Protest ship sailor backs health study

A Masterton man who had first-hand experience of French bomb tests at Mururoa Atoll in 1973 is backing fellow veterans calling for investigations into the health of sailors on New Zealand protest ships.

Wes ten Hove, who is Masterton District Council chief executive, was a young midshipman aboard the HMNZS Otago when it sailed to Mururoa after a Government decision to protest French nuclear testing in the South Pacific.

Now, 40 years on, he admits to sharing the concerns of his fellow veterans over health issues, not because he or his two adult children, aged 24 and 22, have had any but because it is a possibility future generations of veterans' families could.

Mr ten Hove belongs to the Mururoa Veterans Association and backs calls for investigations into whether the premature death rate among his former shipmates is really above the national average, and if so was the Mururoa experience a factor.

Health concerns among veterans, he said, were not just about whether their health has been compromised by atmospheric contamination but long-term effects on DNA and reproductive issues.

The sailors had spent weeks near the atoll drawing in sea water used, after desalination, to cook, shower and drink and veterans wanted this to be investigated.

Although he was a career sailor at the time of the protest, Mr ten Hove said all those aboard were in practice volunteers.

"We were all given the chance to say we didn't want to go, but no one did."

He said if the chance presented itself today he would make the same decision.

"I was fairly young at the time but had a genuine belief we were doing something for world peace.

"We were happy to risk life and limb for our country," Mr ten Hove said.

He said the Government had decreed veterans were entitled to war pensions if medical conditions could be linked to their experiences but their cause was not about money.

The stand-off with the French had the potential to become a serious confrontation and Mr ten Hove, as a 19-year-old midshipman, had worked alongside David Healey and the gunners' party fitting fuses to the 4.5 inch shells in the magazine, loading the ammunition hoists with live ammunition and putting ready-use ammunition in the 4.5 inch gun turret.

The commanding officer Alan Tyrell had said he wanted the vessel to be ready for any eventuality and would defend his ship if fired upon by the French.

On July 21,1973, the Otago sat 21.5km west, and upwind, of the 5.4 kiloton bomb in te Mururoa Atoll when it detonated.

The brilliant flash was so intense many within the frigate's citadel saw it as a burst through the air vents.

Commander Tyrell allowed the ship's company to view the swirling mushroom cloud 20 seconds after the detonation.

"I can still remember the cloud billowing and moving like an animal and the colour on top changing white to orange to white," Mr ten Hove said.

Mr ten Hove wears his Mururoa Veterans Association on the lapel of his workday suit and said that, without making light of the 1973 event, the badgesignified not only fallout from the bomb test but the fallout he gets from being a council chief executive.