Operation Totem at Maralinga was held in September 1956, with the Operation Buffalo series. Operation Totem Operation Totem was a pair of British atmospheric nuclear tests which took place at Emu Field in South Australia on 15 October 1953. They followed the Operation Hurricane test of the first British atomic bomb, which had taken place at the Montebello Islands a year previously. The main purpose of the trial was to determine the acceptable limit on the amount of plutonium-240 which could be present in a bomb. In addition to the two main tests, there was a series of five subcritical tests. These
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