Rockets and Atomic Weapons

George Trefry was in charge of the meteorological office at Woomera and arranged meteorological observations and supplied meteorological forecasts and other advice to Australian and English defence scientists, much of which, because of security considerations, was confidential, secret, top secret or even more secret still. The dictum of supplying information only to those with 'a need to know' made good sense.

Testing of rockets required much meteorological information because the performance of rocket vehicles could be affected by temperature, wind and turbulence in the upper air. Some of the tracking of rocket vehicles was done by visual means so that cloudiness was an important element in rocket trials. Double theodolite pilot balloon observations were used to measure upper winds because radar wind-finding was not fully operational in the 1950s.

A history of the testing of nuclear weapons in Australia is revealed in the Report of the Royal Commission by McClelland, Fitch and Jonas (1985). This report (a public document kindly lent to me by Henry Phillpot) makes a frank assessment of what the Royal Commissioners concluded from the evidence of those involved in the trials, whether members of the UK team conducting the trials, those Australians assisting them or those others who wished, or were persuaded, to give testimony. Some of the AWRE staff were reluctant to give evidence but as the Royal Commission reports, were finally persuaded to do so.

Bureau of Meteorology