Elizabeth Tynan - The Secret of Emu Field

E LIZABETH T YNAN is an associate professor in the Graduate Research School at James Cook University Townsville. A former journalist, her book Atomic Thunder: The Maralinga Story (NewSouth, 2016) won the Prime Ministers Literary Award (Australian History) and the CHASS Australia Book Prize in 2017.

In this sensitive and insightful account of the impact of the atomic testing in Australia, Elizabeth Tynan reminds us of the human and cultural cost of a most aggressive form of imperial colonisation, ensuring a shameful episode is remembered not just for the horror it inflicted but the strength of spirit of those who survived it and have lived with its legacy. The Secret of Emu Field is meticulously researched and a must-read to understand a cold war history, an arrogant officialdom and an unfathomable desecration of Aboriginal land.

LARISSA BEHRENDT

This is an important and well-written book. It brings back from the far edges of living memory the extraordinary story of Britains atomic bomb tests in Australia. Emu Field was the site of the first two explosions on the Australian mainland in October 1953. Elizabeth Tynan uncovers much of the story which is still surrounded by walls of secrecy. She uncovers a saga of British recklessness and an indifference to the long-term consequences of the tests. The reader is left with a revealing glimpse of the Australian governments lazy complicity and deference to Britain. The difficulty we had then in dealing with our great and powerful friends is still with us.

HENRY REYNOLDS

The question why werent we told? is heard far too frequently in relation to Australian history, particularly in reference to Aboriginal histories. Tales of dispossession, death, destruction, and disadvantage are regularly greeted with a refrain of we didnt know. In this meticulously researched book, the award-winning author of Atomic Thunder: The Maralinga Story, Elizabeth Tynan presents us with the shocking story of the two atomic tests and five minor trials performed at Emu Field, South Australia, in the 1950s. The black mist released from the cruelly named Operation Totem can now be seen by all. Tynans razor-sharp prose and forensic level historical research jolt the reader from any comfort or certainty and ensure that going forward Emu Field will be remembered alongside Maralinga as sites of treachery, suffering and anxiety on the long road towards healing.

LYNETTE RUSSELL

A NewSouth book

Published by

NewSouth Publishing

University of New South Wales Press Ltd

University of New South Wales

Sydney NSW 2052

AUSTRALIA

newsouthpublishing.com

Elizabeth Tynan 2022

First published 2022

This book is copyright. Apart from any fair dealing for the purpose of private study, research, criticism or review, as permitted under the Copyright Act, no part of this book may be reproduced by any process without written permission. Inquiries should be addressed to the publisher.

A catalogue record for this book is available from the National Library of Australia

Internal design Josephine Pajor-Markus

Cover design Mika Tabata

Cover image Atomic bomb test, Emu Field, Great Victoria Desert, South Australia, 15 October 1953, United Press Photo, National Library of Australia

All reasonable efforts were taken to obtain permission to use copyright material reproduced in this book, but in some cases copyright could not be traced. The author welcomes information in this regard.

The Secret of Emu Field is a much-needed and valuable addition to the history of the British nuclear tests in Australia. Until now, there has been no book that focuses specifically on Emu, although there has been a plethora of books (both non-fiction and fiction), documentaries, screenplays and theatre scripts on Maralinga. There has even been a satirical television miniseries on the Maralinga atomic tests, much to the horror of the Maralinga Traditional Owners.

Little was, and is, publicly known about Emu.

Between 1953 and the Royal Commission into British Nuclear Tests in Australia in 1984, few people in Australia even knew there was a place called Emu Field. They had probably heard there had been atomic tests at Maralinga in the 1950s but not at a place called Emu.

Publicity about the effect of the black mist from the Totem I atomic blast on Yami Lester and his Yankunytjatjara community at Wallatinna only started emerging in 1980, which came as a huge surprise and was one of the factors that gave rise to the 1984 Royal Commission.

The Traditional Owners of the Maralinga Lands accepted freehold title over their country on 17 December 1984 while the Royal Commission was in progress, apart from the test sites at Emu and Maralinga, which were handed back in 1991 and 2009, respectively.

I had the great privilege of acting as junior counsel to Geoff Eames QC for all Aboriginal interests before that Royal Commission. As a result of the Royal Commission, we were able to negotiate compensation for the Wallatinna mob and every other Aboriginal person we could identify as having been affected by any of the nuclear tests in Australia.

The Traditional Owners then negotiated the rehabilitation of the nuclear test sites at Maralinga and Emu between 1986 and 1993. The major rehabilitation was completed in 2000. Most of that rehabilitation work was at Maralinga, primarily because that was the location of most of the long-lasting plutonium-239 fragments, a legacy of the Vixen B minor trials. Again, the spotlight was on Maralinga and not Emu.

The developing story of the impact of the black mist from the Totem I blast on Aboriginal people has been, until this book, the only spotlight cast on the Emu tests. That story would not have taken shape or resulted in the acceptance of the Aboriginal accounts of the black mist and the negotiation of compensation but for the Royal Commission and the persistence of the late Yami Lester.

Western Desert Aboriginal communities and Australian society owe a great debt of gratitude to Mr Lester for his dogged but charming determination to bring this awful chapter of British and Australian history, which is so well depicted in this book, to light.

Elizabeth Tynan has treated the Aboriginal legacy of the Emu tests with rigour and sensitivity.

Evidence of the effects of Totem I on Aboriginal people at Wallatinna and Mintabie emerged during the 1984 Royal Commission and the likely health effects are well presented and analysed by the author. As was submitted on behalf of all Aboriginal interests in the Royal Commission, the full health effects on Aboriginal people can never be known, given the absence of health services and records for Aboriginal people in the region prior to Totem I.

Differences of opinion, unproven assertions and uncertainties about these matters remain. The author has identified these and considered them objectively and sympathetically.

Much of this well-researched and well-structured book is new material. The history of the negotiations between Britain and Australia over atomic tests, the aspirations of the Australian Government to have a significant role and the extent to which Australia was sidelined and fobbed off are adroitly assembled here, providing a rich context to the two atomic tests and five minor trials performed at Emu.