Blogs

Nothing to HARP about in Barbados

Posted by CaribShout on July 10, 2009 at 11:23pm

The HARP gun – all 136 feet, 280 tonnes of it – is still an impressive sight as it points out to sea. The salt-laden air has wreaked havoc on the brainchild of Dr Gerald Bull; it is now a far cry from its original state. HEATHER-LYNN EVANSON THE YEAR WAS 1963. On a sunny afternoon, foreign and Barbadian journalists, Canadian scientists, United States army men and goggling locals gathered on the cliffs at Paragon, Christ Church, to witness a first. "Wind - zero-niner zero; one five knots gusting to two five knots; visibility one five nautical miles," came the voice of a meteorological officer. The 136-foot long, 280-tonne gun barrel slowly inched its way to an 80 degree angle, raising its 16-inch bore into the air.Men huddled in bunkers as scientists made last-minute feverish checks. The countdown came to an end. The resulting explosion rocked Barbados. The aftermath of the blast lingered for seconds; the trail of sound continued as the speeding projectile 'the Martlet', which had been boosted by at least 300 pounds of cordite, cut a path through the atmosphere. The HARP (High Altitude Research Project) gun had just been fired. The boom was heard in St Philip, while houses in Christ Church rattled and cracked from the force of the explosion. One St Philip resident remembers the shell of the projectile falling back in a cow pen in what was then called Penny-Hole, St Philip (now Gemswick); a resident in Christ Church said his house shook and [its foundation] cracked. "The whole of Barbados felt it," he said. The project was a rousing success. More than 100 locals had found employment building the infrastructure to get the massive cannons from an offshore United States Navy vessel to the beach and the then Government got its radar system at the then Seawell airport it maintained. In its hey day, it and its creator brought glory to Barbados and in the end, it and its creator faded into the annals of time, shrouded in mystery and shame. The HARP gun was the brainchild of brilliant Canadian engineer and scientist Dr Gerald Bull. Its purpose was to find a different way to propel meteorological instruments into the atmosphere so researchers could study meteorites, wind patterns and other weather features. The cannon could be lifted vertically, diagonally or remain horizontally as Bull experimented with the right angle at which to get instruments into the atmosphere horizontally, the projectile might just pass through the atmosphere and disappear into space; the theory was if the projectile were fired diagonally, the missile would eventually fall back to earth due to gravitational pull. At sea, boats and more engineers tracked the projectile's progress and waited to collect the fallen payload. But that was more than 40 years ago. By 1967, the programme had been scrapped - behind-the-scenes wrangling in Canada and rumours of its creator Dr Gerald Bull's ties to the white racist South African government led to its demise. In 1990, an unknown Israeli agent pumped seven bullets into Bull's back as he entered his Brussels, Belgium apartment. His murder was never solved. Today the hills around Paragon are relatively quiet, barring the weapons fired by Barbados Defence Force soldiers; the reasons for the explosions slowly rust away. The HARP gun is a mere shadow of its once glorious technological self. Billed as the world's longest gun, the HARP gun still holds that distinction. The rust that flakes from the barrel is lost in the thick underbrush that covers most of the machinery. Smaller guns sit forlornly; switching equipment litters the ground; railway tracks are shrouded by bush. The empty bunker, in which scientists took refuge at the firing of the gun, is now empty; its windows look sadly out to sea. A nearby cave holds the cast-off equipment and storage racks that once filled the bunker. * heatherlynevanson@nationnews.com

Community

Culture

Entertainment

Food

Health