Gavin Grimmer
Desmond Harrop (there in 1954-55) recalls:
Walking through a tunnel at the rear of the gun, I noticed a door leading to an open hatch in the floor. The shaft that the hatch covered led to a lower level. On the wall on the gun side of the hatch, steel rungs were set into the wall. to the left of the hatch was a room that was described as accommodation for the crew for the disappearing gun.
I collected over 300 photos (many are aerial) and set them up in a file as a timeline.
Over a period of time, I checked out virtually all the witness statements that I had access to, statements that at times seemed too incredible to be true, yet in nearly every case I found what appeared to be evidence of a tunnel entrance where they claimed they were. Some are obvious, some not quite so obvious but they are evident non-the-less. The more I looked, the more I found!
Just last night, when researching for this article, I found another that several eyewitnesses had spoken of but until then I had not found any evidence of, mainly because of the difficulties in understanding where they actually meant it was. Consider what eyewitness Joan Robinson (nee Dighton) had to say:
“A smaller entrance that went into the bank was right on the north east corner of the tennis court”
I had always thought this was the bank on the northern end of the tennis Court rising from the court upwards, but what I found was it was the bank below the level of the court above the cliff face. Joan lived on the western face of North Head with her first husband, Corporal Ernie Dighton and their 5 children from April 1953 to late 1962.
Co-incidently other witnesses had spoken of this entrance but I had always placed it as further around from the tennis court towards the old eastern generator room.
Grant Howard (there in mid 60’s): “(near the saluting base (South Battery)).... A large square concrete tunnel entrance in the vicinity of the saluting base and beyond the flat area of the tennis court at roughly the same level, went straight into the hill at right angles to the road or track. It led into a very large room which would be at least 100 feet long and 30-40 feet wide, it appeared to be some sort of workshop area.”
Raymond Whitfield 1940-1943: “Half way up the hill on the eastern side and off a track there was a tunnel entrance with a pair of large iron gates on it, there was also a turn around area for the trucks which used to drive into the entrance.”
Rodney Ord 1961-70: “The tunnel in the bank below the tennis court went up to another level where there was another big magazine that had big barn type doors on the entrance.”
Joseph Priestly- 1956-58: “There is a large tunnel entrance along from the saluting battery and past the tennis courts. This was large enough for a small truck to drive into and had steel gates about 10 feet in from the hill face.”
Stuart Brydon, 1953 and 1962: “Near the tennis court was a large square tunnel big enough for a vehicle to enter. Quite some distance in was a big room, half a dozen trucks could have been parked inside it. A tunnel connected this room with the rest of the tunnel network. In the floor was a deep shaft with an iron ladder and water was at the bottom of it.”
Peter Eddy 1950-52: “In 1984 I went to North Head with an army friend Peter Rhodes, who was also stationed there and Mr Earnshaw. Peter and I were looking for a large square mouthed tunnel entrance which was about half way up the hill and on the eastern side. Almost at the same instant Peter and I pointed to the spot where the entrance should have been, it too had gone.”
James Blackburn 1958-70:“There were other entrances to the tunnels, a large one was at the end of the tennis court adjacent to the Saluting Base, where we often played cricket.”
NH Page 24