Chapter 1 attends to the historical context of British bomb testing through an exploration of contrasting accounts of nuclear risk. It juxtaposes archival and official narratives of military risk management with test veterans’ own memories of hazardous events. This reveals the jarring mismatch that test veterans experienced when encountering official records detailing moments their younger selves experienced first-hand. I explore how radiation measurement technologies, material infrastructures, and a military culture of hierarchical trust negated the perception of risk, yet still left room for servicemen to experience doubt and fear. This chapter also places the harms to service personnel in the wider colonial context of racial hierarchies and the theft of lands, revealing how stories of Indigenous injury became uncertain undercurrents within test veterans’ own narratives.