13-05-2025
Maj Gen James Crook, RAMC scientist who studied the biological impact of nuclear tests
Major General James Crook, who has died aged 101, took part in a major British nuclear test programme in the course of a distinguished career in the Royal Army Medical Corps (RAMC).
In 1956, Crook went to South Australia as one of a group of scientists working on the biological problems of atomic explosions. Maralinga – the name means 'Place of Thunder' – is on the edge of the Great Victoria Desert about 700 miles north-west of Adelaide. It was covered with grass, flowering shrubs and trees, and there was plenty of animal life, including lizards and snakes, rabbits, kangaroos, emus and parrots.
Scientific and recreational facilities had been established, a large runway and aerodrome built and a 100 ft tower constructed at the end of a long road leading from Maralinga village.
In this series of weapons tests, four rounds were planned – two from the tower, one from the ground and an air-drop from a Valiant bomber. Crook's task was to put out items of medical equipment at varying distances from the tower. Some were placed on the surface, while others, including foodstuffs, were buried to assess the effect of ionising radiation. A further task was to place articulated dummies in battle-dress to calculate the dynamic effects of the blast wave on human beings.
Also exposed to the bomb were trucks, light vehicles, aircraft, tanks, guns, radar and other military equipment. Blast detectors, heat detectors and gamma neutron detectors were among a large assortment of scientific instruments laid out to measure the effects of the bomb.
The area was a scene of great activity. Bulldozers, drillers, graders and mobile cranes raised clouds of dust. Several times, Crook found himself looking over his shoulder at the tower and wondering whether atomic bombs ever exploded prematurely.
The first round was to be exploded from the tower. The fireball was expected to come into contact with the ground and the radioactive fall-out, affecting the first 100 miles downwind, was expected to be high. Firing, therefore, could only be permitted when the wind was in exactly the right direction and of the right strength.
Crook and other service officers watched the explosion on a hill within a few miles of the tower. He wrote afterwards: 'A tremendously bright, white-blueish flash illuminated the area. It was like a magnesium flare and outshone the sun. An orange fireball rose extraordinarily quickly, attached to the ground by the mushroom-stalk cloud. The roar and the intensely hot pressure wave came several seconds later.'
James Cooper Crook was born at Prestatyn, north Wales, on March 19 1923. He won an open scholarship to Worksop College before going to Guy's Hospital on a junior science scholarship. His father, Francis, had served in the First World War before going to Guy's, and his grandfather, Sir Edwin Cooper Perry, was Superintendent of Guy's from 1897 to 1920 and vice-chancellor of London University.
In 1946 he was commissioned into the RAMC as a National Serviceman and was serving in North Africa during Britain's severe winter of 1947-48. A soldier's life seemed preferable to that sort of experience and he decided to make a career in the regular Army.
After three years in Cyrenaica Province, Libya, he returned to England to begin his training in pathology at the Queen Alexandra's Military Hospital at Millbank in London. It was during the period 1954 to 1957, when he was the Army medical liaison officer to the Medical Research Council in the radiobiology unit at the Atomic Energy Research Establishment at Harwell in Oxfordshire that he attended the nuclear tests at Maralinga.
Early in the morning, on the day following the explosion of the first round, he drove to the health control checkpoint, where a complete decontamination centre had been established. He changed into protective clothing, including rubber boots, overalls and a respirator. He was given a personal dose-rate meter and walked to the 'dirty' car park. There he collected a 'dirty' jeep and drove towards the bomb site through a scene of devastation – with blackened earth, charred and flattened trees, and fires burning in vehicles and other target items.
As he retrieved the food targets, the needle on his dosimeter was recording several roentgens per hour. He wasted no time in completing the task and returned to the centre to undress and shower. This was followed by rigorous monitoring to confirm that he was completely free of contamination.
There followed postings to Cyprus during the EOKA Emergency, and to the David Bruce Military Hospital in Malta. He was the RAMC specialist and pathologist at the Chemical Defence Establishment at Porton Down in Wiltshire from 1960 to 1963.
After a posting to Eastern Command Laboratory, he moved to the Ministry of Defence. He hated having to wear a city suit, a bowler hat and carry an umbrella, and he jumped on the hat when he finished the appointment. After five years in command of the British Military Hospital at Munster in West Germany, he returned to the MoD – this time without a bowler hat.
It was his final appointment. He was promoted to major general and finished as director of Army Pathology. In 1981 he retired from the Army and worked as a civilian medical practitioner at the Army Blood Supply Depot in Aldershot , where he became known as 'the Bleeding General'.
In retirement in Cornwall, he loved travelling and, having loaded his family into their veteran Morris Oxford, he would drive across France to Bavaria for camping holidays. He also enjoyed researching the family history.
In 2023 he received the British Nuclear Tests Medal and wore it at the last Remembrance Service he attended.
James Crook married, in 1950, Ruth Bellamy, who was serving with Queen Alexandra's Royal Army Nursing Corps. She died in 2015 and he is survived by two daughters and a son.
Major General James Crook, born March 19 1923, died March 16 2025
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