Montebello Islands

Map of the Montebellos and Barrow Island

The mushroom cloud resulting from the Operation Hurricane detonation

The Montebello (or Monte Bello) Islands are an archipelago of around 174 small islands (about 35 of which are named) located 80 miles (129 km) off the Pilbara coast of North West Australia. Montebello is Italian for Beautiful Mountain.

There are two main islands, named by the French explorer Nicolas Baudin in 1801.

• Hermite Island 20° 28' S. 115° 31' E. - named after the French Admiral, Jean-Marthe-Adrien L'Hermite
• Trimouille Island 20° 23' S. 115° 33' E. - named after a French noble family.

There are problems with the naming of the islands in the accounts of the early explorers, and there is the suggestion is that the French and later English explorers mixed up the names of Lowendal and Hermite islands.

Of the smaller islands, the largest are:

• North-West Island
• Primrose Island
• Bluebell Island
• Alpha Island
• Crocus Island

An early reference to the islands is in 1622, when the Tryall was wrecked just west of them. For years afterwards their position was approximately recorded on charts as the Tryal Rocks - 20° 16' S. 115° 23' E.

The islands were economically significant for pearl fishing from the end of the nineteenth century until the outbreak of the Second World War.

A bay of Trimoulle Island was the site of Operation Hurricane, the first British nuclear weapons test on 3 October 1952. There were two further tests on Alpha and Trimouille Islands in 1956. The second of these tests in 1956 codenamed G2 was the largest device ever detonated in Australia with a yield of 98kt. Queensland towns such as Mount Isa, Julia Creek, Longreach and Rockhampton were contaminated by the fallout of this test.

The islands now form a conservation park administered by the Western Australian Department of Environment and Conservation, and it is likely that the shallow waters around them will become a marine conservation reserve.

List of known names of Islands

NASA World Wind satellite image of main Montebello Island group

Name	Coordinates	Remarks
Ah Chong	20°31′S 115°32′E	[1]
Alpha	20°24′S 115°31′E	[2]
Aster	20°25′S 115°34′E	[3]
Bluebell
Brooke
Buttercup
Campbell
Carnation
Crocus
Dahlia
Daisy
Dandelion
Delta
Dot
Epsilon
Flag
Foxglove
Gannet
Gardenia
Hermite	20°28′S 115°31′E	[4]
Hollyhock
How
Ivy
Jonquil
Karangi
Kingcup
Lowendal
Marigold
North West
Pansy
Primrose
Rose
South East
Spar
Trimouille	20°23′S 115°33′E	[5]
Violet

See also

• British nuclear tests at Maralinga
• Downwinders
• Maralinga: Australia’s Nuclear Waste Cover-up
• McClelland Royal Commission
• Operation Buffalo
• Operation Grapple

Further reading

• Acaster, Ray. British nuclear testing at the Monte Bello Islands. Early Days Vol. 11, no. 1 (1995) p. 66-80.
• Arnold, Lorna and Smith, Mark (2006). Britain, Australia and the Bomb: The Nuclear Tests and their Aftermath. Palgrave MacMillan. ISBN 1403921024.
• Bird, Peter. Operation hurricane Worcester : Square One Publications, 1989. ISBN 187201710X First published: 1953.
• Burbidge, A. A. The fauna and flora of the Monte Bello Islands. Perth : Department of Fisheries and Fauna, 1971
• Deegan, P. M. Monte Bello and Lowendal Islands : bibliography ; summary report of marine resources Perth [W.A.] : Dept. of Conservation and Land Management, 1992.
• Fornasiero, Jean; Monteath, Peter and West-Sooby, John. Encountering Terra Australis: the Australian voyages of Nicholas Baudin and Matthew Flinders, Kent Town, South Australia,Wakefield Press,2004. ISBN 1-86254-625-8
• Tuckfield, Trevor. The Monte Bello Islands. Walkabout, Vol. 17, No. 8, (1 August 1951), p. 33,34.

External links

• Video footage of the Operation Hurricane detonation on Trimouille Island in 1951
• Nicolas Baudin’s Scientific Expedition To The Terres Australes by Steve Reynolds - Marine Life Society of South Australia Inc.
• Details of a feral cat eradication program on Hermite Island in 1999
• Nuclear testing details