The Oslo Deviation

Lost Signals Report
At dawn on March 24, 1950, the offices of the Central Council of Physical Recreation at Burnwood House were presented with a series of curious packages: 72 banded, wooden crates, laden with some 45 tons of radioactive tritium snow, which had been floated by barge up the Thames from Norway. These packages, which were marked for shipment to the Armament Research and Development Establishment (ARDE) at Fort Halstead, had been confused with 56 similar packages, containing 48 tons of common protium snow, also from Norway, which were meant to coat a makeshift ski jump, which was built in Hampstead Heath for a frivolous exhibition.

This mix-up not only slowed the British High Explosive Research (HER) program’s effort to build a hydrogen bomb (delaying the commencement of Operation Grapple by some 6 years), it also ended the brief existence of the newly-formed Oxford University Ski Jumping Club (OUSJC), whose members were exposed to acute positron radiation at the event…     –Hilbert David