Latest news with #OperationGrapple
NZ Herald
30-04-2025
- Entertainment
- NZ Herald
Bay News: Waitangi exhibition honours Operation Grapple veterans
Tere Tahi, one of the survivors of Operation Grapple. The story of the veterans who witnessed the nuclear tests is told in a photographic and story exhibition at Waitangi Museum. New exhibition for Te Kōngahu Museum of Waitangi The Waitangi Treaty Grounds has announced its latest exhibition. It is called Operation Grapple – We Were There, which opened on April 18 and will run until July 6, 2025. Photographer Denise Baynham has created an exhibition highlighting the stories of 19
NZ Herald
24-04-2025
- General
- NZ Herald
Anzac Day 2025: Northland Navy veteran Russell G. Hockley's memory of hydrogen bomb tests
Hockley had been a signalman on the HMNZS Rotoiti, charged with monitoring the weather during the United Kingdom's 1957 hydrogen bomb tests at Christmas Island in the Pacific Ocean. After the Second World War, the United Kingdom had considered developing atomic and thermonuclear weapons a critical national policy. Hockley would don his 'anti-flash' gear consisting of cotton headgear, gloves, and goggles when a bomb was to be dropped. 'We'd hear the pilot talking through, saying 20 seconds to bomb drop, 10 seconds, nine, eight, seven ... bomb gone.' Then came the blast. 'They would say stand up and face the bomb burst and we would see the mushroom forming,' Hockley said. The cloud from the fourth bomb was 'huge'. 'You could actually see flames drawing from the bottom of the mushroom and pulling all of this stuff out of the sea,' Hockley said. 'It was just developing layer after layer after layer.' Overall, nine bombs were dropped as part of Operation Grapple but Hockley's ship returned after the fourth. He had been pleased when a King Charles III Nuclear Medal was made available for the people who served in Operation Grapple. He was awarded his medal last year by his son Russell Hockley Jnr at a ceremony at the Kaitāia RSA, where he is a life member and former patron. 'There wouldn't be many people who had pinned a medal on their father, I would think,' Hockley said. Russell Hockley Jnr, who also served in the Navy, thanked his dad for his service to the country – a calling that came about after a headmaster told a young Hockley two terms in that the school wasn't big enough for the two of them. 'One of us has to move on,' Hockley recalled. The headmaster told the teen that a naval recruiter was in town. 'I went down there and got all the paraphernalia and I trapped my mum and dad into signing, and I joined the Navy as a 15-and-a-half-year-old boy. 'I finished up doing 22-and-a-half years,' Hockley said. In the early days, his naval career was spurred by a want to provide for his young wife Hoana and their children. He said while the wage wasn't so great, the cheap housing was. Hockley found leaving his family to serve abroad to be a painful downside to a naval career. But Hoana, who died in 2012, had been 'amazing'. 'She was a great mother and a great partner. She was of that ilk that understood my life was the Navy,' Hockley said. Fortunately, all four of his children had been born while he was home. Impressive given he had served in 10 different shore establishments and 10 naval ships. 'Plus a 48-hour posting on submarine as the guy had an impacted tooth and couldn't sail,' Hockley said. 'That was an experience on its own ... I found it very difficult.' Hockley had joined the Navy shortly after the Korean War ended in 1953, and in 1955 found himself part of the conflict unfolding in Indonesia. He was also part of a bombardment on Borneo. He retired on a naval pension aged 38 and headed to the Far North with his family. 'I had a good career. I enjoyed the Navy,' Hockley said. His time serving had led him to rub shoulders with royalty in Christchurch during his time with the 1974 Commonwealth Games ceremonial committee. 'I met the Duke then met him a second time. I met the Queen twice, Princess Anne once, and the King once.' Hockley's contribution in the games and naval sport in general, given he coached nearly everything, saw him awarded the British Empire Medal in 1975. Despite the highs, his lifetime insight into war has stayed with him and he makes sure to never miss an Anzac Day. For 15 years, Hockley travelled 60km to Kaitāia for its dawn parade. Then home again to Te Kao for an 11am service before driving 20km down the road to Houhora for its 2pm Civic Service. But with his Navy mates dwindling in numbers, he decided to attend only the dawn parade. 'There used to be 10 or 12 of us. Every Anzac we would meet and enjoy ourselves. Swing the lantern as the Navy would say, telling stories,' he said. But parading alongside Hockley today in an Anzac Day 'highlight' were his son and two sons-in-law who all served. Hockley believed Anzac Day had remained resilient thanks to the many people who keep the memory of those who served alive. 'We don't forget and we'll never forget.'
NZ Herald
23-04-2025
- Politics
- NZ Herald
Lest we forget? Aside from Anzac Day, NZ has been slow to remember its military veterans
The Government will also establish a new national day of tribute for veterans. This falls somewhat short of a recommendation from the 2018 independent review of the Veterans' Support Act which stated the Government should accept it has a 'moral duty of care to veterans'. But if adopted, this would create a missing ethical compass - all democracies should have to acknowledge responsibilities to those who risked everything in service of their country. The same report also recommended better financial support for veterans, but so far the Government has been reluctant to review the adequacy of veterans' pensions. None of this is particularly surprising, given NZ's history of sending people to fight and then rejecting their claims for recognition and compensation when the war is over. Some of this may also come to light in the Waitangi Tribunal 's current Military Veterans Kaupapa Inquiry, with potentially strong evidence of discrimination against Māori service personnel in particular. Sacrifice and compensation When NZ gave out its first military pensions in 1866, only the victors of the NZ Wars received them. For Māori allies, equity was missing. Pro-Government Māori troops were eligible, but at a lower rate than Pākehā veterans. It was only in 1903 that specialist facilities such as the Ranfurly war veterans' home in Auckland were created. The initial treatments for those who suffered 'shell shock', especially in the World War I, were atrocious. Their placement in mental institutions only ended after public outcry. Some veterans of the NZ Wars were compensated by being granted confiscated Māori land. It wasn't until 1915 that a new system was formalised. This provided farm settlement schemes and vocational training for World War I veterans. The balloted farmland was largely exclusionary as Māori veterans were assumed to have tribal land already available to them. The rehabilitation of disabled service personnel dates back to the 1930s, before being formally legislated in 1941. But the focus faded over the following decades, with the specific status of veterans blurring as they were lumped in with more generic welfare goals. It took until 1964 for the Government to pay war pensions to those who served in Jayforce, the 12,000-strong NZ troops stationed in Japan as part of the postwar occupation from 1946 to 1948. From atomic tests to Agent Orange A decade later, more than 500 NZ navy personnel took part in Operation Grapple, the British hydrogen bomb tests near Kiribati in 1957–58. Despite evidence of a variety of health problems – including cancer, premature death and deformities in children – it was not until 1990 that the Government extended coverage of benefits to veterans who had contracted some specific listed conditions. It took another eight years before the Government broadened the evidence requirements and accepted service in Operation Grapple as an eligibility starting point for additional emergency pensions. Last year, the United States declared a National Atomic Veterans' Day and made potentially significant compensation available. But neither NZ nor Britain even apologised for putting those personnel in harm's way so recklessly. During the war in Vietnam, some of the 3,400 New Zealanders who served between 1963 and 1975 were exposed to 'Agent Orange', the notorious defoliant used by the US military. Some of them and their children experienced related health problems and higher death rates. The Government did not accept there was a problem until 2006 and apologised in 2008. Advertise with NZME. Assistance and compensation were based on evidence of specific listed conditions. And although the list has expanded over time, the legal and medical burden of proving a link between exposure and an illness falls on the veteran. This is the opposite of what should happen. If there is uncertainty about the medical condition of a veteran, such as a non-listed condition, it should be for the Crown to prove an illness or injury is not related to military service. This burden should not fall on the victim. Lest we forget Today, support for veterans remains limited. There is still a reluctance to systematically understand, study and respond to the long-term consequences of military service. For many, service develops skills such as resilience, confidence and flexibility which are sought after in civilian life. For some, their experiences lead to lingering trauma and even self-harm or suicide. While Britain and Australia can track the incidence of veteran self-harm, NZ lacks robust data. Beyond some early research, the prevalence of suicide in the veteran population is unknown. Despite recommendations from the 2018 report that this data gap should be plugged, it means that when three self-inflicted deaths of veterans occurred within three weeks earlier this year, this couldn't be viewed within any overall pattern. This makes appropriate support and interventions harder to design. This all points to the same problem. While we intone 'lest we forget' on April 25, a day later most of us are looking the other way.
Daily Mirror
22-04-2025
- Politics
- Daily Mirror
EXCLUSIVE: How MoD officials blocked evidence of Nuked Blood cover-up
Senior civil servants blocked the release of records that showed nuclear hero's medical data had been tampered with Ministry of Defence officials blocked a minister from publishing evidence of wrongdoing in the Nuked Blood Scandal. Emails obtained by the Mirror show civil servants unlawfully withholding the full truth from the family of a nuclear veteran 'lab rat' used in Cold War radiation experiments. Alan Owen of campaign group LABRATS said: 'Either the officials don't know what they're doing, or they intentionally misled a minister of the Crown to authorise an unlawful act. "In either event we believe this is a criminal offence in which state employees have knowingly, or at best recklessly, broken the law. Keir Starmer is their boss, and as a former head of the Crown Prosecution Service he must act on this.' Group Captain Terry Gledhill had been medically monitored while leading squadrons of 'sniff' planes on sampling missions through the mushroom clouds of Operation Grapple at Christmas Island in 1958. It was revealed in a top secret memo sent between Atomic Weapons Establishment scientists discussing the 'gross irregularity' in his blood tests. When his horrified daughter Jane O'Connor asked to see his personnel file, she was refused. A judge later ruled that as his executor, she had a legal right to it. The memo, some of the blood tests, and 14 months of records were found to be missing from the file. It also showed Terry was given unexplained chest x-rays after his return, and was having 'routine' checks on his blood 11 years later. Following Jane's win, the Mirror made a Freedom of Information request to see the advice given by officials who had refused her access. After an 11-month battle, a dozen pages of redacted emails have been released, and show officials repeatedly misled then-defence minister Andrew Murrison. In June 2022, a squadron leader from the RAF medical archive told the MoD that Jane had no right to access the records. Six months later, after Jane asked to see the advice and told them she was executor, the emails show deputy heads of department agreeing she could not have it, and asking the minister to rubber-stamp it. A senior civil servant team leader claimed: 'Releasing this information for public consumption would expose officials to public rebuke and, therefore, more likely to react defensively to criticism making it harder to achieve the most effective outcomes.' But guidance from the Information Commissioner states: 'The threat of future disclosure could actually lead to better quality advice.' They also told the minister there was 'no media interest' and 'no direct financial implications', even though Terry's blood tests had been subject of extensive coverage three months earlier, and withholding medical records can make organisations liable for damages. The emails show Mr Murrison questioned 'the validity of the actual advice we wish to withhold'. Senior civil servants then agreed the wording of an email to send him and the rest of the frontbench ministerial team, falsely claiming 'there is no legal obligation' to provide the records to Jane. She said: 'If they had just published when I first asked, we would have known three years ago what happened to my dad. Because they fought it, there are now half a dozen senior civil servants involved in what sounds like a cover-up. He would be devastated to know this is how the country he served was treating him and his crews, after all they did for us.' A source close to Mr Murrison said he had been 'very keen to release as much as possible' on a range of topics while in office, and had taken officials' advice at face value. He was no longer in a position to check if they had been in the wrong, said the source. Civil servants blocked the Mirror's request for the emails for nearly a year, claiming a change of government made a difference to the FOI laws, and that new ministers were not allowed to see what previous ministers had been told. They even sought help from the Cabinet Office and Attorney General, before finally releasing some of them with redactions. 'We would like to offer our sincere apologies for the length of time taken to provide you with a response which has been due to the complexity of the request and the need for serval government departments to liaise in order to ensure that your request is considered robustly,' the MoD told the Mirror. Asked about the contents of the emails, a spokesman said: 'The government is committed to being open and transparent and takes its obligations under the Freedom of Information Act very seriously. 'We have accepted the FOI Tribunal's ruling and provided the requested records to the family. We have reviewed our internal guidance and processes to ensure they fully align with ICO requirements and that ministerial decisions on disclosure are properly supported with accurate and complete information.'
