Australian Daily Telegraph Friday 6th May 2011 By: Henry Budd (Harbour Reporter)
It’s a top secret tunnel, lost in time, beneath Sydney’s garden Island naval base. These images (pictures was in the paper) reveal a hidden piece of our city’s military past.
Two separate tunnel systems were blasted out of the sandstone under garden Island during World War II.
They were to serve as air-raid shelters in case the Royal Australian Navy base was attacked.
It is not known if this latrine was ever used but the toilets form just one part of the tunnel system that remains deep below the surface, hidden from public view – until now.
One system was built at the base’s northern end, with another dug into the slope running down from Potts point.
Garden Island historian and former ADI electrical compliance co-ordinator David Stockman has been researching the tunnels for five years.
Mr Stockman believes there may be yet another tunnel – this one running from the base to the heart of the city.
People keep telling me about a tunnel to the city but I’m yet to find a record of it, he said. I don’t know if it exists but I can’t rule it out.
But if anyone is going to get to the bottom of the secrets held deep beneath the base, it is Mr Stockman.
He worked at the naval complex for 40 years and both his grandfather and father worked on the island.
But finding historical records on the tunnels was proving difficult, he said.
The National Archive recognise my login, I’ve been searching their records so much, Mr Stockman said.
I’ve only been able to find one historical photo of the tunnels.
While The Daily Telegraph was given an exclusive tour of the northern air-raid shelter this week, the southern one was off limits.
We were also requested to delete images of one of the entrances such as the secrecy surrounding them.
The northern most bunker is made up of five interconnecting tunnels that once housed back-up generators, a telephone exchange and a casualty clearing station.
Cut into the sandstone and supported with wooden struts, the original tunnel systems would have resembled a wild west mine, Mr Stockman said.
During a refurbishment in 1978, most of the tunnels were reinforced with concrete and steel. They are now only used to run communication and fuel lines across the Island.
Some tunnels were named after London landmarks, including Petticoat Lane and Saunders Corner, but details are still rough. When or who gave the tunnels their names is lost deep in history, Mr Stockman said.
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