#operation grapple

Operation Grapple was a set of four series of British nuclear weapons tests of early atomic bombs and hydrogen bombs carried out in 1957 and 1958 at Malden Island and Kiritimati (Christmas Island) in the Gilbert and Ellice Islands in the Pacific Ocean (modern Kiribati) as part of the British hydrogen bomb programme. Nine nuclear explosions were initiated, culminating in the United Kingdom becoming the third recognised possessor of thermonuclear weapons, and the restoration of the nuclear Special Relationship with the United States in the form of the 1958 US-UK Mutual Defence Agreement.

In 1957 Britain detonated its first megaton hydrogen bomb - code-named Operation Grapple X. It was the culmination of an extraordinary project in which scientists overcame all odds to turn Britain into a nuclear superpower.