Discover and read the best of Twitter Threads about #missingmedal
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While you’re still in bed, veterans are queuing to take their place on Horseguards for #remembranceday2022 
Mirror video supremo @EddieHenryJames and I are with them - wearing the #MissingMedal @thehuwedwards
Streams of veterans of all services coming past us, all wearing varieties of medals. Some weighed down with them.
Nuke test vets will be the only guys here with no medal. #missingmedal
Nuke test vets will be the only guys here with no medal. #missingmedal
At the #remembranceday2022 event at the Cenotaph tomorrow, you will see a small band of veterans wearing these black and yellow badges.
It is the #MissingMedal.
It is the #MissingMedal.
It is the medal that should have been given to those who delivered the nuclear deterrent in 1952.
Instead, Churchill gave honours to the chief scientist and top brass.
Instead, Churchill gave honours to the chief scientist and top brass.
It should have been awarded after Operation Grapple X, 65 years ago this month, in 1957 when they produced Britain’s first H-bomb.
But it was done in a hurry, safety concerns out the window, before a global testing ban came in. A little too embarrassing.
But it was done in a hurry, safety concerns out the window, before a global testing ban came in. A little too embarrassing.
Today is important.
At 0857 on November 8, 1957, an RAF Valiant bomber dropped a carefully-prepared device of explosives, uranium-235, plutonium, beryllium and lithium deuteride, on the southern tip of Christmas Island in the South Pacific.
#missingmedal 🧵
At 0857 on November 8, 1957, an RAF Valiant bomber dropped a carefully-prepared device of explosives, uranium-235, plutonium, beryllium and lithium deuteride, on the southern tip of Christmas Island in the South Pacific.
#missingmedal 🧵
The explosives detonated, the beryllium tamper compressed the blast wave and forced it back inwards, and the atoms of uranium and plutonium were split with a force equivalent to 18,000 tons of TNT.
Britain had just gone thermonuclear.
Britain had just gone thermonuclear.
There were thousands of British troops on the island, at the most 20 miles from the blast and some around 6 miles.
Others were ok ships at sea, where the top brass were keeping a safer distance on HMS Cossack.
The 500 islanders were huddled under blankets on the beach.
Others were ok ships at sea, where the top brass were keeping a safer distance on HMS Cossack.
The 500 islanders were huddled under blankets on the beach.
