Nuclear weapons tests in Australia known at the time as Christmas Island (not to be confused with Christmas Island in the Indian Ocean) between 1957 and 1958. These were airbursts mostly occurring over water or suspended a few hundred metres above the ground by balloon. In Australia there were three sites. Testing was carried out between 1952 and 1957 and was mostly done at the surface. A few hundred smaller scale tests were conducted at both Emu Field and Maralinga between 1953 and 1963. Two separate atomic test projects occurred at the islands, the first being Operation Hurricane and the second being Operation Mosaic The
Operation Sandstone delivered to San Pedro, California, and loaded on the weapon assembly ship USS "Curtiss", in February 1948, but the Atomic Energy Commission only gave permission for the expenditure of three cores in the tests. The naval forces were organized as Task Group 7.3. It consisted of: Source: Berkhouse "et al", "Operation Sandstone", p. 40 In September 1947, Hull, Russell, who was designated test director on October 14, and Joint Task Force 7's scientific director, Darol K. Froman from the Los Alamos Laboratories, set out with a group of scientists and military officers to examine various proposed test sites in the