Operation Totem was a pair of British atmospheric nuclear tests which took place at Emu Field in South Australia in October 1953.

They followed the Operation Hurricane test of the first British atomic bomb, which had taken place at the Montebello Islands a year previously.

[2] Fearing a resurgence of United States isolationism, and Britain losing its great power status, the British government restarted its own development effort,[3] which was given the cover name "High Explosive Research".

[4] The first British atomic bomb was tested in Operation Hurricane at the Montebello Islands in Western Australia on 3 October 1952.

[6] The Royal Navy was unable to provide the level of support it had for the Operation Hurricane test in the time available, so the Montebello Islands were ruled out.

Surveys of the area were carried out by Len Beadell, the surveyor at the Long Range Weapons Establishment (LRWE).

It was an isolated dry, flat clay and sandstone expanse in the Great Victoria Desert 480 kilometres (300 mi) north west of Woomera, South Australia.

In August, Sir William Penney, the Chief Superintendent Armament Research (CSAR) at the British Ministry of Supply, and the head of the British atomic weapon development effort,[10] notified W. A. S. Butement, the Chief Scientist at the Australian Department of Supply, of his intention to visit the site before the Hurricane test.

[11] Sir John Cockcroft, the director of the Atomic Weapons Research Establishment, personally lodged a formal request for a feasibility study with the Prime Minister of Australia, Robert Menzies, at a meeting on 4 September.

Cockcroft reported to Sir Roger Makins at the Foreign Office that Menzies had agreed in principle to Penney's reconnaissance of the Emu Field site.

His party included Pritchard, Butement, Martin, Ben Gates (the range controller), Ivor Bowen from the UK Ministry of Supply staff in Melbourne and Omond Solandt from the Canadian Defence Research Board.

The party inspected the area by helicopter and Land Rover; the light sandy clay soil was easily traversed by motor vehicles.

[12] The Prime Minister of the United Kingdom, Winston Churchill, then sought permission from Menzies, who was in London at the time.

[14] A Totem Executive (Totex) chaired by Air Marshal Sir Thomas Elmhirst was formed in the UK to coordinate the tests.

[15] In Australia, a Totem Panel chaired by J. E. S. Stevens, the head of the Department of Supply, was created to coordinate the Australian contribution.

[14] With defence money short and Britain paying for the tests, it was important that expenditure was correctly recorded and charged.

[17] Unlike Hurricane, it was decided that it would be best if a single service was responsible for the test series, and the Australian Army was so designated.

The United States Air Force (USAF) had two Boeing B-29 Superfortress bombers and two Douglas C-54 Skymaster transport aircraft based at RAAF Richmond for radioactive cloud sampling.

[20] A five-man Australian mission consisting of Lucas, Gates, Group Captain Alfred George Pither (the LRWE Range Superintendent), Frank O'Grady (the Superintendent of Engineering at LRWE Salisbury), and a representative of the Australian Security Intelligence Organisation (ASIO), visited the UK in February 1953 to discuss the arrangements for Totem.

Lucas informed the people at Fort Halstead, where Penney's High Explosive Research team was based, that their plan for a temporary village of trailers had to be discarded.

Lucas was able to allay fears about the supply of water, which would not only be required for drinking, but also for decontamination of personnel and equipment, and the processing of the film badges which registered how much radioactivity people had been exposed to.

[21] The isolated location and poor roads meant that only 500 tonnes (500 long tons) of the 3,000 tonnes (3,000 long tons) of equipment needed for the test arrived by road, the bulk arriving via the airstrip, which was quickly constructed on the site about 17 kilometres (11 mi) north west of the test field on a dry lake bed.

They lived through hunting and gathering activities, and moved over long distances between permanent and semi-permanent locations, generally in groups of about 25 or so, coming together for special occasions.

Walter MacDougall had been appointed the Native Patrol Officer at Woomera on 4 November 1947, with responsibility for ensuring that Aboriginal people were not harmed by the LRWE's rocket testing programme.

The 1985 Royal Commission into British nuclear tests in Australia was critical of these efforts, which it deemed inadequate to warn people spread over 10,000 square kilometres (3,900 sq mi).

Care was taken not to contaminate the main test site, and the areas were secured until the polonium decayed to safe levels.

VIPs and media representatives were flown in from Adelaide in the early hours of the morning with the aircraft windows covered in canvas screens so they could not identify the exact location of the test site.

The slight wind meant that the cloud maintained its form for 24 hours, and produced a tight fallout pattern in the immediate vicinity of the test site the like of which had not been seen before.

The filters were found to have radioactivity in excess of the requirements of the radiochemistry team, and were left for twelve hours to cool down.

[53] In addition to conclusively answering the questions about plutonium-240 that was their primary purpose, the Totem tests taught the British scientists a great deal about how to conduct trials, and how to measure fallout.