My recollections of what occurred at Christmas Island are based upon the personal stories as recounted by Wg Cdr George Bates with whom I had a fairly close personal relationship, both socially and professionally.
As a result of his account of his part and the book written by the Grapple Commander, I had no worries in visiting Christmas Island on a couple of occasions whilst delivering two of Sir Freddie Laker’s ATL-98 aircraft from New Zealand to Honolulu for the new owners.
Much has been written about what supposedly happened, but in the words of the late George Bates “I don’t glow in the dark, and nobody has been closer to the clouds of a nuclear explosion than I have”.
The following from:
http://www.janeresture.com/christmas_bombs/index.htm
is of some interest concerning whether or not the Island was/is contaminated by radio-active waste.
There is ample evidence of rubbish left behind by the departing military forces, but no evidence of nuclear damage even in the area to the SE near Aeon Point where a couple of balloon dropped explosions were carried out.
“At the beginning of 1963 there was talk of the establishment of a permanent American satellite tracking station on Christmas Island, but interest waned and by the end of September the last of the American servicemen had departed. In Britain, too, strategic imperatives were changing and the Christmas Island base was an early casualty of the withdrawal of British Forces from the Pacific theatre. In June the last inventories were made, obsolete and dangerous materials were dumped at sea, the offices were locked and at sunset on Monday 19th June, 1964 the White Ensign was lowered at the Royal Navy shore station, H.M.S. Resolution.
American service personnel reappeared very briefly in April, 1970 to stand by on Christmas Island for the "splash-down", two hundred miles to the south, of the Apollo 13 crew returning from the moon.
After the departure of the Forces, Operation "Hard Look" had carried out a full investigation into the possibilities of radio-active contamination, but had found none. In 1975 a further examination of Christmas Island was undertaken by American experts as part of the preparation for the establishment of a Japanese tracking station. They reported that radioactivity levels were lower than those found in most American cities and that there was nothing on the island which could lead an investigator to deduce that there had ever been an atomic detonation in the vicinity.”
George Bates returned to his native Britain after the death of his wife and then died himself some time later as the result of a heart attack.