Operation Hurricane Operation Hurricane Operation Hurricane was the test of the first UK atomic device, on 3 October 1952. A plutonium implosion device was detonated in the lagoon in the Monte Bello Islands in Western Australia. With the success of Operation Hurricane, Britain became the third nuclear power after the United States and the Soviet Union. During the Second World War, Britain commenced a nuclear weapons project, known as Tube Alloys, but the 1943 Quebec Agreement merged it with the American Manhattan Project. Several key British scientists worked as part of the British contribution to the Manhattan Project, but after the war
Life in the United Kingdom test based on factual information about what the test required, and in particular a semi-serious BBC-devised test was often quoted as being the real thing. Upon its publication, the associated handbook was widely criticised. Particular criticism was reserved for the section on the UK's history, which was described by the "Guardian" as a "turgid, abysmal piece of writing," filled with "factual errors, sweeping generalisations [and] gross misrepresentations." The UK Border Agency acknowledged that the first edition of the handbook "did not fulfil [its] role particularly well." In 2008, Lord Goldsmith stated in a report on citizenship that the test "is not