Overall, an average sunset tonight (not that I could make one) but another HOT day. Tomorrow is mean to be hotter. The jetty at Squid's Ink in Belmont South. Out.
Oh, incidently, just to the left this happened:
WHO could ever imagine Belmont South being Lake Macquarie's front line of coastal defence in the dark, desperate days of World War II?
Decades ago, a 20-metre-wide by 1.5-metre-deep anti-tank ditch was dug there to halt any rapid enemy advance. Lots of scrub was also cleared to give Aussie machine-gunners a clear field of fire in any combat scenario.
We know the site today as Cold Tea Creek, and a reported 1500 tall timber posts were sunk in this defence canal as an obstacle to enemy tanks.
This long line of stout posts once stretched from the lake to the ocean.
Near the Pacific Highway bridge across the creek today there's still even some old, concrete, pyramid-shaped tank traps hidden away among bush as extra WWII mementoes.
As the amazing and rare aerial photograph of the scene (taken in 1942 despite wartime censorship) shows, those timber posts stretched far out into Lake Macquarie itself.
In that year, the Australian Army held serious fears that our then Japanese enemy would invade, landing at Blacksmiths Beach in force.
It was feared the enemy would quickly push north to knock out Australia's industrial heart at Newcastle, with its steelworks, weapons factories, ship-repair and ship-building facilities.
At the same time, there were serious concerns that Japanese troops would simultaneously invade Port Stephens, landing at a virtually unprotected Fingal Bay beach before driving south.
Through this swift, decisive pincer movement, Newcastle's crucial heavy industry could be taken out of the war.
It was believed the Japanese military didn't intend to go any further, but simply hang on, bleeding our nation of much-needed steel, ships and armaments.
Around Fullerton Cove, near Stockton, the Australian military had secret plans to dynamite the Port Stephens road if Japanese soldiers approached.
Things looked grim for Newcastle-Lake Macquarie in the early war years. Britain's fortress at Singapore its Asian Gibraltar had fallen, as had the Philippines. The Japanese had launched a surprise attack on Pearl Harbour in Hawaii and a Japanese submarine had even shelled Sydney and Newcastle, causing panic.
Today, to mark the 70th anniversary of the outbreak of World War II last week, let's look at some lesser-known facets of Lake Macquarie's war.
Many people now know about our secret radar base, 208RS, above Catherine Hill Bay, where two big, curved, concrete bunkers still survive.
Probably the most neglected piece of lake history, though, is public knowledge of the anti-tank ditch dug at Cold Tea Creek, Belmont South, in 1942.
For years now, Lake Macquarie councillor Laurie Coghlan has pushed to have the historic canal placed on the state heritage register.
"We've all heard of World War II's 'Brisbane line', being the last line of defence the enemy wasn't allowed to cross. That's of national significance. Well, I think our anti-tank ditch at Belmont South, which soldiers dug by hand, is just as important for us here at the lake," he said.
"I'm told that in the 1950s, young kids would walk along the tops of the poles for fun, going far out into the lake so they could get out to the deepest part, then jump off the end. Those poles have disappeared, but there are other reminders.
"There's still hundreds of these timber posts in the creek and elsewhere, for example, to remind us of our WWII defences there.
"The posts, maybe of turpentine, were sunk down in the ditch to have the same amount sticking up above as was buried below in the creek. That's why the remaining posts still stick up about five feet [1.5 metres]," Coghlan said.
"From documents I've seen, the height of the posts sticking out of the creek was what might have stopped advancing Japanese tanks. What's left of these obstacles shows they're spaced the width of a 44-gallon drum apart.
"I went with engineers to the creek around 2000/2001 and a lot of that WWII history research material has now gone into the Lake Macquarie Council archives."
Coghlan said the Belmont defence line, however, was never really completed.
"The soldiers doing the work were all bivouacked in the Belmont sand dunes, and after Darwin was bombed they were quickly moved north, via Adelaide, by train and buses to reinforce Australia's northern frontier."
The Lake councillor first drew public attention to the surviving WWII anti-tank posts in late 2007, while pushing for a heritage walk to be created next to the creek.
"The Belmont Lagoon Committee has also been working on this walk for some time. Cold Tea Creek as we now know it didn't exist before the war. There was an inlet to the lake, sure, but not as much," he said.
"Because of this, Belmont Lagoon used to regularly dry up. It was so dry that motorbike races were held on the lagoon site in the 1930s.
"After the WWII ditch was dug, upright poles stretched 100 metres out into the lake and in the other direction out across the sand dunes to the ocean. This line was also meant to go north to Redhead, but not south."
Coghlan said other relics of Lake Macquarie's WWII role apparently still survived at Blacksmiths.
"Telegraph-type long poles used for the anti-submarine boom nets in Swansea Channel were later recycled. Lights were then installed on them at Blacksmiths tennis court," Coghlan said.
"And, as far as I know, those same light poles at Blacksmiths are still in service today."
"This long line of stout posts once stretched from the lake to the ocean."
Author: Mike Scanlon
Date: 12/09/2009
Words: 938
Source: NCH
Publication: Newcastle Herald
Section: H2
Page: 10
