Patrick Savage at Maralinga 1956

Recent conversations have resulted in these photos from Tony Flaherty. They belonged to his grandfather and father, the former who served at Maralinga for Operation Buffalo and the latter stationed at O’Malley Siding in the late sixties. O’Malley is the next siding to the west from Watson. Thanks Tony for permission to publish.

Tony wrote:

These are some of the photos my grandfather sent back to my grandmother. Notes are on each photo.

My grandfathers name is Patrick Savage he worked for weapons research in Elizabeth. He died of cancer 8 years after the testing.

He said when the nuke detonated it was like looking at the sun with your eyes closed except the light came through the back of head as they faced away from the blast.

Here is a selection of photos with Patrick’s handwritten notes from the reverse sides.

More from Tony

A few more photos of the area. My father, John Flaherty, worked at O’Malley railway siding in the late sixties. He also has mud maps when he hiked South for two to three hours on foot from the station on there days off. There was a group of limestone caves in the middle of a valley they would swim in.

Roughly 9-12 k south. You can see them on Google Earth. One of the cave divers that works for ARB said they are not in his Nullarbor cave map. I will get the coordinates with some more research.

I believe these buildings are gone now. Photos below taken between July 1967 and December 1967