OCTOBER 15, 1953: Operation Totem, Emu Field. At Wallatinna in South Australia, the explosion arrives as an earth-shaking rumble, followed by a bank of greasy black smoke. The Aṉangu Elders dig holes in the dunes and implore the children to hide from the spirit, or mamu, rolling through the camp. But the ‘black mist’ has already cast its dark magic and a few hours later many people fall ill, with sore eyes, diarrhoea and flu-like symptoms. Red rashes begin to appear on their skin. Some are so bad that it looks as if the victims have fallen into an open fire.  

May 16, 1956: Operation Mosaic, Montebello. Scientists and crewmen watch from the deck of the task force flagship HMS Narvik as the mushroom cloud climbs over Trimouille Island, off the north-west coast of Western Australia. The scientists are in protective suits, the crewmen in T-shirts, shorts and sandals. As the mushroom cloud slowly dissipates, the radiological unit enters the island’s lagoon and sets about retrieving its instruments. Meanwhile, radioactive fallout spreads east across Western Australia. It will eventually reach Queensland’s coastal towns and even the Pacific island of Fiji. It turns out the scientists who designed the test hadn’t accounted for WA’s strong westerlies.