Melbourne W/T Shadow Signal Station RAAF, "Frognall", 54 Mont Albert Rd., Canterbury, Melbourne, Victoria

MELBOURNE W/T SHADOW SIGNAL STATION RAAF
"FROGNALL", 54 MONT ALBERT ROAD,
CANTERBURY, MELBOURNE, VIC

Approval was granted in about November 1942 for Melbourne W/T Shadow Signal Station (Wireless Telegraphy) to be established at "Frognall", at 54 Mont Albert Road, Canterbury, VIC. At that time "Frognall" was being leased to Australian Estates Company Ltd., William Street, Melbourne as emergency accommodation for their city business. The Secretary of Australian Estates Co., Mr W.L. Taylor was also Adjutant of No.3 Squadron ATC which was using one room in "Frognall" for accommodation. A caretaker was also in residence at the rear of the house.

Action was initiated to secure "Frognall" for Air Force purposes under National Security (General) Regulations through Hirings Service. "Frognall" was estimated by K. Gardner & Lang Pty. Ltd. to have a fair value of £18, 400.

"Frognall" was to provide less vulnerable signals facilities and living accommodation for 450 personnel. The property was eventually purchased by the Commonwealth Government on 29 September 1943.

The RAAF started to erect additional buildings (huts) on the vacant land (7 acres, 1 Rood, 4 Perches) adjoining the house on 1 November 1942 and carry out some modifications to the main house. These buildings additional buildings were eventually demolished in the 1980s. During WW2 the property was surrounded by a double fence topped with barbed wire. A guard box was erected to prevent unauthorised access to the site. The stables were significantly altered internally by the RAAF over the years.

Many women of the Women`s Auxiliary Australian Air Force (WAAAF) carried out signals duties at "Frognall" during WW2. "Frognall" continued to be used by the RAAF Telecommunication Unit after WW2. In 1976 its role changed when it was utilised by RAAF engineer cadets.

"Frognall" was built 1889-91 to a design by James Gall. "Frognall" was bought by the Laycock family in 1901. Mr. Burdett Laycock owned a wool weaving business. There were stables and other secondary structures built at the rear of "Frognall".

This is the way it was for me Peter. know nothing about any secret section except for the normal cypher room at Vic. Barracks which was housed in one of the older rooms in the main complex. The section outgrew its accommodation in 1943 and the Air Force took over the Laycocks old home {Frognall} in Mont Albert Road Canterbury Vic. It is about opposite no 23. I think it is still a sigs. unit. but could be wrong as I have been up here in Qld. for the last 13yrs. The girls were billeted out when working at Vic Barracks, this is a very old building in St. Kilda Road. When the move was made to Frognall we all lived in huts on the grounds. There were no men accommodated here any that did work there were billeted. The huts were the usual type of thing for that time no lining or ceilings and bed of wire and straw palliasses all along 2 sides with the ablutions block outside which may or may not have doors on it.

This unit is documented in the W.A.A.A.F. book by Clair Stephenson. There is a picture of one of the girls on my shift on one page her name was Iris Joy! I seem to have mislaid my copy of the book otherwise would give you the page number. The other unit at Albert Park was probably something to do with the setting up of the codes.

With regard to submarine sightings, aircraft were sent out from the nearest Air Base to deal with the matter. Never heard about the sinking you spoke of.
I am the Secretary of the Gold Coast and Dist. Ex Service Womens Association and we and the Tweed Coolangatta ex Service Womens group have all services represented. If you need to know more there are W.A.A.A.F groups in Brisbane Adelaide and Hobart as well as Sydney all are part of the Air Force Association.

I did not keep a diary or have any photos to do with my work as this would have been a no no. we even had to be let out of the door of the cypher room to go to the toilet and knock and identify ourselves to get back in again. One night at the end of the shift when the rings which were placed on the drums into the machines were checked we were one short and everyone had to be searched and the room had to be searched before we were allowed to leave and the other shift allowed in. It was found next day in the incinerator. There were about 15 machines in the room and the typist sat at her machine with another girl opposite who was pasting down the messages for dispatch this had to be done along with the encyphered copy so a check could be made if necessary. After a while we changed places. There was another room where we worked on the book cyphers. These mostly came from forward units of the American Army and could be all over the place according to how conditions were when the messages were sent Miss Wooster our O.C. was very good at this. She was an engineering graduate and I understand she worked for Telecom after the war.

While I was at Frognall some officer had the bright idea of forming a drum band. "volunteers" were sent up to Camperwell Grammer School to learn the drums and I had the misfortune to be told to play the Base Drum. I could do this o.k. but at practice it was on the floor and I sat on a seat. One day the powers that be decided we would have a church parade at St Marks Church in Bourk Rd. Camberwell about a mile or so towards Camberwell junction and the band had to play. All very well except that I am 5ft. tall or short. and when you put a tigerskin over my shoulders and strap a big base drum on me the result is that I couldn't see over the thing and had to keep my eye on the kettle drummers to see where we were going. This was quite embarrassing as my future husband and his friends followed us down the road laughing all the time, he said it looked like a drum with legs and a W.A.A.A.F. hat on coming down the road. We didn't have to march back.

It's all a long time ago and I was only 18-20 at the time so didn't take things too seriously but find you internet site very informative and it brings back a lot of memories.

There were 700 girls on this station and we worked in 3 shifts around the clock. The telegraphists were in a long annex attached to the back of the home, the cypher office was on the first floor of the main house. We lived in huts built in the grounds.

The signals came into the telegraph office and were then sent by pneumatic chute to the cypher office for decoding. These signals related to all matters to do with the RAAF such as parts for aircraft and other supplies needed by flying bases, movement of personnel, and casualty lists. We also handled a lot of material for General McArthur which was quite secret. All signals from Frognall were then delivered by dispatch riders to Victoria Barracks Melbourne. The signals came from every allied country and we were busiest at night. AVM Jones would never have answered the phone to any of our offices. His office was in Vic Barracks just down the corridor from the cypher office. Hoping this sketchy outline of our service is of assistance.

I was very interested in the account of one of your contributors - an ex-WAAAF now living I think in Queensland - which goes into some detail of the billeting arrangements the girls had to endure. However the account is slightly misleading in that the reader might well conclude that the signals operators were exclusively WAAAF. In fact, I was in the RAAF, and served at Frognall as a wireless operator for the last 18 months or so of the war.

It was a very convenient posting for me: my parents lived in Surrey Hills, about 6 or so km away, so I was able to bicycle home at the end of shift - and sometimes even bicycle home for lunch! Some war!

On this specific occasion I was serving the dogwatch - starting at 10 pm or thereabouts, and finishing at 5 or so. It was a very difficult watch (the only one of this type I ever experienced) because it was with Mountbatten’s headquarters in Delhi, and the sending and receiving functions were on different wavelengths. This meant that when you were transmitting you couldn’t actually hear the Morse code in your headphones - you had to rely on your touch on the key. Consequently you had to concentrate much harder on your technique, and this took its toll, as you can probably imagine.

It was towards the end of a long and tiring night when something totally unique (in my experience) occurred. Without any of the usual preliminaries, I received in my earphones the following message - and I set it down as though on the standard signal pad:-

And of course, this in turn reads "War ended Europe?" It was the only plain-language message I received during my service.

I sent back as (wait) and called over the sergeant of the watch. He tore the signal pad from my hand, and half an hour later all hell broke loose.

I claim to be the first person in Australia to know the war in Europe was over - and it happened at Frognall.

I was born and raised as a strong left-hander. My father also was strongly left-handed, even more than I. This proved to be a potent asset when I became a wireless operator in the RAAF. All Morse keys were permanently mounted at the right-hand side of desks, so perforce I had to learn to “send” with my right hand. But this enabled me at the same time to hold and manipulate things with my natural left hand - in particular to make entries in the signal pads. Thus I joined a small group of left-handed wireless operators who by and large were quite significantly faster and more efficient than our right-handed companions.

I did my training at the Melbourne Showgrounds, and passed out the top of my course. I did not really appreciate it at the time - but I now believe that this influenced my posting to Frognall - ie they wanted good operatives there.

My passing out as the head of my course was thus largely due to my left-handedness, which in its turn led to my Frognall posting.

The keys we used were the straight up-and-down sort, rather than the side to side type often used by post office personnel. We were all highly skilled - by which I mean fast. RAAF standards were much higher than e.g. Australian army or navy - and way ahead of U.S. forces. Whenever I was on a watch with some American base in the Pacific I had to slow my transmitting speed from somewhere above 20 words a minute to somewhere below, and receiving was a laborious business! For example, I could comfortably receive at least 25 or more words a minute, but American operators rarely sent at more than 15 or 16.

We normally worked a seven or eight hour shift, with another hour for lunch. As far as I recall there were no other breaks, but my memory may be at fault here (I’m 92, remember!). I don’t recall what breaks, if any, occurred in the 10 p.m. - 5/6 a.m. shift.

Messages to be sent were normally brought to us at our desks by WAAAF personnel. Everything was in code, of course - normally alphabetical code printed in caps on sheets of signal pad paper. I can’t recall the actual size of a signal pad -somewhat smaller than my Apple iPad probably, and ruled off into perhaps forty small rectangles each of which could comfortably accommodate five letters or figures.

Each message - whether sent or received - carried a priority symbol. If you had a message or messages to send with a high priority symbol you sent them before the operator at the other end could send you his ordinary messages, and vice versa of course. Sorry - but I can’t recall what you did with the sheets of paper after you’d sent the message - but there would have been a secure system of disposal.

When you had received a message, you tucked it into a continually-running belt above your desk which presumably whisked it away to the decoding offices.

I served on all sorts of watches - the busiest probably being with Darwin - but which included many of the Allied bases in the South Pacific, and famously, with Delhi and Mountbatten’s S.E. Asia headquarters . Other than this moment of excitement I have nothing of great interest to report: we sent and received thousands of messages, not a single one of which (bar one) bore a single intelligible word apart from an address. We worked to an invariable routine.

I'd like to thank John Day, Rod McLeod and Betty Wynne for their assistance with this web page.

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