Bomb gone - and I was there on that fateful day

The Valiant bomber was about to drop Britain’s first H bomb in the South Pacific in May, 1957.

- Bob Knights

I had been in the Royal Navy for four years joining at the tender age of 15. At the end of 1956 I was drafted to HMS Narvik. This would be the scientific control ship for the first three tests.

In January 1957 we departed for Christmas Island, stopping at Kingston, Jamaica, where I had been the previous year on HMS Vidal, surveying the West Indies. Leaving Jamaica we headed for the Panama Canal through to the South Pacific. As I remember the voyage to Christmas Island was fairly calm, unlike the crossing of the Atlantic where we were hit by two or three hurricanes. This was no fun as we had a shallow draft and every wave we hit shook the whole ship.

On my previous two ships we slept in hammocks, but Narvik had been fitted out with bunks which in a rough seas were not very comfortable.

I was trained as a telegraphist at HMS Ganges. On joining Narvik my primary job was reading and sending Morse messages, encrypting and decoding messages and other duties dealing with communications all on a watch-keeping routine.

We arrived at Christmas Island early February, our maximum speed was 10 knots but during the hurricanes much slower, a case of two steps forward and three back. We only stayed one day offloading vital equipment then set sail for Malden Island.