Title:OPERATION GRAPPLE ON CHRISTMAS ISLAND [Allocated Title]
Film Number:MGH 5099
Other titles:AMATEUR FILM BY BRIGADIER JOHN GOODSON [Alternative Title]
Summary: Amateur film without titles shot by Lieutenant John Goodson while serving with 55 Independent Field Squadron Royal Engineers (attached to 28 Engineer Regiment) records first stages (from June 1956 to March 1957) of preparing Christmas Island with infrastructure for handling and testing Britain's first nuclear bomb.
Description: Loading of stores on «HMS Devonshire» at Singapore, disembarkation of Fiji Regiment at Suva (after service in Malaya), own disembarkation at Christmas Island, and scenes prior to (but not showing) the testing of Britain's first nuclear bomb: Gilbert and Ellis Island children, fish, hermit crabs, frigate and blue-billed booby birds, first phase in construction of hut for assembly of atom bomb, picnic on beach and snorkelling, arrival of first plane (Super Constellation). Film concludes with return through Panama Canal and (copied) shot of atomic explosion mushroom cloud.
Alternative Title:AMATEUR FILM BY BRIGADIER JOHN GOODSON [Alternative Title]
