Nuclear weapons and the United Kingdom weapons to be a joint discovery, but the American Atomic Energy Act of 1946 (McMahon Act) restricted other countries, including the UK, from access to information about nuclear weapons. Fearing the loss of Britain's great power status, the UK resumed its own project, now codenamed High Explosive Research. On 3 October 1952, it detonated an atomic bomb in the Monte Bello Islands of Western Australia in Operation Hurricane. Eleven more British nuclear weapons tests in Australia were carried out over the following decade, including seven British nuclear tests at Maralinga in 1956 and 1957. The British hydrogen bomb programme demonstrated
1211th Test Squadron accomplished effectively with manned aircraft. Analyses of samples collected from atomic clouds were considered the most accurate method of determining the efficiency and yield of a nuclear device. Air Force Special Weapons Center (AFSWC) scientists accompanied the squadron on sampling missions in order to assess effects on humans. The Atomic Energy Commission (AEC) recommended that the USAF establish an organization specifically for gathering cloud samples. In 1953, HQ, USAF approved a test squadron for sampling atomic clouds; the squadron was titled the 4926th Test Squadron (Sampling) and assigned to the 4925th Test Group (Atomic). The new squadron was created within