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Bankstown Bunker

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The Bankstown Bunker (Air Defence Headquarters Sydney) is a disused RAAF operations facility, located on the Corner of Marion and Edgar Streets, Condell Park, in the City of Bankstown, New South Wales Australia. Its locality is Black Charlie's Hill.

During World War II, when Bankstown Airport was established as a key strategic air base to support the war effort, the specially constructed bunker became an important Royal Australian Air Force control point and headquarters from 1945 until it was closed in 1947.

It was the heart of the Australian defence network, where, in co-operation with the highest officers of Navy and Army, Australian bombers and fighters were controlled in defence and attack against the enemy from this location.
The Bankstown Bunker still exists and it is currently buried under a public park at the end of Taylor Street, Condell Park.

History

This facility was once a three story semi-underground Royal Australian Air force base that was used covertly during the Second World War. It is classified as a "semi-underground building" as work commenced in late 1942. The facility cost ₤30,579 to build and its official commissioning was in January 1945 as the headquarters for the Sydney Air Defence Headquarters. This unit had previously operated from the Capital Hall picture theatre in Bankstown and a tunnel under the St. James Railway station. The primary use of the Sydney Air Defence Headquarters was the location, tracking and interception of all planes in the eastern area of the South West Pacific.

The bunker was manned by :

The bunker was manned at all times in shifts called "Flights". Many of the bunker workers were local, however accommodation was provided for them in Chapel Road Bankstown. Transport to the bunker for the workers was supplied by buses with blacked out windows. All workers had to undergo strict training for this particular assignment including plane identification which was also provided at chapel road Bankstown. A transmitting station for the bunker was located in Johnston Road, Bass Hill and was a building of above ground construction.

The bunker appears to have been decommissioned when the ADHQ was disbanded in 1947. A caretaker was then assigned to the take care of the bunker.

After the war the base was disbanded and it wasn't until 1971, The then editor of Bankstown's Torch Newspaper, Phil Engisch was invited by members of No. 2 Stores Depot RAAF in Regents Park into the bunker for "disposal of surplus assets", many photos were taken and an article was placed in local newspapers detailing the find. In 1972 the bunker was set on fire by arsonists. In 1976 the land the bunker is built under was acquired by the NSW department of housing and redeveloped into the town houses which now cover most of the site. The area now comprises a number of separate complexes or "Closes" containing eight to eleven villas. Each Close is named appropriately after aeroplanes which flew from Bankstown during the Second World War.

Inside the bunker

The Bankstown Bunker was an exact replica of the underground Ops rooms of wartime England, which directed Britain's air defence fighter plane attacks on the invading German Luftwaffe. Entrance to the bunker was obtained through a concrete passageway which was well screened by a grassy slope; a stairway led to a virtual maze of corridors and hallways leading to various sections. There were two points into to the bunker (escape hatches) which were guarded by military police, and access was gained via the bottom level.

The walls of the bunker were 1.5 metres thick and it could almost withstand a direct hit from a 300lbs bomb. It had all the attenuated fixtures necessary to run a top secret operational defence base. It consisted of three Fixer Stations and one Homing Station. The bunker was also equipped with its own code room, plotting rooms, two escape tunnels and a radio transmitter room. In the centre of the bunker was a large room of about two-stories in height. This was the main Ops room and control centre for all RAAF Missions in the Pacific area. The room also had a large map, (24' x 18') denoting troop positions in the South West Pacific theater of World War II. The facilities inside the bunker also had to cater for the full time staff who lived and worked in the facility, they worked on a rotating roster that involved living in the bunker for two-week periods. The living quarters consisted of its own kitchen, dining area, bathrooms and bedrooms. The bunker also had its own generator', air conditioning and switchboards which directed fifty telephone lines. The telephone lines went to various locations including radar stations and VAOC lookout posts which reported aircraft locations to the bunker. There are rumours of a tunnel running from the bunker to an unknown location.

Location

There is a small reserve between the town houses at the end of Taylor Street. It is under this hill that the bunker has been buried. The entrance to the bunker has now been sealed and the area over the top of the bunker has been landscaped to conceal its position. It is now completely undetectable from the street. It is still possible to enter the site.

Future plans for the site

There have been several plans for uses for the bunker since the 1970s including a car park and museum. The most recent plan was put forth by the Australian Bunker and Military Museum in Queensland (ABMM) to Bankstown city council in 2006, but nothing has come of it. As of March 2007, Bankstown Council will find out if the State and Federal Governments are interested in having the Condell Park World War II bunker heritage listed.

Other confirmed bunkers in the City of Bankstown

There is one other confirmed bunker in Bankstown which is a "Remote Receiving station" little is known about its history, however it has been noted that it was "heavily vandalised" in 1945. It was located in Picnic Point National Park, near the South Sydney Power station, according to residents of the area, it still exists. There are several other bunkers in the Bankstown area, such as under an electricity block house on the corner of Milperra road and Henry Lawson Drive, a demolished bunker under Condell Park High School.

During World War 2, Bankstown was a hive for military activity. Bankstown Airport was home to several fighter units and several "dummy houses" existed in and around Bankstown Airport. These houses were built to make Bankstown Airport and its surrounds appear as farm. Military personnel who worked in Bankstown lived in the area around Chapel Road (where Paul Keating Park and the council chambers are located today). Training facilities for the various plotting rooms around Sydney were also located in the area.

Also, during World War 2, Chullora was selected as the site for a major wartime manufacturing plant. The site once occupied several hundred acres of land surrounded by Rookwood Cemetery, Brunker Road, the Hume Highway and Centenary Drive. The site was said to have been the largest secret manufacturing plant in Australia which was used for the production of military weapons, plane components, tanks, and ordnance. Over two-thousand men and woman were employed to work at the factory on a daily basis. During the war the factory produced components for 700 Beaufort, 380 Beaufighter and up to 50 Lincoln aircraft. Over 54 ACI tanks were built as well as 60 General Lee tanks that were adapted for use in the Australian Military, as were local jeeps in the 70s. The factory also produced 81 cupola turrets for the British Matilda tanks.

An underground "bunker" and tunnel system is located on this site. It is directly under a block flats in Davidson Street and Marlene Crescent. The entrance to the "bunker" is by steel doors set in concrete into the hillside in a railway cutting which runs from alongside the railway line parallel to Marlene Crescent at a platform called the Railwelders and which leads under the block of flats. The doors to this "bunker" were welded up sometime during the late 1980s. The ventilation shafts that were once visible from the Hume Highway have been removed.

Apart from the bunker, there is also a network of storage facilities that extend under the railway workshop. Sometime between 1977 to 1978 the steel access doors were fitted with locks (Railway SL type). The steel access doors were bolted into the side of a stormwater drain which runs along the old RTA building in Chullora, then under the Hume Hwy and eventually under the rail workshop. It has also been alleged that a tunnel approximately four miles long connects this complex with the Bankstown Bunker and its previous location at the Capitol Hall in Bankstown.

Burke's Backyard
The Bankstown Bunker was on an episode of Burke's Backyard. Don Burke conducted part of the show from inside the bunker. To enter the bunker he had to crawl in through an air vent.

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Last updated on Friday March 07, 2008 at 01:46:59 PST (GMT -0800)
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