
0:17:41 > 0:17:44The Prime Minister summed up very much on the lines of
0:17:44 > 0:17:46our country couldn't stand the money to do it,
0:17:46 > 0:17:48we haven't got the materials,
0:17:48 > 0:17:50with the present crisis in the country and all the rest of it.
0:17:50 > 0:17:52And at that stage,
0:17:52 > 0:17:55the Foreign Secretary, Mr Bevin came in
0:17:55 > 0:17:57and said, "No, Prime Minister, that won't do at all.
0:17:57 > 0:18:00"We've GOT to have this."
0:18:00 > 0:18:01And, quite bluntly, he said,
0:18:01 > 0:18:04"I don't want any other Foreign Secretary of this country
0:18:04 > 0:18:06"to be talked at
0:18:06 > 0:18:09"by a Secretary of State in the United States
0:18:09 > 0:18:12"as I have just had in my discussions with Mr Burns.
0:18:12 > 0:18:15"We've got to have this thing over here,
0:18:15 > 0:18:16"whatever it costs,
0:18:16 > 0:18:20"and we've got to have a bloody Union Jack flying on top of it."
0:18:20 > 0:18:23And that swung the meeting right round.
0:18:27 > 0:18:31If Britain was going to be a top power,
0:18:31 > 0:18:35it was imperative, so far as the British Government saw it,
0:18:35 > 0:18:38that Britain should have an atomic weapon.
0:18:39 > 0:18:43It was an expensive commitment, but it was all done in secret.
0:18:43 > 0:18:45Clement Attlee told neither Parliament
0:18:45 > 0:18:48nor the people of Britain about it for two years.
0:18:52 > 0:18:56The scientist chosen to lead the British atomic bomb research effort
0:18:56 > 0:18:58was William Penney.
0:18:59 > 0:19:02He had just returned from working at Los Alamos
0:19:02 > 0:19:06and was famously sparing with his words.
0:19:06 > 0:19:08Well, I think it's got to be done.
0:19:08 > 0:19:11What does your wife think about it all?
0:19:11 > 0:19:14Oh, I think she agrees with me.
0:19:14 > 0:19:17And in your spare time, in your free time, what do you do,
0:19:17 > 0:19:19as a complete contrast to the work that you're doing now?
0:19:19 > 0:19:24- I usually play golf.- You're a keen golfer?- Yes, a keen golfer.
0:19:24 > 0:19:27From his work at Los Alamos, Penney believed that plutonium,
0:19:27 > 0:19:29which could be manufactured from uranium,
0:19:29 > 0:19:32was the material for the core of the bomb.
0:19:32 > 0:19:34The first problem he faced
0:19:34 > 0:19:37was creating the temperatures and pressures necessary
0:19:37 > 0:19:40to initiate a fission chain reaction.
0:19:44 > 0:19:49For the first time, Britain's chief atomic bomb-maker, Ken Johnston,
0:19:49 > 0:19:53explains the principles of the design the scientists settled on.
0:19:55 > 0:19:59Penney and his designers decided to go for an implosion system
0:19:59 > 0:20:02which would compress a central plutonium ball.
0:20:03 > 0:20:06And they did it by surrounding it with high explosives.
0:20:08 > 0:20:12And the high explosives had to be set off simultaneously
0:20:12 > 0:20:15so that there was a symmetrical implosion...
0:20:17 > 0:20:20..which converged on the plutonium wall
0:20:20 > 0:20:22absolutely symmetrically...
0:20:23 > 0:20:27..and compressed it to many times its original density.
0:20:27 > 0:20:30The fission chain reaction built up
0:20:30 > 0:20:34and finally the whole thing exploded with enormous force.
0:20:34 > 0:20:38That's the principle of the implosion system.
0:20:42 > 0:20:44But as Ken Johnston demonstrates,
0:20:44 > 0:20:48designing an explosive which could compress the core
0:20:48 > 0:20:49was a tremendous challenge.
0:20:52 > 0:20:54What we have here is about half a kilogram
0:20:54 > 0:20:57of ordinary explosive - the flat end -
0:20:57 > 0:21:00and it's powerful enough to blow in the front of a house.
0:21:00 > 0:21:03What we're going to do is we're going to place it
0:21:03 > 0:21:06on this piece of steel and detonate it,
0:21:06 > 0:21:08and then we'll see what happens.
0:21:13 > 0:21:16This solid, three-inch-thick lump of steel
0:21:16 > 0:21:19stands in for the plutonium core of the bomb.
0:21:22 > 0:21:25The aim is to create an explosive charge so focused
0:21:25 > 0:21:29that it punches a hole through the steel.
0:21:29 > 0:21:30Under fire.
0:21:34 > 0:21:38- Fire. - EXPLOSION
0:21:40 > 0:21:41Hmm.
0:21:43 > 0:21:47What we can see here is a very shallow depression
0:21:47 > 0:21:50when the flat detonation wave has struck the plate
0:21:50 > 0:21:53and it's made a small depression in the steel.
0:21:53 > 0:21:55Now, to compress a ball of plutonium,
0:21:55 > 0:21:59you need to focus the energy to the centre of the device.
0:21:59 > 0:22:03And this sort of thing - a flat explosion, slap -
0:22:03 > 0:22:05is not going to do the job for you.
0:22:11 > 0:22:13For five years, the British scientists worked
0:22:13 > 0:22:16with a wide variety of explosives,
0:22:16 > 0:22:18experimenting with the materials and the shape needed
0:22:18 > 0:22:20for the explosive charge.
0:22:24 > 0:22:26A lot of people came to assist
0:22:26 > 0:22:29with the high explosive end of the business,
0:22:29 > 0:22:32casting and machining and forming the explosives
0:22:32 > 0:22:36into the correct shapes to produce the implosion system.
0:22:39 > 0:22:41They came up with a design that produced
0:22:41 > 0:22:43the necessary temperature and compression.
0:22:46 > 0:22:50This is a small-scale version of that explosive charge.
0:22:50 > 0:22:54What we have here is a fast detonating explosive
0:22:54 > 0:22:55and a slower one.
0:22:55 > 0:22:57This is the slow explosive
0:22:57 > 0:23:01and it is shaped to mate up with the hollow curve
0:23:01 > 0:23:03of the fast detonating explosive here.
0:23:03 > 0:23:05The two fit together,
0:23:05 > 0:23:09and the combination of the two makes an explosive lens.
0:23:09 > 0:23:11This is now going to focus the energy
0:23:11 > 0:23:14right on the centre point of the detonation.
0:23:19 > 0:23:22- Fire. - EXPLOSION
0:23:29 > 0:23:33Well, you see, the whole thing has bounced and flipped right over.
0:23:33 > 0:23:36But if we look at the face exposed to the explosive,
0:23:36 > 0:23:39you'll see that it's a very sharp hole indeed
0:23:39 > 0:23:43which shows you how well the explosive charge
0:23:43 > 0:23:45has focused its energy to produce
0:23:45 > 0:23:47this very deep hole in this piece of steel.
0:23:47 > 0:23:49And you can see it goes in quite a long way
0:23:49 > 0:23:53and it's heavily focused now on the very central area.
0:23:56 > 0:24:00So, the scientists now knew how to create the explosive lenses
0:24:00 > 0:24:02to detonate the bomb's plutonium core.
0:24:04 > 0:24:07It was just a case of scaling up the design.
0:24:10 > 0:24:15It required half a kilogram of high explosive to produce this effect,
0:24:15 > 0:24:16but the first atomic bomb that we built
0:24:16 > 0:24:19had two tonnes of high explosive in it
0:24:19 > 0:24:22to produce the convergent shock and compress the central plutonium.
0:24:28 > 0:24:30While scientists worked to build the bomb,
0:24:30 > 0:24:34a group of engineers confronted a very different set of problems.
0:24:36 > 0:24:38This is Orford Ness,
0:24:38 > 0:24:43a desolate stretch of shingle and stone on the East Suffolk coast.
0:24:48 > 0:24:51It's here that bomb engineers like Reg Milne
0:24:51 > 0:24:54tested the bomb's release and targeting systems.
0:24:54 > 0:24:58He was part of the top-secret Royal Aircraft Establishment
0:24:58 > 0:25:03and has come to meet a colleague, Professor John Allen.
0:25:03 > 0:25:05- Hi, Reg.- Hello!
0:25:05 > 0:25:08It's the first time they've met for more than 50 years.
0:25:08 > 0:25:12- Yes, many, many years. - I think it was '61.
0:25:12 > 0:25:14- Yes.- We were in the same building, weren't we?
0:25:14 > 0:25:18- But we were... - In different worlds.- Yes.
0:25:18 > 0:25:24- And we were not able to talk... - No.- ..about what we were doing.
0:25:24 > 0:25:26Yes, that's right.
0:25:26 > 0:25:30- It was this need-to-know, top-secret world.- Absolutely.
0:25:30 > 0:25:34This footage of Reg with the bomb has never been seen before.
0:25:35 > 0:25:39He had to address a serious problem with the release mechanism.
0:25:40 > 0:25:45One flight to Orford Ness, a bomb came loose
0:25:45 > 0:25:49over Dorking. It fell off its hook.
0:25:49 > 0:25:53Luckily, the bomb doors were strong enough to hold it,
0:25:53 > 0:25:58and the pilot took the aircraft over the Thames Estuary,
0:25:58 > 0:26:03opened the bomb doors, the bomb fell out,
0:26:03 > 0:26:06and the splash nearly drowned a couple of sailors
0:26:06 > 0:26:11who happened to be nearby. They never found it.
0:26:11 > 0:26:13It's still under the Thames somewhere.
0:26:15 > 0:26:17Fortunately, the bomb was a dummy,
0:26:17 > 0:26:20with no explosive or radioactive material.
0:26:21 > 0:26:25But there was another issue that was harder to solve -
0:26:25 > 0:26:28the atom bomb weighed less than a conventional device,
0:26:28 > 0:26:31which meant that, when it was released from the bomb bay,
0:26:31 > 0:26:33it could be lifted by an updraught of air
0:26:33 > 0:26:35flowing under the aircraft fuselage.
0:26:35 > 0:26:37If you didn't watch it,
0:26:37 > 0:26:40the bomb could climb back up into the bomb bay
0:26:40 > 0:26:42because of the forces on it
0:26:42 > 0:26:46and that, of course, was the last thing you wanted to happen.
0:26:46 > 0:26:48You know, they had various fuses on them,
0:26:48 > 0:26:51and if they hit something, it would have gone bang.
0:26:51 > 0:26:53I mean, it was a really critical...
0:26:53 > 0:26:55We used to have the phrase...
0:26:55 > 0:26:58You're doing a job and you get a stopper.
0:26:58 > 0:27:02And this was a stopper that could have stopped it dead in its tracks,
0:27:02 > 0:27:04and we had to make it work.
0:27:06 > 0:27:09But John Allen came up with an ingenious solution
0:27:09 > 0:27:13to ensure the bombs dropped down and not up.
0:27:14 > 0:27:16We fixed these dragon's teeth.
0:27:16 > 0:27:19They were a series of flaps underneath,
0:27:19 > 0:27:21and when the bomb bay doors opened,
0:27:21 > 0:27:23these were then able to be pushed out
0:27:23 > 0:27:25and this changed the airflow
0:27:25 > 0:27:29and diverted the flow not upwards but outwards,
0:27:29 > 0:27:31and that sucked the bomb nose down.
0:27:31 > 0:27:34And that really killed the problem at source,
0:27:34 > 0:27:36and it killed it very effectively.
0:27:41 > 0:27:44People who can handle this chaotic process
0:27:44 > 0:27:46of sucking it and seeing it,
0:27:46 > 0:27:48not knowing whether you've got a solution -
0:27:48 > 0:27:50that is real engineering.
0:27:54 > 0:27:58By 1949, Britain's bomb scientists were making good progress,
0:27:58 > 0:28:02but then came a devastating double blow.
0:28:02 > 0:28:06President Truman has announced the perfection
0:28:06 > 0:28:10of an atomic explosive by the Soviet Union.
0:28:10 > 0:28:14The Soviet Union had exploded an atom bomb
0:28:14 > 0:28:17named Joe-1 after its leader Joseph Stalin.
0:28:17 > 0:28:20The British government, like the American government,
0:28:20 > 0:28:22was simply astonished
0:28:22 > 0:28:26when the Russians successfully tested a nuclear weapon.
0:28:26 > 0:28:29There was shock and there was terror.
0:28:29 > 0:28:30The threat was at the door
0:28:30 > 0:28:34and Britain had to have a bomb of its own as soon as possible.
0:28:39 > 0:28:43But the second blow was even more catastrophic.
0:28:43 > 0:28:46The Americans had uncovered a series of telegrams
0:28:46 > 0:28:48which revealed that a British scientist,
0:28:48 > 0:28:50who'd worked at Los Alamos
0:28:50 > 0:28:53and was now at the centre of the British atomic establishment,
0:28:53 > 0:28:55was a Soviet spy.
0:28:56 > 0:28:58Klaus Fuchs.
0:28:59 > 0:29:05Fuchs had been absolutely at the heart of planning the wartime bombs.
0:29:05 > 0:29:08He'd also been a key adviser to Bill Penney
0:29:08 > 0:29:10on making the British bombs.
0:29:10 > 0:29:14He had given the Soviet Union lots and lots of information
0:29:14 > 0:29:15to help them develop a bomb,
0:29:15 > 0:29:18and they must have owed a lot to Klaus Fuchs.
0:29:20 > 0:29:23Fuchs was arrested, but the damage was done.
0:29:23 > 0:29:26Politically, it was a disaster.
0:29:27 > 0:29:29There was a human cost, too.
0:29:30 > 0:29:33Fuchs had been the protege of Rudi Peierls
0:29:33 > 0:29:36and they'd worked together at Los Alamos.
0:29:36 > 0:29:40The Peierls family were devastated.
0:29:40 > 0:29:42I think they were hurt
0:29:42 > 0:29:44in the same way that if anyone in your family betrayed you,
0:29:44 > 0:29:46you would be hurt.
0:29:46 > 0:29:51My mother wrote to him a letter, and she said to him,
0:29:51 > 0:29:54"Do you realise what will be the effect of your trial
0:29:54 > 0:29:56"on scientists here and in America?
0:29:56 > 0:29:58"Do you realise that they will be suspected
0:29:58 > 0:30:01"not only by officials but by their own friends
0:30:01 > 0:30:04"because if you could, why not they?
0:30:04 > 0:30:07"Oh, Klaus, my tears are washing away the ink.
0:30:07 > 0:30:09"I was so very fond of you.
0:30:09 > 0:30:11"This letter is just a sea of ink."
0:30:13 > 0:30:19His protege's spying had dreadful ramifications for Rudi Peierls.
0:30:19 > 0:30:22For my father, there was a whole stigma associated with it
0:30:22 > 0:30:24and it affected quite a lot in his work.
0:30:24 > 0:30:27But after he died, somebody published an article
0:30:27 > 0:30:30that said that my parents were spies.
0:30:30 > 0:30:35I had probably a millisecond of time when I thought to myself,
0:30:35 > 0:30:37"Well, maybe he was guilty."
0:30:37 > 0:30:39And that millisecond of that,
0:30:39 > 0:30:42I will never forgive the authors of those article for,
0:30:42 > 0:30:45because he was such a truly great man,
0:30:45 > 0:30:47he was such an honest man,
0:30:47 > 0:30:50that it was wrong that I doubted him and I shouldn't have done that.
0:30:53 > 0:30:55And for the British government,
0:30:55 > 0:30:58the timing of the Fuchs expose could not have been worse.
0:31:00 > 0:31:03The British never stopped trying to persuade the Americans
0:31:03 > 0:31:05to resume cooperation,
0:31:05 > 0:31:09and after the news that the Russians had the atomic bomb,
0:31:09 > 0:31:10they felt they were making progress.
0:31:10 > 0:31:13There was a certain softening going on.
0:31:13 > 0:31:17As soon as it was revealed that Klaus Fuchs had been spying,
0:31:17 > 0:31:19and the scale on which he'd been spying,
0:31:19 > 0:31:22the Americans simply pulled up the drawbridge.
0:31:22 > 0:31:24That was the end of it.
0:31:24 > 0:31:28The door slammed because they were certain now
0:31:28 > 0:31:31that Britain could not be trusted with nuclear secrets.
0:31:35 > 0:31:37The need for Britain to create her own atomic bomb
0:31:37 > 0:31:40had never been more urgent.
0:31:40 > 0:31:44So, in 1950, work began at Aldermaston in Berkshire
0:31:44 > 0:31:49to create an advanced centre for Britain's nuclear weapon research,
0:31:49 > 0:31:52known by some as the bomb factory.
0:31:54 > 0:31:56It had new laboratories
0:31:56 > 0:31:59and many of the country's brightest scientists came to work here.
0:32:01 > 0:32:05Each department had its own speciality,
0:32:05 > 0:32:08but it didn't know what the others were doing.
0:32:08 > 0:32:10There was a need-to-know principle,
0:32:10 > 0:32:13so there was a great deal of rumour-mongering went on
0:32:13 > 0:32:15about what they were doing over there.
0:32:15 > 0:32:20So, it was a very strange but exciting environment to be in.
0:32:20 > 0:32:22Now in the secure Aldermaston site,
0:32:22 > 0:32:25the science team were wrestling with the dangerous task
0:32:25 > 0:32:29of shaping the plutonium core of the atomic bomb.
0:32:29 > 0:32:33Plutonium doesn't occur in nature. It has to be made in a reactor.
0:32:33 > 0:32:39It's an extremely dangerous metal. It's radioactive.
0:32:39 > 0:32:43It is very toxic, so, if you ingested it,
0:32:43 > 0:32:47it will go into various parts of your body and irradiate it.
0:32:47 > 0:32:51You really don't want more than a microgram ever to escape.
0:32:51 > 0:32:55A millionth of a gram is bad news, so it is that toxic.
0:32:55 > 0:32:58And if you assemble too much of it in one place,
0:32:58 > 0:33:02you will have a chain reaction which will throw it apart
0:33:02 > 0:33:04and produce a flash of radiation
0:33:04 > 0:33:09which will kill most of the people within a fair distance of it.
0:33:09 > 0:33:12Not immediately, but over a few days.
0:33:12 > 0:33:15So, it's extremely dangerous stuff
0:33:15 > 0:33:18and has to be treated with extreme care.
0:33:21 > 0:33:23William Penney played a key role
0:33:23 > 0:33:26in solving the problems of shaping the core.
0:33:26 > 0:33:28But there were those who suspected he had help
0:33:28 > 0:33:31from an unexpected source.
0:33:31 > 0:33:35The Aldermaston team struggled for a while
0:33:35 > 0:33:40with the moulding of plutonium, how you get it into a stable state.
0:33:40 > 0:33:44But then Penney told them the answer was
0:33:44 > 0:33:47to alloy the plutonium with another metal.
0:33:47 > 0:33:48This metal was gallium.
0:33:50 > 0:33:54They were all convinced that Penney had got this information
0:33:54 > 0:33:56because he was maintaining contacts with American scientists,
0:33:56 > 0:33:58he was going out to dinner with them,
0:33:58 > 0:33:59he was in correspondence with them.
0:33:59 > 0:34:01They were convinced he got this under the table
0:34:01 > 0:34:03from American friends.
0:34:04 > 0:34:07- A kind of spying. - HE CHUCKLES
0:34:15 > 0:34:17But in order to process enough uranium
0:34:17 > 0:34:20to make the plutonium core of the bomb,
0:34:20 > 0:34:24they had to build a massive reactor on the Cumbrian coast at Windscale.
0:34:25 > 0:34:29It was going to be a very close-run thing,
0:34:29 > 0:34:32even if everything worked perfectly.
0:34:32 > 0:34:35And, of course, not everything did.
0:34:35 > 0:34:39And so there had to be some pretty extraordinary actions taken.
0:34:39 > 0:34:43Any problems were dealt with very expeditiously,
0:34:43 > 0:34:47maybe in ways that one would find a bit odd today.
0:34:49 > 0:34:52Vic Goodwin would experience first-hand
0:34:52 > 0:34:54some of the unusual working practices
0:34:54 > 0:34:56which built up during this period.
0:34:58 > 0:35:03They were about to discharge some fuel from reactor one, I think,
0:35:03 > 0:35:07and the fuel would fall out of the back of the reactor
0:35:07 > 0:35:09into railway trucks.
0:35:09 > 0:35:13But some of it ricocheted along the huge corridor
0:35:13 > 0:35:17towards the bottom of that big chimney that you can see.
0:35:17 > 0:35:22And the people had worked out the best thing to do
0:35:22 > 0:35:24was to send a man in with a shovel.
0:35:24 > 0:35:29And since I had just arrived and I was fit and young and a trainee,
0:35:29 > 0:35:32I was clearly that man.
0:35:32 > 0:35:35The fuel elements were intensely radioactive,
0:35:35 > 0:35:40so my job was to get as many of these operations done
0:35:40 > 0:35:42until I reached a set radiation value,
0:35:42 > 0:35:45which is considered rather high nowadays.
0:35:45 > 0:35:52But, then, it was approximately five old-fashioned chest X-rays
0:35:52 > 0:35:56and one's minder made sure that one didn't receive more.
0:35:56 > 0:35:59So, I think people of a nervous disposition
0:35:59 > 0:36:02or who were not well-informed
0:36:02 > 0:36:06would not be the right people to send in on that job.
0:36:06 > 0:36:08Unconventional methods were also used
0:36:08 > 0:36:10when it came to transporting the plutonium.
0:36:12 > 0:36:17They had to take the plutonium core to Woolwich to be tested for flaws.
0:36:17 > 0:36:20Now, that was done by placing them in canisters -
0:36:20 > 0:36:24lead canisters - and putting them in the back of a Vauxhall car
0:36:24 > 0:36:26and driving them around the outskirts of South London
0:36:26 > 0:36:31to Woolwich. Unfortunately, the car broke down
0:36:31 > 0:36:35and there is this moment when the car is stopped outside a pub,
0:36:35 > 0:36:39somebody knocks on the door of the pub in the middle of the night
0:36:39 > 0:36:42and gets the publican to phone somebody and a back-up is brought.
0:36:42 > 0:36:45Now, that meant that, for some hours,
0:36:45 > 0:36:49the core of the British bomb was sat in a broken-down Vauxhall
0:36:49 > 0:36:53outside a pub somewhere south of London.
0:36:53 > 0:36:55# Atomic baby
0:36:56 > 0:36:59# Atomic baby
0:36:59 > 0:37:01# I'm the atomic baby
0:37:01 > 0:37:04# Better handle me with care. #
0:37:06 > 0:37:10By 1951, Britain's atomic bomb was nearing completion.
0:37:15 > 0:37:18And this is what it was all about.
0:37:18 > 0:37:21At the heart of the top-secret atomic research establishment
0:37:21 > 0:37:24at Aldermaston, Ken Johnston, for the first time,
0:37:24 > 0:37:27introduces the bomb they created.
0:37:28 > 0:37:32This is our first nuclear weapon that went into service.
0:37:32 > 0:37:34Here is the physics package,
0:37:34 > 0:37:38which detonates the central core of plutonium.
0:37:38 > 0:37:41It's operated by a series of detonators,
0:37:41 > 0:37:46attached, each one, to an explosive lens,
0:37:46 > 0:37:51which focus the detonation wave onto the central plutonium core.
0:37:51 > 0:37:55And the plutonium core is inserted, at the last practicable moment,
0:37:55 > 0:37:57in the top of the device.
0:37:57 > 0:37:59And here it is. This is a scale model.
0:37:59 > 0:38:01And you insert it right into the core
0:38:01 > 0:38:03and click it into place
0:38:03 > 0:38:07and then your warhead is armed and ready to be used.
0:38:07 > 0:38:09And now it had to be tested.
0:38:18 > 0:38:23In February 1952, Operation Hurricane was launched.
0:38:23 > 0:38:27The aircraft carrier HMS Campania escorted an old destroyer,
0:38:27 > 0:38:30HMS Plym, on her last voyage.
0:38:33 > 0:38:36On board the Plym was the atomic bomb,
0:38:36 > 0:38:40which was to be exploded in her hold just off the Australian coast.
0:38:40 > 0:38:44Ted Baker, then a 19-year-old new recruit,
0:38:44 > 0:38:47was one of the photographers on the mission.
0:38:47 > 0:38:49It was exciting cos it was so different
0:38:49 > 0:38:51to what I'd done beforehand - you know,
0:38:51 > 0:38:54attending weddings, christenings,
0:38:54 > 0:38:56portrait photography and so forth.
0:38:56 > 0:38:59So, totally different. Totally different.
0:39:08 > 0:39:13The explosion was scheduled for October 3rd, 1952.
0:39:13 > 0:39:17The Plym was abandoned with the atomic bomb on board.
0:39:25 > 0:39:30Ted Baker was watching from HMS Campania, 15 miles away.
0:39:31 > 0:39:33I was on deck at the time.
0:39:33 > 0:39:35There was an air of quietness
0:39:35 > 0:39:37and there was this feeling, wondering what's going to happen.
0:39:37 > 0:39:40One or two of the sailors, you could see them sort of with
0:39:40 > 0:39:43a strained look on their face, listening to the countdown.
0:39:43 > 0:39:48Five, four, three, two, one, now.
0:39:48 > 0:39:51EXPLOSION
0:39:59 > 0:40:03And then, when the bomb went off, a flash of light appears.
0:40:03 > 0:40:05I mean, we'd had our backs to it,
0:40:05 > 0:40:07and then, when you could sort of turn round,
0:40:07 > 0:40:09it didn't look like I thought it would look.
0:40:09 > 0:40:12It developed into this zigzag as the wind took it.
0:40:14 > 0:40:18In scientific terms, the explosion was a massive success
0:40:18 > 0:40:21with a yield of 25 kilotonnes -
0:40:21 > 0:40:24more powerful than the bomb dropped over Nagasaki.
0:40:25 > 0:40:28The first few seconds of the explosion
0:40:28 > 0:40:31were filmed on a specially built camera,
0:40:31 > 0:40:33which could capture more frames per second
0:40:33 > 0:40:36than any other camera in existence at the time.
0:40:37 > 0:40:42This is the cine-camera. It ran at 150,000 frames a second.
0:40:42 > 0:40:45It was designed specifically for the very early stages
0:40:45 > 0:40:46of when the bomb went off.
0:40:50 > 0:40:52Now, for the first time,
0:40:52 > 0:40:55Aldermaston has released the images taken by the camera.
0:40:57 > 0:40:58It's a bit sort of thin there,
0:40:58 > 0:41:00but it is the very, very early stages
0:41:00 > 0:41:02of the weapon going off.
0:41:05 > 0:41:09These are taken every 8 millionths of a second
0:41:09 > 0:41:11and they show the fireball developing.
0:41:11 > 0:41:15And there's a great interest in the rate of growth of the fireball
0:41:15 > 0:41:19cos it gives a good idea of what the overall yield is.
0:41:21 > 0:41:23William Penney and his scientists
0:41:23 > 0:41:26measured the size of the historic test,
0:41:26 > 0:41:29but not all his instruments were hi-tech.
0:41:29 > 0:41:31William Penney would use all sorts
0:41:31 > 0:41:36of sophisticated methods to do it, but also anything that came to hand,
0:41:36 > 0:41:39like bent jerry cans, and in this case,
0:41:39 > 0:41:41Penney was able to deduce
0:41:41 > 0:41:44exactly what pressure struck these paint tubes.
0:41:44 > 0:41:46And since he knew the distance,
0:41:46 > 0:41:50he could tell what the device had produced in the way of a yield.
0:41:50 > 0:41:51And it was a very simple and cheap
0:41:51 > 0:41:54and maybe rather British way of doing things.
0:41:59 > 0:42:02Since this test and the others that followed,
0:42:02 > 0:42:04thousands of veterans have claimed
0:42:04 > 0:42:07they've suffered health problems as a result,
0:42:07 > 0:42:11claims which have not been accepted by successive governments.
0:42:13 > 0:42:16But the political significance of the test was clearer.
0:42:16 > 0:42:20For Winston Churchill, who had just been re-elected as Prime Minister,
0:42:20 > 0:42:23it marked Britain's entry into the nuclear club.
0:42:23 > 0:42:25Once we had fired an atom bomb,
0:42:25 > 0:42:29the feeling was that we were now in the same nuclear league
0:42:29 > 0:42:33as America and Russia, and that, therefore,
0:42:33 > 0:42:37it would be reasonable to seek a reopening of the exchanges
0:42:37 > 0:42:41that we'd had with the Americans during the war.
0:42:41 > 0:42:45But the feeling of triumph was short-lived.
0:42:45 > 0:42:48EXPLOSION
0:42:48 > 0:42:53Just three weeks later, the Americans exploded Ivy Mike.
0:42:53 > 0:42:56This was an entirely new type of nuclear bomb,
0:42:56 > 0:42:58400 times more powerful
0:42:58 > 0:43:02than the atomic bomb the British had just tested.
0:43:02 > 0:43:05It was the first hydrogen bomb.
0:43:06 > 0:43:08So, the hopes that the British had had -
0:43:08 > 0:43:11that by showing they could make an atomic bomb,
0:43:11 > 0:43:14they would put themselves level with the Americans - were lost.
0:43:14 > 0:43:17Suddenly, they were miles behind again.
0:43:17 > 0:43:20As one congressman put it, when it was suggested
0:43:20 > 0:43:23that they should resume contacts with the British, he said,
0:43:23 > 0:43:26"Why would we trade a horse for a rabbit?"
0:43:31 > 0:43:34And that horse was a bomb which had breached a new frontier
0:43:34 > 0:43:36in nuclear physics.
0:43:36 > 0:43:40It was so powerful because, instead of using fission -
0:43:40 > 0:43:42the splitting of atoms -
0:43:42 > 0:43:47it had succeeded in harnessing the power of nuclear fusion.
0:43:47 > 0:43:49This required massive pressure and temperature
0:43:49 > 0:43:54to fuse atoms together and create exponential amounts of energy.
0:44:02 > 0:44:07A year later, the Soviet Union exploded Joe 4,
0:44:07 > 0:44:09their own hydrogen bomb.
0:44:09 > 0:44:11The Prime Minister Winston Churchill
0:44:11 > 0:44:14responded by making the controversial decision
0:44:14 > 0:44:17that Britain should build its own hydrogen bomb...
0:44:18 > 0:44:20..for national prestige,
0:44:20 > 0:44:24to impress the Americans and to deter Soviet aggression.
0:44:26 > 0:44:28I would like to make quite sure
0:44:28 > 0:44:31that the Russians would not press matters to a point
0:44:31 > 0:44:34where we should all be led to a situation
0:44:34 > 0:44:41which baffles the human imagination in its terror...
0:44:42 > 0:44:44..but which I am quite sure...
0:44:45 > 0:44:48..would leave us victorious,
0:44:48 > 0:44:54- but victorious on a heap of ruin. - APPLAUSE
0:44:54 > 0:44:57In 1954, he set a target -
0:44:57 > 0:45:00Britain's H-bomb had to be ready within three years.
0:45:00 > 0:45:03And what's more, if it was going to fulfil its political role,
0:45:03 > 0:45:06the government wanted the scientists at Aldermaston
0:45:06 > 0:45:10to ensure it had an explosive yield of one megaton -
0:45:10 > 0:45:14two and a half times as powerful as the Soviet bomb.
0:45:14 > 0:45:15At around this time,
0:45:15 > 0:45:19the man they call the father of the British hydrogen bomb,
0:45:19 > 0:45:23Bryan Taylor, arrived to start work at Aldermaston.
0:45:23 > 0:45:25My first introduction to it was
0:45:25 > 0:45:27I was shown this office in a wooden shed
0:45:27 > 0:45:29which I shared with someone else.
0:45:29 > 0:45:33But I met my friend and colleague Keith Roberts,
0:45:33 > 0:45:35and just sort of said, "Well, what are you doing?"
0:45:35 > 0:45:38And he said, "Well, the government's just announced
0:45:38 > 0:45:40"that we're going to make a hydrogen bomb.
0:45:40 > 0:45:41"We don't actually know how to do it.
0:45:41 > 0:45:45"Have you got any ideas?" But once I'd got settled in,
0:45:45 > 0:45:48it was really very stimulating and very exciting,
0:45:48 > 0:45:51something, you know, at the forefront of theoretical physics,
0:45:51 > 0:45:53which is my speciality.
0:45:53 > 0:45:55And yet, unlike so much of theoretical physics,
0:45:55 > 0:45:58it was something which might even have an influence
0:45:58 > 0:46:00on what happened on earth.
0:46:01 > 0:46:03The scientists faced two problems -
0:46:03 > 0:46:06what material to use to fuel the fusion reaction
0:46:06 > 0:46:07at the heart of the bomb...
0:46:09 > 0:46:11..and second, how to trigger that reaction.
0:46:20 > 0:46:22The British knew from the atmospheric readings
0:46:22 > 0:46:24of the American H-bombs
0:46:24 > 0:46:27that they'd used deuterium as a fusion fuel,
0:46:27 > 0:46:31but the Aldermaston scientists thought they could do better.
0:46:31 > 0:46:33Instead of using deuterium,
0:46:33 > 0:46:36which is difficult to handle and store,
0:46:36 > 0:46:38we decided to use lithium deuteride.
0:46:38 > 0:46:42This both provides the deuterium which is needed...
0:46:43 > 0:46:47..but also the lithium component is easier to ignite
0:46:47 > 0:46:48than deuterium alone.
0:46:49 > 0:46:53But it soon became clear that igniting a fusion reaction
0:46:53 > 0:46:57in lithium deuteride required such high temperatures and pressure
0:46:57 > 0:47:01that only an atomic explosion would start the process.
0:47:01 > 0:47:03So, we end up with something like this.
0:47:05 > 0:47:07There's an outer case...
0:47:09 > 0:47:12..in which there is a primary - a fission weapon -
0:47:12 > 0:47:14generally known as Tom...
0:47:15 > 0:47:19..and a secondary - the thermonuclear material -
0:47:19 > 0:47:21generally known as Dick.
0:47:21 > 0:47:23And the object is to get the radiation
0:47:23 > 0:47:28from the primary Tom to surround...
0:47:30 > 0:47:32..Dick rather uniformly
0:47:32 > 0:47:36so that it's compressed to a tight focus at the centre
0:47:36 > 0:47:38where the temperature will rise
0:47:38 > 0:47:41and the thermonuclear reaction will start.
0:47:42 > 0:47:45But this design posed a huge problem.
0:47:47 > 0:47:49Would the atomic bomb blow the whole device up
0:47:49 > 0:47:52before the fusion process had even begun?
0:47:54 > 0:47:56The question was is it possible
0:47:56 > 0:47:59to get the radiation from the trigger, Tom,
0:47:59 > 0:48:02to completely surround the secondary, Dick,
0:48:02 > 0:48:04in a more or less uniform fashion
0:48:04 > 0:48:07before the radiation or the mechanical pressure
0:48:07 > 0:48:10has blown the whole thing apart?
0:48:10 > 0:48:13And to do this, the idea was
0:48:13 > 0:48:16we'd fill the space between Tom and Dick
0:48:16 > 0:48:18with a very low density material,
0:48:18 > 0:48:21through which the radiation would pass rather rapidly.
0:48:21 > 0:48:25And to stop it all escaping and blowing everything apart,
0:48:25 > 0:48:28one makes the case of material of high electron density
0:48:28 > 0:48:32through which the radiation goes much more slowly.
0:48:32 > 0:48:34And the key to everything is
0:48:34 > 0:48:36are these two speeds sufficiently different
0:48:36 > 0:48:38that it will do what one wants it to do?
0:48:42 > 0:48:45Professor Taylor and his colleagues were not deterred
0:48:45 > 0:48:47by their great scientific challenge.
0:48:48 > 0:48:52Look, I was 27, and at that age, you can do anything.
0:48:52 > 0:48:55And, remember, this was not so long after the war
0:48:55 > 0:48:58when people much younger than me had done amazing things.
0:48:58 > 0:49:01So, one thought that, you know,
0:49:01 > 0:49:03"If the Americans have done it, surely we can do it."
0:49:03 > 0:49:06But there were some challenging points, yes.
0:49:08 > 0:49:12But there was another problem looming on the horizon -
0:49:12 > 0:49:14Soviet and American nuclear bomb tests
0:49:14 > 0:49:17were provoking a furious public reaction.
0:49:20 > 0:49:23# Just a plain bomb is bad but that A-bomb is worse
0:49:23 > 0:49:26# They done named that H-bomb well
0:49:26 > 0:49:29# Thousand times stronger than that A-bomb is
0:49:29 > 0:49:32# It's going to blow us all to kingdom come... #
0:49:32 > 0:49:36The anti-bomb movement started to grow rapidly.
0:49:36 > 0:49:41By the mid-'50s, there was worldwide public alarm
0:49:41 > 0:49:45at the risk to humanity and to the planet
0:49:45 > 0:49:47of these great explosions...
0:49:48 > 0:49:51..that so much radioactive dust
0:49:51 > 0:49:53was being pumped up into the upper atmosphere
0:49:53 > 0:49:55that the whole planet was being poisoned,
0:49:55 > 0:49:58and that led to suggestions there should be a moratorium,
0:49:58 > 0:50:00there should be a halt, a ban,
0:50:00 > 0:50:04on atmospheric testing or all testing, indeed.
0:50:04 > 0:50:08EXPLOSION
0:50:08 > 0:50:10Under huge pressure from around the world,
0:50:10 > 0:50:14the two nuclear powers, America and the Soviet Union,
0:50:14 > 0:50:19planned to declare a moratorium on atmospheric nuclear testing.
0:50:19 > 0:50:21The British government feared it would be imposed
0:50:21 > 0:50:24before their hydrogen bomb was tested.
0:50:25 > 0:50:27The moratorium on testing
0:50:27 > 0:50:30was to kick in in late 1958,
0:50:30 > 0:50:33and so it was a race against time
0:50:33 > 0:50:34to conduct those tests
0:50:34 > 0:50:37and achieve the scientific success that we needed.
0:50:38 > 0:50:43So, the government announced Operation Grapple.
0:50:43 > 0:50:44The testing of Britain's H-bomb
0:50:44 > 0:50:47would take place as soon as possible,
0:50:47 > 0:50:50but first huge support and test sites had to be built
0:50:50 > 0:50:52on the other side of the world.
0:50:54 > 0:50:56The difficulty of achieving this massive task
0:50:56 > 0:51:00was only too clear to the man who helped oversee the operation.
0:51:02 > 0:51:04It was an enormous project.
0:51:04 > 0:51:09They were asking us to build a major airbase
0:51:09 > 0:51:14on a very large desert island in the middle of the Pacific,
0:51:14 > 0:51:19and erect two camps, one as big as a small city.
0:51:19 > 0:51:21And when we had done all that,
0:51:21 > 0:51:24we then had to go and prepare Malden Island,
0:51:24 > 0:51:26which was going to be the target.
0:51:26 > 0:51:30But it was quite obvious that what we were being asked to do
0:51:30 > 0:51:33by the War Office was not possible.
0:51:33 > 0:51:35They had to give us more men.
0:51:35 > 0:51:37So, we moved soldiers from Korea,
0:51:37 > 0:51:40and it was very tough on some of them.
0:51:40 > 0:51:43They didn't see their wives for about two years.
0:51:44 > 0:51:46Throughout 1957,
0:51:46 > 0:51:50the test ban moratorium talks gathered momentum.
0:51:51 > 0:51:52For the scientists,
0:51:52 > 0:51:55the pressure to get their one-megaton hydrogen bomb
0:51:55 > 0:51:58ready for testing was intense.
0:52:03 > 0:52:06For the first time, Britain's bomb-maker-in-chief
0:52:06 > 0:52:08shows us the hydrogen bomb
0:52:08 > 0:52:11which was to become the British nuclear deterrent.
0:52:12 > 0:52:15Here we have the first hydrogen bomb
0:52:15 > 0:52:18that went into service with the RAF for the United Kingdom.
0:52:18 > 0:52:21It's codenamed Red Snow,
0:52:21 > 0:52:24and it's contained in this aerodynamic dropping case,
0:52:24 > 0:52:27which, however, departs from being truly aerodynamic
0:52:27 > 0:52:29when you come to the front end.
0:52:29 > 0:52:32Where we have chopped off the end, it's completely flat,
0:52:32 > 0:52:36and the point of that is to slow the fall of the bomb,
0:52:36 > 0:52:39so that the bomber, which has released it,
0:52:39 > 0:52:42can turn away and make its escape,
0:52:42 > 0:52:45because otherwise it could be seriously damaged
0:52:45 > 0:52:48by the flash and the blast from the hydrogen bomb.
0:52:53 > 0:52:58In November 1957, Operation Grapple X was ready to go.
0:52:58 > 0:53:02The bomb was flown out to the Pacific in a Valiant bomber.
0:53:02 > 0:53:04On board were the co-pilot, Alan Pringle,
0:53:04 > 0:53:07and his navigator, Derek Tuthill.
0:53:08 > 0:53:11The enormous bomb bay had been especially adapted
0:53:11 > 0:53:13to carry the H-bomb.
0:53:13 > 0:53:16This is the start of the bomb bay,
0:53:16 > 0:53:21and it extends approximately 35-40 feet
0:53:21 > 0:53:23with the bomb sitting inside,
0:53:23 > 0:53:28filling at least three quarters of the space, I would say.
0:53:28 > 0:53:30But they knew virtually nothing
0:53:30 > 0:53:32about the bomb which they were carrying.
0:53:32 > 0:53:34If you were a crew member...
0:53:35 > 0:53:38- ..you were taught just to fly the aircraft.- Kept in the dark.
0:53:38 > 0:53:42I mean, we weren't allowed to see the weapon in the bomb bay.
0:53:42 > 0:53:45They had a screen rolled up
0:53:45 > 0:53:49- round that part of the aircraft... - Yes.- ..so we couldn't even peep.
0:53:49 > 0:53:51We knew remarkably little about it.
0:53:52 > 0:53:57Finally, on the 8th of November 1957,
0:53:57 > 0:53:59the go-ahead for the test was given.
0:54:01 > 0:54:04There was a delay of about an hour once we were airborne
0:54:04 > 0:54:08because a ship was spotted in the critical part of the sea
0:54:08 > 0:54:10where the bomb was about to burst,
0:54:10 > 0:54:14and we had to wait while it sailed out of the area of immediate danger.
0:54:16 > 0:54:17On Malden Island,
0:54:17 > 0:54:19various observation huts were set up.
0:54:21 > 0:54:25They've never been filmed before. Ted Baker was in one of them.
0:54:25 > 0:54:29It was referred to as a cube because they are square on there,
0:54:29 > 0:54:32which housed a lot of the recording equipment.
0:54:32 > 0:54:35There was possibly about 20 people in there.
0:54:35 > 0:54:38It was quite tense, actually, with everything sort of building up
0:54:38 > 0:54:41to the point, you know, where the weapon is released,
0:54:41 > 0:54:43you hear the countdown and everything on there.
0:54:43 > 0:54:45You like to feel that
0:54:45 > 0:54:47you're in control of your emotions and everything,
0:54:47 > 0:54:51but you're just wondering what's going to happen. And you waited.
0:54:51 > 0:54:56- OVER RADIO:- 'Steady. Steady. Steady, steady, steady. Now.'
0:54:56 > 0:54:59At 17.47 Greenwich Mean Time,
0:54:59 > 0:55:02Alan Pringle and the crew dropped the bomb
0:55:02 > 0:55:05and made the sharp turn to escape its blast.
0:55:05 > 0:55:08EXPLOSION
0:55:13 > 0:55:17The thing I remember most of all is the flash.
0:55:17 > 0:55:21We had very dark welder's glass over the windows,
0:55:21 > 0:55:25and the light from that explosion was so bright,
0:55:25 > 0:55:28it didn't damp out the flash at all.
0:55:28 > 0:55:33We suddenly saw the outside as clear as daylight.
0:55:33 > 0:55:39It was far brighter than I've ever seen a light in my life, I think.
0:55:46 > 0:55:49When the weapon went off, you'd get some blast,
0:55:49 > 0:55:52you'd hear it sort of thump on there.
0:55:52 > 0:55:55When you went outside to view,
0:55:55 > 0:56:00then you saw the mushroom cloud forming into like a tube.
0:56:00 > 0:56:02It just appeared like a ballerina's skirt,
0:56:02 > 0:56:05and it looked a lot bigger than anything I'd seen previously.
0:56:08 > 0:56:13The H-bomb had a yield of 1.8 megatons.
0:56:13 > 0:56:16For the scientists, it was a triumph,
0:56:16 > 0:56:20although you wouldn't have known it from their reaction.
0:56:20 > 0:56:23There wasn't any shouting and yelling and hullabaloo at all.
0:56:23 > 0:56:27It was just scientific people looking at one another and saying,
0:56:27 > 0:56:30"It looks as though we've got something good here."
0:56:33 > 0:56:35I don't remember that I jumped up and down
0:56:35 > 0:56:37and punched the air or anything like that.
0:56:37 > 0:56:41I mean, it was just the feeling that, scientifically,
0:56:41 > 0:56:44we'd demonstrated that this was the way to go.
0:56:44 > 0:56:47I'm sorry to admit that I was rather more concerned
0:56:47 > 0:56:49about the scientific aspects
0:56:49 > 0:56:53than the political or the patriotic aspects.
0:56:54 > 0:56:56The scientists had defied the odds
0:56:56 > 0:56:59and realised the politicians' dreams.
0:57:00 > 0:57:06I think, having independently developed a hydrogen bomb,
0:57:06 > 0:57:09and pretty soon put one into service,
0:57:09 > 0:57:13it achieved exactly what the Foreign Office wanted,
0:57:13 > 0:57:16which was a place at the top table.
0:57:20 > 0:57:23Shortly afterwards, the American and British governments
0:57:23 > 0:57:26signed an agreement to share atomic information.
0:57:27 > 0:57:30The British had only just got there in time.
0:57:30 > 0:57:34Three months later, a nuclear test ban was announced,
0:57:34 > 0:57:36ending atmospheric bomb tests.
0:57:40 > 0:57:43Sir William Penney, the man behind the British bomb programme,
0:57:43 > 0:57:47summed up the scientists' justification for their work.
0:57:47 > 0:57:49- SIR WILLIAM PENNEY: - The energy and enthusiasm
0:57:49 > 0:57:54which have gone into the making of this new weapon stemmed essentially
0:57:54 > 0:57:58from the sober hope that it would bring us nearer the day
0:57:58 > 0:58:03when world war is universally seen to be unthinkable.
0:58:05 > 0:58:07Did Bryan Taylor feel any qualms
0:58:07 > 0:58:10about creating such a terrifying weapon?
0:58:11 > 0:58:15Well, I'm afraid not, no. I viewed it as a scientific problem,
0:58:15 > 0:58:18and the main aim was that we should not all fall over
0:58:18 > 0:58:20with egg on our faces.
0:58:20 > 0:58:23My government had announced that it was going to have a hydrogen bomb,
0:58:23 > 0:58:26and so it better have one, else it would look very foolish.