WW2 preperation sites Perth, West oz.

[tailor marc]

Fremantle's World War II Submarine Base ...

Contrary to what many Australians believe, during the first year of World War II, Japanese submarines were active in Australian waters and Japanese spy planes made surveillance flights over our major cities. With enemy submarines patrolling off the Western Australian coast, Fremantle became an important international submarine base, the largest in the Southern Hemisphere. During the war Fremantle played host to over 170 Allied submarines, with submarines of the United States, British and Dutch navies making a total of 416 war patrols out of the port between March 1942 and August 1945. The secrecy surrounding the operation of the Fremantle submarine base meant that its existence was little known at the time and, until now, has been largely forgotten by history.

This isnt a ww2 sub but its on display and you can tour through it.

[Blitzkrieg Bop]

Nice photography! To bad the sites were vandalised. Do they plan on ridding the buildings of it?

[tonyb]

Excellent photos i am from perth also.

[lithgow]

It was the 70th anniversary of the Broome attack yesterday and it was marked with a service there including a few survivors and eye witnesses to the attack-all the damage was done by a few 'Zero' naval fighters in strafing attacks-no bombs were dropped-the event came 2 weeks after the major Darwin attack-again contrary to popular belief a number of Japanese air raids of varying sizes occurred along the northern coast of Australia from WA across to Queensland mostly in 1942 but as late as 1944. Wartime censorship as well as the very small number of people who lived there (apart from native Aboriginals and even they weren't present in large concentrations) meant the raids were not at all well remembered in the national psyche. A quick glance at a map shows why the Japanese made air attacks and probes along the north coast as it's very close to the then Dutch East Indies (Indonesia), Papua New Guinea and other islands occupied and contested by them-also this resulted in large scale attacks being launched by the Allies from various sites along the coast when the counter attacks started.

[Glenn66]

My uncle was a schoolboy in far north Queensland during the early 40's and he told me once of the air raid drills the school would have. At a pre-arranged time the sirens would go off, the teachers would line the children up and they would march in file to the shelters. The teachers would mark off the children's names on a roll and then calmly enter the shelters last.

Apparantly one hot, humid day the warning system shorted out and the sirens went off unexpectantly and if Uncle Bill's story is correct, the teachers bolted and were first in the shelters!