Operation Grapple with the American Manhattan Project in August 1943. Many of Britain's top scientists participated in the British contribution to the Manhattan Project. After the war, fearing that Britain would lose its great power status, the British government resumed the atomic bomb development effort, now codenamed High Explosive Research. The successful test of an atomic bomb in Operation Hurricane in October 1952 represented an extraordinary scientific and technological achievement, but Britain was still several years behind the United States in nuclear weapons technology. In July 1954, the Cabinet decided to develop the hydrogen bomb. The United Kingdom Atomic Energy Authority Atomic
British nuclear testing in the United States which led to the agreement on the use of the Maralinga test site in August 1954. The first of the British nuclear tests at Maralinga was held in September 1956. While British atomic bomb development represented an extraordinary scientific and technological achievement, hopes that the United States would be sufficiently impressed to restore the nuclear Special Relationship were dashed. In November 1952, the United States conducted Ivy Mike, the first successful test of a true thermonuclear device or hydrogen bomb. Britain was therefore still several years behind in nuclear weapons technology. The Defence Policy Committee, chaired by Churchill and consisting