PAST MASTERS
PastMasters
  • Home
    • About Us
    • Objects & Activities
    • Research Projects
    • Index & Links
    • Contacts
    • Latest News
  • Projects & Activities
    • EARLY MAPS >
      • Pre Flinders Maps
      • Jave Le Grande
      • Vallard Map 1547
      • Unsigned & Undated
      • DUTCH MAPS >
        • 1606 Duyfken
        • 1623 Pera & Arnhem
        • 1636 Pool Expedition
        • 1644 Tasman Map
        • 1705 van Delft 1705 >
          • Pre-Cook 1705
        • 1756 Gonzal Expedition
    • First Contact
    • HMS Beagle >
      • Watch Vessel No. 7
      • Beagle Well Darwin
      • Roman Villa Found in Darwin
    • Cairns & Burnt Mounds
    • D'Stretch Marks
    • Eyam - The Plague Days
    • Fakes & Forgeries >
      • William Westall {Flinders}
    • HMAS Patricia Cam >
      • Pat Cam 75th Anniversary
      • The Men & Their Families
      • Ship's Knee MH7
      • Beattie's Yard
      • Palermo Park Dig
      • The Sandy Sanford Story
      • Pat Cam Memorial Yirrkala
    • MACASSANS >
      • Pobassoo Island
      • Port Bradshaw
    • Matthew Flinders - The Long Way Home >
      • Flinders & HMS Cumberland
    • Miscellany >
      • Capt. Cook - Bad Hair Day
    • Mystery Objects
    • NT Fleet Review
    • NT Image Makers & Takers >
      • Foelsche Centenary 2014
      • Ted Ryko
      • Shepherdson Collection >
        • 4. Wireless & Planes
        • 6. Boats
        • 7. Fijian Staff
      • NT Painters & Sketchers
    • OSL Beach Dating
    • Shell Mounds & Middens
    • Territory Treasures >
      • The Loss of HMAS Armidale
      • Boustead Jar & Shell Dunes
      • Dundee Beach Swivel Gun
    • Top End Timeline
  • ARNHEM LAND & BEYOND
    • ADELAIDE RIVER
    • COBOURG PENINSULA >
      • PM Expedition 2017
      • Fort Wellington at Raffles Bay
      • Macarthur Journal
      • Victoria Settlement >
        • Lambrick Family Archive
        • Port Essington Jack
        • Victoria Cemetery
        • VIPs at P.E.
    • DARWIN >
      • Early Darwin >
        • Esplanade SE
        • Esplanade SW
        • Bennett Street
        • Cavanagh Street
        • Goyder's Camp & Early Darwin
        • Mitchell Street
        • Smith Street >
          • Victoria Hotel
      • The Govt. House Gun >
        • Residency Govt. House
        • Government House
      • Top End Heritage Park >
        • Darwin's Heritage Assets
        • Historic Statues
        • Pre-fabrication of Australian History
      • Bombing of Darwin
      • Channel Is. Centenary - Quarantine to Lazarette
      • Doctor's Gully >
        • ZDG Catalina Base
        • 1st Darwin Hospital
      • East Point Reserve
      • Naval Fuel Depot WW2
      • Wagait Beach
      • Z Special & Catalina Base
    • DOWN THE TRACK >
      • Coomalie Landing Ground
      • Daly Waters
      • NT Expedition 1880-89
      • Overland Telegraph & Undersea Cables >
        • OT Pole No, 1
        • OT Stations
    • ELCHO ISLAND PORTRAIT >
      • DT coin Elcho Is.
      • Elcho Past Muster - Workshops, Finds & Losses
      • Galiwin'ku Community
    • ESCAPE CLIFFS
    • GOVE PENINSULA >
      • Catalina Beach WW2
      • Control Tower Museum
      • Gove Airfield WW2
      • Gunyangara
      • Heritage Rangers
      • Nhulunbuy
      • Wurrwurrwuy Stone Pictures
      • Yirrkala
    • GAPUWIYAK
    • GOULBURN Is. Centenary
    • GROOTE EYLANDT >
      • Alyangula
      • Angurugu >
        • Angurugu Lifeboat
      • Bickerton Island
      • Emerald River
      • Groote Rock Art >
        • Angurugu Shelter
        • Groote Rock Art 2
      • Umbakumba
    • MILINGIMBI >
      • Rangers & WW2 Strip
    • OENPELLI - Gunbalanya >
      • Oenpelli Mission 1953/85
      • Oenpelli Mission -Early Days
      • Oenpelli Buffalo Days
    • RAMINGINING
    • TIMOR & Oecussi
    • TIWI ISLANDS >
      • Bathurst Island >
        • Heritage Precinct
      • Melville Island
      • Carslow Beach & the Dutch
      • Fort Dundas & Garden Point >
        • Fort Dundas Bicentenary 2024 >
          • DATES 1824
          • FIVE FORTS
        • FD & Gdn Pt. Finds
        • Lady Nelson & Stedcombe
      • Macs on Melville
      • Snake Bay - Macc Weir
    • TRUANT Is.
    • WESSEL ISLANDS >
      • Ancient Coins in Arnhem Land Expedition
      • Australians Bay
      • Hopefull Bay
      • Kora Kora 2023
      • Mary Bryant Story
      • Wessels 2018
      • Wessel Islands Radar 312RS
      • Wildcard Expedition 2019
  • PastMasters Publishing
    • Arnhemland's Lost Past
    • Early Contact North Australia
    • Wooden Weir - Milikapiti
    • Claiming Australia
    • Beagle Beach Well
    • PastMasters' Papers
  • Isenberg Hoard Analysis

RAAF Radar Station 312RS Wessel Island - Location Unknown

Picture
This Google Earth image shows the top end of Marchinbar Island. During WWII it was called Wessel Island. The large bay on the top (western) side is Jensen Bay named by Wyndham Richardson for Petty Officer Jack (Winston John) Jensen who was the resident RAN {SIS} Coastwatcher operating a W/T (Wireless telegraphy) listening post. Jensen returned in the early 1950's as caretaker of the bauxite mine.

There are many tales of Jensen's antics & the handle Mad Jack had some legitimacy. He was also a highly intelligent & well educated man, who lived & worked with Yolngu people for many years. He was described by  Beaufort pilot, Len Gairns, as sporting a long flowing beard and dancing up & down like a Mad Moses to alert them to his beach sign giving directions  to the survivors of the wreck of HMAS Patricia Cam - on the lonely beach on Garurra Island - where casualties of the Japanese action, Stoker Percy Cameron & passenger Gitjbapuy Marrkulu, lie to this day in adjacent grave that were lost for 70 years.


The location of the radar station remains a mystery although new information & mapping form descendants of servicemen has recently come to light and resolves previous anomalies. The location of the doover, mess and camp are the key to locating the precise spot where, in 1944, radar operator Morry Isenberg discovered the Ancient African coins  that are by far the oldest foreign artefacts ever to have been found in Australia.


Light Weight/Air Warning Radar

The LW/AW set was developed in 1942 in Australia by the Council for Scientific and Industrial Research (later CSIRO) Radiophysics Laboratory in response to the need for a portable air defence radar station that could be readily deployed in northern Australia, New Guinea and the islands to Australia's north. The sets were built by the NSW Railways workshops. A total of 56 units were used by the Australian forces, 60 by the US Army in the Pacific and a further 12 in Burma.

To facilitate portability, the LW/AW set had a hand-turned aerial - the radar equipment and operator were housed in a canvas tent and the photos on this page show the internal layout. The operator, transmitting equipment and antenna all sat on a rotating platform which the operator turned by hand, thus changing the direction of view of the set. The operator's display was a small cathode-ray tube 'A-scope' (range-only display). The physical orientation of the antenna, read off a bearing scale at the top of the antenna shaft, gave the direction of target returns.

One advantage of this method of operation for air defence purposes was that the radar could either be used in search mode, by scanning back and forth through an arc or all around, or in track mode by continuously 'looking' at a particular return of interest, or in a combination of both modes.

Diary from Radar Returns
21-04-1943     Equipment loaded on S.S. Islander
22-04-1943     Unit departs
23-04-1943     Unit arrives at Wessel Is.  Unloading commenced
15-05-1943     Radar operational
23-07-1944     Tower for radar commenced
11-08-1944     Radar tower completed
15-08-1944     Operations ceased - radar moved to tower
16-08-1944     Operations recommenced from tower
21-01-1945     Unit arrives at Thursday Is. - Equip unloaded
31-01-1945     Unit arrives in Darwin for move south
02-02-1945       Unit leaves Darwin NT
Picture
Richardson passed through Milingimbi on his first visit by air. On his return by sea he was caught up in the Japanese bombing and the sinking of the Maroubra which had been towed out from Darwin to assist in the unloading of stores for the rapidly growing air force base. There's a shot of the Maroubra on fire in the gallery below & more about her on our Milingimbi website page.


RAAF Surveyor Wyndham Richardson's Story

Picture
This field map was drawn by Pilot Officer Wyndham Richardson who flew to Jensen Bay on Marchinbar Island in April 1943 to survey the sites for an RAAF radar doover & camp.

‘My first visit to North Wessel Island early in April 1943 was in the course of two exploratory flights over East Arnhem Land (from Millingimbi Air Strip as base) for the purpose of finding the most suitable site in that area for a coastal radar installation, my duty being to survey and report on features and resources of any sites found scientifically suitable by F/Lt. Wadesley of 44 Radio Wing, for what was to be No.312 Radar Station.

A month later, although I had no fore­knowledge  of  this at the time of  my first visit, I was  to return  to the chosen site in charge  of  a detachment  of  men from No.1  Mobile Works  Squadron  to construct the necessary facilities.

In April 1943, I felt that only a meagre minority of ‘booted' {non-indigenous} Australians beside ourselves had explored this well-nigh northernmost extremity of our Continent.    As for Jensen,  he walked  barefooted  and  extinguished  his  cigarette butts by  standing on  one  leg,  raising  the  other heel  and  rubbing  the smouldering stub  against  it. The only evidence  I was  to see on  this  island  of  earlier visitors was  the  small sheet iron hut  and  wireless  aerial  erected by  the Navy  to house  this solitary Coastal Watcher,  who  kept  radio contact  twice  a day with  Darwin.

Wadesley and I leave with No.1 Boy, "Djingalu ' and No.2 Boy ''Too Dark" to explore a likely area north of Jensen's Hut, as earlier sighted from the plane. Found suitable sites for both radar installation and camp for personnel at five miles northerly from Jensen's hut, and only about a mile northerly from a good landing beach within a wide bay which I named "Two Isle Bay". Erected stone cairns at the respective sites. Elevation for site for "Doover" measured 190ft. above H.W. mark of sea and lay within a 10 acre patch of jungle. I named this hilltop "Green Ant Hill".  (Green ants had swarmed over us as I supported Wadesley in a tree limb to enable him to see the horizon, take readings and conduct calculations with his slide rule.)’


312rs_recalled_beard.pdf
File Size: 82 kb
File Type: pdf
Download File

Picture

This image was taken by Wyndham Richardson who surveyed the radar doover & camp sites and returned to construct the camp in mid 1943. His daughter has kindly allowed access to his papers. If anyone has further information or would like a copy of the image please let us know. There was a high level of secrecy concerning radar activity and records are hard to find. This secrecy is especially prevalent in the coast watch operations which were under the Secret Intelligence Service and whose records moved north with Macarthur's HQ after the privations of downtown Melbourne. Coastwatchers included civilians such as missionary Thornell at Yirrkala.

Much of the material on this page has been supplied courtesy of Wyndham Richardson's daughter Ann Brothers, Prof. Bennett's daughter Jane Bennett - radar historians & devotees Ian McKellar, Alex Culvenor and Steve Allan of the Office of Air Force History at Fairbairn in Canberra.

echoesrrws_-_radar_stn_paper.pdf
File Size: 2828 kb
File Type: pdf
Download File


PictureCE Hoffman with Yolngu boys near Jensen Bay in 1943 the medal may be a Darwin pass.
In the attached photo, taken 2nd June 1943 by Wyndham Richardson of CE Hoffman with the local gang the image is annotated Swivel Eye 5th from left at back & at right is Snowball. Jane Bennett has worked with the families to add the following - 'it shows the tall boy with medallion is Mingyi. To his right (second in from left) is Balilbalil and next to him on the far left is Thapa. On the far right is Malawa's father (number 2 Malawa). Second in from right is a girl that James (Djingulul's son) thought might be Rosie, his eldest sister, now deceased. Given the dates, I think it is more likely to be Mary, his mother and Gamaritj's older sister, but I didn't test this thinking with Gamaritj.

The maker of our dilly bag, Djingulul's first wife (his brother's widow), known to us as Natalie, a mission girl from Yirrkala, is known to people at Galiwin'ku as Ngatili. Her father is Liapan, whose brothers are Dhunggala and Djoniwuy. I think Ngatali's family might also have been Djarrwalawal and Ganbaltji though by this time I had lost track of the relationship. Garrudju (Jane) was well across all this.'

Some Top End Radar Stations

The Discovery of 312RS Site

Proudly powered by Weebly