From the Archives of Flt Lt Joe Pasquini.
In 2010 Flt Lt Joe Pasquini, in order to have all of the documentation at his disposal to apply for his (Cold) War Pension, made a request, using the Data Protect Act of 1998, for a copy of all of his personal information (Today similar requests would be covered by UK GDPR regulations).
He did indeed receive a large bundle of information – which also included a copy of his RAF service medical records.
Of note was a scanned copy of his Medical Envelope which held the entire medical history during his service as a member of the Royal Air Force. As you will see in the image below, the outside of his medical envelope clearly lists every single piece of paper which was put into the envelope – indicating the date, the type of document ( the ‘F Med’ form), and the order in which the document was placed within the envelope ( the ‘Enclosure Number’).
One quite obvious curiosity we can witness here, on the outside of this medical envelope, is the large absence of any medical information between November 18th, 1957 and October 28th, 1958.
This is particular as Flt Lt Joe Pasquini, as a member of the RAF 76 Squadron Nuclear Cloud sampling crew, was in the first Canberra B6 WJ 754 (Sniff Boss) to penetrate the billowing thermo-nuclear mushroom cloud of Grapple Y – Britains largest detonation of (officially) 3 Megatons … 21 minutes after detonation. This Canberra B6 WJ 754, which was piloted by Squadron Leader Terry Gledhill, made 2 cuts at around 42,000 feet – with each cut into the cloud lasting aproximately 1 minute each.
Then there was the second cloud sampling experience with Grapple Zulu Flagpole, a 1 megaton thermo-nuclear detonation, where Flt Lt Joe Pasquini was the navigator in Sniff 1 Canberra B6 WH 979 which penetrated the stem of the cloud 33 minutes after detonation at 47,000 feet. A second cut into the cloud was made at 50,000 feet (the tropopause at Christmas Island at this time was recorded to have varied between 55,000 and 59,000 feet – hence closer to the edge of the universe than to earth).
It was during this flight that Flt Lt Joe Pasquini received a recorded dose of 8.8 r of radiation (see image below). There is no blood test immediately after this September flight / high radiation dose reading in the official medical file of Flt. Lt Joe Pasquini. As one can clearly see on the outside of the medical envelope - the first entry after Operation Grapple Zulu Flagpole is October, 28th, 1958.
Interestingly, Squadron Leader Terry Gledhill, in Sniff Boss Canberra B6 WJ 757, was also involved in Operation Grapple Zulu Flagpole thermo-nuclear cloud sampling on September 2nd, 1958. According to UK National Archives document number ES 1 / 602 (88) Squadron Leader Terry Gledhill received a lower dose of radiation on this flight. However, Squadron Leader Terry Gledhill received a blood test on September 13th, 1958 according to documents one can find online here: LINK.
… but no blood test for Flt Lt Joe Pasquini with a much larger radiation dose hit for sampling the same cloud (albeit in a different Canberra B6) on September 2nd, 1958 ….
THE PLOT THICKENS …
Another anomaly we find inside of Flt Lt Joe Pasquini’s medical file is a document where we see, in handwriting, that Flt Lt Joe Pasquini had a blood test taken on July 8th, 1958 (this would be after Grapple Y and before Grapple Zulu Flagpole).
However, as clearly visible on the outside of the official medical envelope sent to Flt Lt Joe Pasquini in 2010 - there is no record of a blood sample being taken on July 8th, 1958.
THE PLOT THICKENS … AGAIN
Many have likened what has happened to the British Nuclear Test Veterans to the Post Office scandal story which has also been retold in the TV drama Mr. Bates vs the Post Office.
While watching this program for the first time a few weeks ago a sudden urge awakened to look once again at the outside medical envelope of Flt Lt Joe Pasquini.
For those of you who have already watched the TV drama Mr. Bates vs the Post Office – you will have noted that the TV characters keep talking about how the ledgers that they, the Post Office workers, were keeping were not tallying with the computer ledgers kept on the Horizon IT system.
Ledgers, ledgers, ledgers... each entry into a ledger would have a unique code. On a computer system - a unique code could be made up of some sort of numerology, characters or letters, or a mixture of them – printed in a standard computer font or something of that nature.
The medical envelopes keeping the medical records of the British Nuclear Test Veterans are MEDICAL LEDGERS - recording every entry into them ( they are also sometimes referred to as Lloyd George envelopes – see footnote below ***). The details in that period were entered by hand.
If we think back to the old days when we used to write checks - in the check book ledger we would write the check number, the date, who it was for, and the amount.
These check books were old school handwritten ledgers.... and if you look back at your old check book ledgers you will notice that your handwriting will never be the same from one day to the next - as one day you might be tired, another day you may have had too much coffee, another time you might be in a rush, or maybe the pen thickness is different as you used different writing instruments ... etc etc.
The only time the handwriting in your check book ledger would be consistent is if you sat down and wrote a bunch of checks all at once.
So now let us look again at the outside of Flt Lt Joe Pasquini’s medical envelope.
You may note that from the first entry of 1952 until the last entry of 1959 the handwriting is fairly consistent.... perhaps there are some slight variations – but there also appears to be a bit of familiarity between the lines – especially when compared to the entries from 1960 onwards.
Here too we must question, why are the Enclosure numbers all in consecutive order if Flt Lt Joe Pasquini had a blood test on July 8, 1958? Shouldn’t that blood test on July 8th, 1958 have been Enclosure No. 11 or there about?
Also why does Table 2 on the medical envelope only start on March 31, 1959 with the A1G1 code - meaning that Flt Lt Joe Pasquini was ‘Fit to Fly’? Where are all of the earlier ‘Fit to Fly’ entries (such as a document in his medical file dated Oct 28th, 1958 which also has the A1G1 code?). Flt Lt Joe Pasquini would not have been able to participate in the high altitude flying required of the RAF 76 Squadron nuclear cloud samplers unless he was code A1G1 Fit to Fly (the code for not fit to fly / grounded being A4G7).
Why start recording the ‘Fit to Fly’ data only from 1959 …?
NOTE: Flt Lt Joe Pasquini was adamant that he was code A4G7 ‘grounded’ after receiving radiation dose 8.8 r during Operation Grapple Zulu Flagpole. There is no record of this in his medical files.
THE PLOT THICKENS … AGAIN…. AND AGAIN
The handwriting anomaly also takes place when we look at the handwriting appearing on the actual ‘ Enclosure‘ documents inside of the medical envelope.
For example, here below we see the handwritten ‘Enclosure’ numbers written on the top left hand corner for 3 different medical documents.
Now looking at these images we see that Enclosure 9 and 10 are dated November 1957.
… and Enclosure 11 is dated October 1958 … almost a year later.
Yet the handwriting on each of these 3 documents is quite similar - even the underline is almost at the exact same angle in every single image above.
Even if one is not a professional handwriting expert - it does certainly look a bit curious.
CONCLUSION
This particular way of looking at the medical records of British Nuclear Test Veterans has many different tentacles.
One only has to think that British Nuclear Test Veteran David Whyte also flagged up some curious handwriting in his medical records in 2019 (being told - if he wanted to take it further he would need to hire a handwriting expert). LINK
Also the timeline of the handwriting nuances appearing in Flt Lt Joe Pasquini’s medical records are also curious when one thinks of the Special Directive for the ‘Prompt Disposal’ of medical files recently uncovered by Daily Mirror Journalist Susie Boniface – a document which was dated 1959. LINK
Maybe we are looking too hard at these documents….. ?
…. but maybe we aren’t looking hard enough?
What do you see?
LABRATS COMMENTS
Many have noted the similarities between the plight of the British Nuclear Test Veterans to the UK’s Post Office scandal. As each week passes and more and more of the secrets of the past coming to light maybe we are also potentially starting to lean more towards the Blood Scandal which saw medical records being destroyed LINK LINK LINK
At the end of November we wrote the blog post Truth & Justice. (LINK) where we revealed that certain files in the National Archives – such as PIN 15 / 5265 ‘Exposure to Nuclear Radiation : Christmas Island (1958) – are locked down until at least 2070. This would be well past the expiration date of any person who took part in the Cold War British Nuclear Tests. They will never know their own truth.
More modern regulations governing the actions of the Ministry of Defence requires that all medical records involving radiation must be kept for 100 years.
In their words, which you can find here on page 107 :
TYPE OF RECORD: Medical records are normally filed as a separate sun-set of individual personal files to allow for separate retention. In some instances where they relate to, for example, exposure to radiation, these must be kept for 100 years.
Could this mean that as soon as the National Archives releases the records in 2070 onwards – the Ministry of Defence will have the right to immediately destroy the radiation medical records of the British Nuclear Test Veterans?
The files are there.
Why is the government not doing more to open them up now?
FOOTNOTE
In the UK, a law was enacted in 1911 defining the standards of how to keep medical records concerning social insurance mandatory for working men between 16 and 70 years of age. A system of envelopes and color-coded cards was introduced and used until the 1970s. LINK
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