Chapter Three
The Unknown History of The Burragorang

We have said that the Burragorang Valley ‘Base’ has a long history. This history began in 1940, when the Australian Army High command, in the face of the growing threat from Japan, in a top secret move, established numerous bases in strategic parts of the country, for the purpose of gathering information and coordinating communications in the event of a Japanese invasion.

These secret communication centres took many forms, such as remote farm houses, suburban houses where the plain clothes occupants attracted no attention; even a residence in a prestigious part of Sydney’s North Shore.

Yet more ambitious centres are said to have been established in remote mountainous areas, including the Blue Mountains, which even today continues to give up its secrets of those dark days. The most closely guarded of these wartime secret bases was established deep in the Burragorang Valley.

Access to this base was via a dirt road whose entrance was said to be south of what is now the Kanangra Boyd National Park. The entrance to this road was heavily camouflaged and guarded by hand-picked troops, the road itself being covered overhead by camouflage netting as it wound its way through dense forests into a deep gully to the base, which was constructed deep into a mountainside.

According to old soldiers this base served other purposes than mere communications, for actual strategic discussions were held here by Australian “Top Brass”, and it is rumoured that American General Douglas MacArthur had visited this facility at the height of the immediate threat to Australia’s north.

[These visits might have occurred when the General spent time at the Hydro Majestic Hotel at Medlow Bath, which while on the outside was supposed to be a military hospital, was in fact one of the General’s secret Headquarters in Australia!].

So secret was this base and its purpose that ordinary and unauthorised personnel were forbidden entry to the area, and aircraft, even military [unless by prior arrangement] were also forbidden to fly over the Burragorang Valley.

It is rumoured that one day in 1943 an Australian aircraft carrying military personnel heading west on matters unrelated to the base, [of which they are believed to have had no knowledge], was shot down by anti-aircraft gunfire when the plane chanced to fly on a course directly over the base area!

Chapter Three
The Unknown History of The Burragorang Base