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| Adelaide River via Wikipedia |
Thank you to Ray Robinson and Jeff White for this week's feature - we love nostalgia!
Jeff: In our feature in Wavescan today, Ray Robinson brings together four unusual but quite fascinating items of information, under the title, "The Adelaide River Story":
• a large temporary American city in Australia's Outback
• an American radio station in Australia with a foreign callsign
• an undetected Australian radio station, and
• the ‘jumping alligator’!
So, Ray, tell us more!
Ray: Thanks, Jeff. Yes, the river called Adelaide River is in Australia, but it’s nowhere near the city of Adelaide. Instead, it’s right at the northern tip of the country in the Northern Territory, and is a short but broad river, just 148 miles long. It’s navigable for 3/4 of its length and it runs from south to north, emptying into the Van Diemen Gulf about 20 miles east of Darwin. But like the city of Adelaide, the Adelaide River was named in honor of Queen Adelaide of England, the aunt of Queen Victoria. Adelaide was a German princess who, as the wife of King William IV, not only became queen of Great Britain and Ireland from 1830-1837, but was also queen of the German state of Hanover. Adelaide and William had no surviving children, so when William died of heart failure in 1837, their niece, Victoria, became the new monarch.
Now, on the Adelaide River is a town by the same name, Adelaide River, which is a small settlement approximately 70 miles south of Darwin. Originally, the area was inhabited by the nomadic Kungarakan and Warai Aborigines. In 1871, a small settlement was established for workers who were installing the overland telegraph that connected the north to the south of Australia. Two years later, a small store and cafe were opened at Adelaide River, and 15 years later again, the railway line from Darwin reached the little settlement.
During World War II, just four days after the fall of Singapore in February 1942, the Japanese launched two separate air raids against the town of Darwin, the Allied shipping in Darwin harbor, and the town’s two airfields. Panic-stricken residents and forces personnel fled to the town of Adelaide River, overrunning the area, which quickly became the headquarters of the Australian army in the Northern Territory.
The purpose of the air raids had been to prevent the Allies from using Darwin as a base from which to contest the Japanese invasion of Timor and Java, not far off the northern coast of Australia. So quite soon afterwards, American personnel began to flood into the area, until, at the height of their activities in Australia, some 30,000 Americans were encamped at Adelaide River. They brought with them all that was necessary to sustain life and activity in the area, and this included their own hospital, food preparation, living quarters, and all of the necessary hardware to defend Australia's northern border with Asia.
It is understood that the American camp at Adelaide River was the largest single concentration of American personnel anywhere in Australia. It was indeed a temporary American city, if you please, in Australia's great outback.
There was a need for a major radio station at Adelaide River for long-distance communication and so a search began in January 1943 for a suitable location. A site was chosen a couple of miles northeast of the town on a huge cattle ranch called Mt. Bundy Station, and U.S. Navy personnel began construction work for the new project. In less than two months, on March 25, 1943, the communication radio station became operational, with several shortwave transmitters in the range of 10 kW.
Interestingly, this new shortwave radio station was identified on air using the callsign KAZ. The callsign KAZ was not an Australian callsign, nor an American continental callsign, but rather it was borrowed from the Philippines, which, before the war, had been an American territory. The callsign KAZ had previously been used by the RCA communication station on the outskirts of Manila from 1930 until the end of 1941.
The decision to use this same callsign, KAZ, in Australia for the large radio communication station at Adelaide River was apparently made by General Douglas MacArthur, partly to confuse unwanted listeners in Asia as to the actual location of the station, and also to indicate a close link with the Philippines.
The Adelaide River station was in frequent communication with other American stations throughout Australia and also in the islands north of Australia. This station communicated regular forces information, and also the flow of news that was subsequently released for use on radio and in newspapers in Australia and the United States. During its 1½ years on the air, station KAZ in Australia was also in frequent communication with small groups of people in the Philippine islands.
As decisive events in the Pacific began to move north away from Australia, American personnel moved out of the area, and the main traffic through station KAZ at Adelaide River was transferred to Hollandia in Dutch New Guinea on November 21, 1944. The shortwave station at Adelaide River remained on the air for almost another year, with the American Seabees (the U.S. Naval Construction Forces) installing their own small communication station at the same location a few months before the entire facility was closed.
The Mt. Bundy Cattle Station itself is now a tourist resort, and the few remains of the U.S. Navy communication station KAZ are simply historic reminders of an important era in the state's illustrious past.
But we should also mention that there was an Australian entertainment radio station on the air at Adelaide River. In March 1944, a request was made to Australian Army headquarters in Melbourne, and approval was granted. A small station was installed, apparently running just 20 watts on 1440 kHz. This new radio station was inaugurated in May 1944 under the callsign 5DR. The transmitter was provided by the PMG Department, and programming was provided by Army personnel with frequent relays taken off-air from shortwave stations operated by the ABC. This temporary station was on the air for a period of around six months, but it remained completely undetected by any radio monitors in Australia and New Zealand.
In October of the same year, work commenced on a new and more substantial broadcasting station at Adelaide River, but the project was abandoned just before it was completed; most of the personnel had moved away from the area and the station was no longer needed. In time, another 5DR medium wave station was erected in Darwin itself, and this call was subsequently amended to 8DR, with shortwave coverage later being added for outback areas in the Northern Territory.
The glory days of the town of Adelaide River with its huge population base, are long since gone. These days, local surveys tell us that the town of Adelaide River has a population of just 190 people, but it does possess a major tourist attraction. Travelers passing through the area like to stop at Adelaide River and go for a cruise on the river itself. The attraction is the unique freshwater jumping crocodile. This species obligingly will jump 8-10 feet out of the water to catch food suspended from poles by the captains of passing tourist boats. There are 5 different companies operating on the Adelaide River offering tours for people to see the unique jumping crocodiles, the most famous of which is the Adelaide River Queen.
(Ray Robinson/Wavescan 31 May 2026)
Back to you Jeff ....
For an audio clip of –
Adelaide River Queen, go to this week's edition at:
