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When Royal NZ Navy radar operator Ivan “Peewee” Emirali arrived at the station around May 1943, it was still under construction. He remembers travelling from Devonport on the back of a truck and then “lugging” all the gear over farm land to the station and starting the watches almost straightaway. The radar was believed to be an ME1 type, a land based outfit microwave radar using a 10cm magnetron transmitter and with a range of about 30 miles. Radar was an important defence secret, but the new microwave radars were smaller and more accurate, and therefore highly secret. The display equipment included a five-inch CRT (Plan Position Indicator PPI) – one of the first in New Zealand – which provided a plan view of the signal using a rotating time base in synchronism with the power driven aerial. The aerial was a parabolic dish (usually truncated top and bottom for naval use) spun at around once per second. The time base was like the hand of a clock, rotating with the aerial. Echoes were displayed by brightening the time base, resulting in a map of the district, with the radar station in the centre. Headlands, islands, ships and buoys could all be seen on this display, with manoeuvring ships clearly visible. Even a submarine periscope would return an echo. Most modern radars use this display, but it was a considerable innovation when introduced in 1941.
Ivan says the job was pretty straightforward. “As well as general duties and drills, everyone had to take their turn at cooking. Some of the blokes had never cooked before and you soon got told if the boys didn’t like what you’d made. We had to keep the log book up-to-date, switch the set on at night and record the time, range and bearing of anything picked up on the screen. We never saw anything unusual, just the normal shipping traffic.” However, official naval records show that NZ was under surveillance. A German submarine audaciously sailed through Cook Strait at night on the surface, unobserved by radar stations on both sides of the Strait, and in March 1942 a Japanese aeroplane over-flew Auckland, no doubt launched from a surfaced submarine. It too was unobserved, since the air-warning radar was being relocated at the time.
After the war, Ivan spent just over 40 years working in the radio, tv and appliances manufacturing industry. When it came time to retire, he and his wife Syliva chose Algies Bay, largely influenced by Ivan’s six-month posting in the north. “Although it was wartime, we had a lot of fun at Leigh. The community was friendly and hospitable, and we enjoyed the sports, dances and general social life of the area. Our petty officer was an innovative sort of chap called Valentine, who later became the harbourmaster at Kaipara. He was a good guy, tough but fair. He bought us a dinghy, which we used to cross to Leigh for stores – our only other means of transport being a horse and sledge. We also used the dinghy to set cray pots and it was Valentine who instigated a garden on site. If we got into any trouble, two hours in the garden was our punishment. He came up with the idea, too, of running some sheep and later pigs, which provided fresh meat. Mrs Lizzie (Ted) Brown, on whose farm the station was based, used to bring us trays of cakes and we had many meals at her place. In return, we’d cut ti-tree for her wood stove and help with the milking.” But Ivan’s tenure at the station was not without sadness. One night, he and four others were crossing the Leigh Harbour in a dinghy when it filled with water and sank. While Ivan and one other clung to the upturned boat and were rescued, the other three drowned. Even now, more than 60 years later, he finds it difficult to talk about the tragedy.
Seaman Pat Smyth, 84 and now resident in Arkles Bay, was based at the station for about 10 months from the end of 1943. Like Ivan, he remembers his time there with fondness. “The radar could do a sweep from about Bream Head to Cape Colville. When I was there, there were about a dozen naval personnel and four or five from the air force. The station ran 24 hours a day and if memory serves me right, we did shifts of four hours on, eight hours off. When we weren’t on duty, there were always maintenance jobs to do. The station consisted of the radar itself which stood about 60-80ft high, three generators which provided 230 volt AC power to run the radar, and a barracks that included a dormitory, mess room and kitchen.
“The oil for the generators would come by boat from Auckland and we’d have to swim out to collect the barrels that were dropped over the side, off Leigh. The Cumberland Hotel at Leigh was a popular spot and a lot of the boys joined the local rugby team. Dances were held regularly and I played the piano in a dance band with Eric Tickle and Merv Meiklejohn.” While the radar station played no pivotal role in the war’s history, Pat says it was an enjoyable time for the men stationed there, many of whom went on to serve in theatres of war in both the Pacific and Europe, some never to return. After the war, the radar stations were either dismantled or converted to metrological stations.
Information for this article was sourced from the New Zealand Ministry for Culture and Heritage; and the Naval Museum, Devonport.
