this aspect, as it had the decontamination facilities. Air samples were collected by RAAF Avro Lincoln aircraft. Although the feared tidal surge had not occurred, radioactive contamination of the islands was widespread and severe. It was clear that had an atomic bomb exploded in a British port, it would have been a catastrophe worse than the bombing of Hiroshima and Nagasaki. The fallout cloud rose to and was blown out to sea, as intended; but later reversed direction and blew over the Australian mainland. Very low levels of radioactivity were detected as far away as Brisbane. Penney and some of his staff returned by air on 9 October. He was appointed a Knight Commander of the Order of the British Empire on 23 October 1952 for his role in Operation Hurricane. Torlesse was supposed to accompany him, but in view of the degree of radioactive contamination, he felt he could not leave his command. He sent Captain D. P. Willan, the skipper of Narvik in his stead. The Royal Navy ships departed the Montebello Islands on 31 October. Most of the scientific staff were dropped off at Fremantle, and returned to Britain on RAF Transport Command aircraft. The rest returned on Campania, which arrived in the United Kingdom on 15 December. Hawkesbury continued to patrol the area until 15 January 1953. Outcome Two more nuclear tests were conducted in the Montebello Islands as part of Operation Mosaic in 1956, the detonations taking place on Alpha and Trimouille Islands. By the 1980s the radioactivity had decayed to the point where it was no longer hazardous to the casual visitor, but there were still radioactive metal fragments containing cobalt-60, the remains of Plym. The island remained a prohibited area until 1992. A 2006 zoological survey found that the wildlife had recovered, and that the Aprasia rostrata, the legless lizard discovered by Hill, was not extinct. As part of the Gorgon gas project, rats and feral cats were eradicated from the Montebello Islands in 2009, and birds and marsupials were transplanted from nearby Barrow Island to Hermite Island. Today, the Montebello Islands are a park. Visitors are advised not to spend more than an hour per day at the test sites, or to take relics of the tests as souvenirs. A pyramid-shaped obelisk marks the site of the explosion on Alpha Island. In 1992, Australian scientists Keith Wise and John Moroney of the