100 YEARS OF THE ROYAL AIR FORCE
BOMBERS RAF CENTENARY CELEBRATION 85VICKERS VALIANT
Above
Valiant BK.1 XD818 is
displayed within the
National Cold War
Exhibition at the RAF
Museum Cosford. This
aircraft took part in
Operation ‘Grapple’
trials in May 1957; it
was acquired by the
museum in May 1965.
RAF MUSEUM
http://www.rafmuseum.orgLeft
Line-up of Valiants
at 232 Operational
Conversion Unit,
Gaydon, summer- To the left are
Canberra T.4s. KEC
Below left
Newly camoufl aged
Valiant BK.1 XD821
of 232 Operational
Conversion Unit in the
summer of 1964. Built
in 1956, it was retired
in November 1964.
KEC-ROY BONSERLeft
Receiver’s eye view
of a 214 Squadron
Valiant tanker.
FLIGHT REFUELLINGcrew survivability after detonation.
After flight trials XD818 was
delivered to Wittering for 49
Squadron, under the command of Wg
Cdr Kenneth Hubbard. On March
3, 1957, with Hubbard as captain,
the aircraft set out westwards across
the Atlantic and North America via
Honolulu, Hawaii, to the British
territory of Christmas Island, 300
miles (482km) south of the coast of
Java, Indonesia.
Four 49 Squadron
Valiants were to take
part in Operation ‘Grapple’, Britain’s
nuclear weapon trials. Drops were to
take place adjacent to an atoll 400
miles southwest of Christmas Island
with the weapons set to air-burst.
Training got under way with the
release of 100lb (45kg) conventional
practice bombs to determine the
margin of error, followed by 10,000lb
high-explosive bombs.
Captained by Hubbard, co-piloted
by Fg Off R L Beeson, XD818
climbed to 35,000ft (10,668m) on
May 15 and released a thermonuclear“Anti-aircraft fi re was intense over the
targets... One bomber was intercepted by
an Egyptian Gloster Meteor night-fi ghter,
but violent evasive action shook it off.”
fusion bomb codenamed ‘Short
Granite’ at 11:38 hours local. The
Valiant turned away in a carefully
devised manoeuvre and about
150 seconds after release the crew,
shrouded in darkness flying on
instruments, felt very little turbulence
as the shock wave billowed outwards.
This was the first-ever release of a
nuclear weapon from a British aircraft.
Hubbard and all of his crew received
the Air Force Cross for their skills.
The intention was that Short Granite
would unleash one megaton of
explosive power but due to a ‘trigger’
problem, the yield turned out to be
in the region of 0.3mt. This statisticcaused politicians a lot of grief as the
trials were meant to show that the UK
was in the ‘big league’.
Two more ‘nukes’ were dropped
during Grapple, on May 31 and
June 19. The Valiants returned to
Christmas Island for Grapples ‘X’
(November to December 1957), ‘Y’
(March to April 1958) and ‘Z’ (July
to September 1958). The fifth drop
took place on April 28, 1958 with Sqn
Ldr R M Bates at the helm of XD825
when a ‘Blue Danube’ bomb achieved
a strategically-satisfying yield of 3mt.
Today Valiant XD818 is displayed at
the RAF Museum Cosford.