Maralinga tests

[Keith Webb]

A correction to my earlier post - A68-1001 was actually A68-1, the CAC production prototype Mustang, a CA-17 mk.20, test flown from Fishermens Bend in May 1945.
In late March 1953 the six Mustangs were flown to Emu Claypan bu volunteer RAAF pilots. The aircraft had been in open storage.
Once towed to their test positions on sleds behind a bulldozer, they sat until the first test on October 15th 1953, which coincidentally was my wife's first birthday. There was a second test a week later.
The Emu nuclear testing operation was named "Totem", and the Maralinga test was "Buffalo". The two bomb tests at Emu were Totem I and Totem II.
The other Mustangs were A68- 7, 30, 35, 72 and 87.
It had been planned to build 690 Australian Mustangs, but as the Pacific War finished, there were surplus US Mustangs and the order was cut to just 200.
The first 80 were assembled from US P51D kits.
Following these successful tests another site was selected some 200km South, at a place called Maralinga, which has been a bone of contention with anti-nuclear protesters ever since. There were also tests at the Montebello Islands off the coast of Western Australia, some 1600 km North of Perth.