A squadron RAAF, preparing to drop their acoustic torpedoes.

Dear reader, another installment of, “when we could really do things” a time before the ‘innovation revolution’ and ‘thought bubbles’, were a mere….. ‘thought bubble’.. Another tale of Derring do when innovation was a byword for ‘can-do-ism’.  And if you couldn’t improvise, you’d just volunteer and stick a bayonet in Jerry. Read on. 

‘Anson’s over the Australia’.  Oil on Canvas signed 1942, (artistes impression)

This is perhaps the last image taken of the Australia building, Once the tallest building in the world, (or arguably the southern hemisphere). It served both a prominent and symbolic role in protecting Melbourne from the imminent threat of Japanese invasion during those dark days of 1942.

Fiendish Japanese radio detection crew. 14th Sukiyaki at work intercepting allied code.

Radio detection crew, busy at ” detecting’

In those early months of 1942, the threat of invasion was very real. The Ministry of Defence, searching for an early warning system to augment the coastal defence systems at Point Nepean and Queenscliff, were looking to radar. An initial radar array constructed along the ridge-line of the Dandenong ranges could detect aircraft up to 200 miles away and as demonstrated during the Battle of Britain, would give adequate time for the squadrons of Wirraways, Buffalo’s and Beaufort’s time enough to be airborne and direct the smack bang into the middle of the enemy. Unfortunately due to an administrative error, a scheduled “Controlled Burn” was initiated along the north face of the range in mid January. In no time, the entire radar array was engulfed in flame, the crews incinerated, and all that remained, as the enquiry states were a ‘molten heap of metal and what to all intents and purposes resembled a pile of bed frames”. With the fall of Singapore in February 1942 the situation was so dire, the Ministry advertised publicly for “an invention or instrument that would provide at the most impossibly brief short notice protection from oncoming Japanese aircraft and surface fleets’.

Wilfred T Bumbleton. Deaf inventor of Radio Detection Device.

Upon this hour of need, a deaf amateur radio technician, raised his hand. Wilfred T Bumbleton is virtually unknown today, Yet in 1942 he developed the world’s first transceiver diode detection unit. A simple adaptation to any AWA or Radiola wireless. It could be transformed into a small hand held radio frequency wave detector. By sending out a series of short high frequency blips it could detect with stunning accuracy any surface vessel up to 500 miles distant. It could also, with a trained morse instructor receive and send signals. Giving, distance, height, speed and location of any incoming object, and point with incredible accuracy to the shortest route of interception. In a word, “A true war winning weapon”. The Ministry of Air Defence quickly set about to adapt several thousand radio receivers into a grid and placed an array of some fifty fully automated sets upon the uppermost floor of the Australia Building, then Australia’s highest structure. Satisfied that they were now capable of early warning, they waited for the feared onslaught. To ensure the systems inviability under invasion, the ground floor and all entrances were sealed in concrete. The system was impregnable.

Armorer prepares to activate the Acoustic torpedo by winding up the spring. Serviceman, polishing the warhead.

Curiously, nothing happened for several weeks, and then as if compressed like a spring, sightings and detection literally went through the roof. In a space of twenty four hours the coastline was seemingly ringed with hostile aircraft carriers, the waters were teeming with midget submarines, and the air, drenched in incoming bombers, fighter and float planes. Entering a state of red alert the defences were put on standby and every available resource bough to bear on the expected attack. However it was revealed rather than detecting aircraft and hostile forces, the array was picking up friendly forces and though process of radio magnetic triangular dissonance was multiplying their existence some twenty fold. Worse still friendly forces were in active combat with each other with tragic loss of life. Faced with an invasion on itself, and war with its own people, the Ministry of Defence had no option but to bomb the Australia building and cut off the ring of radio directed terror that had enveloped the state. A flight of some twelve Avro Anson’s armed with acoustic torpedoes delivered the coup de grace and the building, the radio and the inventor were vanquished from the face of the earth.