A former RAF officer from Warwick who experienced the UK’s biggest ever nuclear bomb test first hand will be part of the town’s Remembrance Parade for the first time on Sunday.

Walter Jennings, who was once a Corporal in the RAF, witnessed the thermonuclear H bomb test, known as Grapple Y, at Christmas Island in the Indian Ocean on April 28, 1958.

The bomb had a yield of more than three megatons which was 200 times more powerful than the atomic bomb dropped on Hiroshima in August 1945 - which brought about Japan’s surrender and the end to the Second World War.

Leamington-born Walter, who turns 91 this week, was an electrical technician who serviced the Canberra aircraft which flew through the Grapple Y bomb’s mushroom cloud to collect air samples.

In 2025, former RAF officer Walter Jennings (left) received the Nuclear Test Medal.

placeholder image — In 2025, former RAF officer Walter Jennings (left) received the Nuclear Test Medal.

He also witnessed the UK’s first ever H Bomb test, Grapple X, in November 1957, after which he accidently wore contaminated protective clothing while working on a radioactive aircraft.

Walter’s only son David is a father of three but he and his partner have had numerous miscarriages and a stillbirth due to genetic abnormalities.

The British government’s nuclear tests in Australia and the South Pacific in the 1950s and 60s had a severe effect on both the indigenous First Nations peoples in South and Western Australia and Gilbertese and indigenous populations near Kiritimati in the Pacific.

The tests also affected many of the 21,000 to 39,000 British and Commonwealth servicemen and scientists who participated without adequate protective gear or personal radiation monitoring.

This has been covered in the BBC Two documentary Britain’s Nuclear Bomb Scandal: Our Story, which was first aired in November 2024.

In September, veterans who took part in Britain’s nuclear weapons tests launched legal action against the Ministry of Defence to gain access to medical records they say are being ‘illegally withheld, with a devastating impact on their physical and mental health’.

In 2025, Walter received the Nuclear Test Medal – first awarded in 2023 after years of campaigning on behalf of veterans.

He will wear this medal when he joins fellow veterans for the parade on Sunday.

For details of Remembrance events in Warwick, Leamington, Kenilworth and surrounding villages visit: https://tinyurl.com/mr3yyzey