A year remembered since the passing of Flight Lieutenant Joe Pasquini
Flt Lt Joe Pasquini
FLT LT JOE PASQUINI by his daughter, Simone.
He flew through freshly bloomed thermonuclear mushroom clouds for the safety and security of the nation.
It has been a year since you left us and the legacy of your service as a member of the 76 Squadron during the British Nuclear Tests on Christmas Island is ever present.
Not many men can say they have flown through the cloud of a freshly deployed thermonuclear bomb. Even fewer can say they have flown through the cloud of a freshly deployed thermonuclear bomb numerous times as you were required to make a number of cuts through the clouds at various altitudes.
It was your duty as a member of the Royal Air Force – a duty which you undertook at the time without question as you were there to serve Queen and country. It was the Cold War and you and your colleagues were a fundamental part of the ‘furtherance of the national policy of peace through strength’.
You were literally in the middle of the ‘Nuclear Deterrent’.
On September 2nd, 1958 you and your colleagues in the Primary Sampler plane made 2 passes into the thermonuclear cloud to gather first-hand radiation readings of the megaton bombs strength … in the name of ‘peace’. 60 days later, on October 31st, 1958 The Conference on the Discontinuance of Nuclear Weapon Tests commenced in Geneva.
It has been a tough year without you on many different levels.
How can we step into your empty shoes? … not only for the family but also a legacy left to the nation. Peace.
How fortunate have we been these past 7 decades to live free from the worry of a nuclear war… that is until now. Today, we are reminded almost daily in the press of the imminent threat of a nuclear weapon being deployed. Will we consciously know when this new ‘Cold’ War of politics and sanctions turns ‘Hot’… or will it be too late by then?
Do we need to re-watch that iconic 1983 movie ‘The Day After’ – as a reminder of the perils of nuclear war?
The weekend after the program aired you commandeered the dining room table – dusting off your navigation equipment and maps charting, through your RAF training, to understand if we would survive a nuclear blast on the closest city to us.
How can we forget this?
Perhaps more importantly – how can we remember?
How can we remember what you - and your colleagues - did all those years ago to keep us safe?
During the last years of his life Flt Lt Joe Pasquini was a big advocate for the recognition of all British Nuclear Test Veterans and worked closely with the BNTVA (https://www.bntva.com/).
We would like to use the one year anniversary of his passing to shed light on his service – and those of his colleagues in the air, on the ground, and at sea. Their legacy, and what they did for their country, should not be forgotten… even more so today.
