Coastwatchers

Captain Chapman James Clare, district naval officer of Western Australia, proposed a coastwatching programme in 1919.

Walter Brooksbank, a civil assistant to the Director of Naval Intelligence, worked in the 1920s and 1930s to organise a skeleton service of plantation owners and managers whose properties were in strategic locations in northern Australia, the Australian controlled Territory of Papua and the British Solomon Islands.

[2] In 1939, when war appeared imminent, he expanded the coast-watching service with additional island planters, traders, miners and missionaries.

Lieutenant Commander Eric Feldt, based in Townsville, Queensland, led the Australian coastwatching organisation during much of World War II.

In one case, three German missionaries assisted the coastwatchers after escaping Japanese captivity, even though Nazi Germany had allied itself with the Empire of Japan during the war.

It was meant as a reminder to coastwatchers that it was not their duty to fight and so draw attention to themselves, but to sit circumspectly and unobtrusively, gathering information.

[9] In early November 1942, two coastwatchers named Jack Read and Paul Mason on Bougainville Island radioed early warnings to the United States Navy about Japanese warship and air movements (citing the numbers, type, and speed of enemy units) preparing to attack the US Forces in the Solomon Islands.

He was awarded the Silver Star and Legion of Merit by the United States, and later received a knighthood as well as becoming a Member of the Order of the British Empire.

An Australian coastwatcher, Sub-Lt Arthur Reginald Evans, observed the explosion of the PT-109 when it was rammed by a Japanese destroyer.

Lacking paper, Kennedy scratched a message on a coconut describing the plight and position of his crew; Gasa and Kumana then paddled 38 miles (61 km) through Japanese-held waters, at great personal risk, to deliver the message to Evans, who radioed the news to Kennedy's squadron commander.