Naval Communication Station Harold E. Holt

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Naval Communication Station Harold E. Holt
Naval Communication Station Harold E. Holt

Naval Communication Station Harold E. Holt is located on the North West coast of Australia, 6 km (3 miles) north of the town of Exmouth, Western Australia. Exmouth was built simultaneously with the communications station as a support town for the base and housing dependent families of U.S. Navy personnel.

The station provides very low frequency (VLF) radio transmission to United States Navy and Royal Australian Navy ships and submarines in the western Pacific Ocean and eastern Indian Ocean. With a transmission power of 1000 kilowatts, it is the most powerful transmission station in the Southern hemisphere.

The station features thirteen tall radio towers. The tallest tower is called "Tower Zero" and is 387 metres (1,270 feet) tall, and was for many years the tallest man-made structure in the Southern Hemisphere. Six towers, each 304 metres tall, are evenly placed in a circle around Tower Zero. The other six towers, which are each 364 metres tall, are evenly placed in a larger circle around Tower Zero.


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[edit] History

Sir Garfield Barwick, Australian Minister for External Affairs, negotiated the lease on the US Base at North West Cape in 1963 with U.S. ambassador William Battle. The lease did not allow Australia any degree of control over the station or its use.

The station was commissioned as U.S. Naval Communication Station North West Cape on September 16, 1967 at a ceremony with the US Ambassador to Australia Ed Clark and the Prime Minister of Australia Harold Holt, at which peppercorn rent for the base for the first year was paid.[1].

On September 20, 1968, the station was officially renamed to U.S. Naval Communication Station Harold E. Holt in memory of the late Harold Holt, former Prime Minister of Australia, who died three months after the station was commissioned.

With the election of the Labor Government to power in 1972, Defence Minister Lance Barnard started negotiations on the condition of operation of the U.S. military bases in Australia. On January 9, 1974 a joint statement by Lance Barnard and James Schlesinger, the US Secretary of Defence: assigned the Deputy Commander of the base to a Royal Australian Navy officer and gave Australian personnel roles in base technical and maintenance functions. The cipher room was closed to Australian scrutiny. The joint statement stressed the importance of consultations in crises. There was no undertaking given by the USA to relay fire orders to their submarines bearing nuclear missiles.[2]

The "U.S." was dropped from the station's official title with the advent of joint U.S. and Royal Australian Navy manning in 1974. Several hundred people journeyed from around Australia to protest at the base in May 1974 which resulted in the arrest of 41 people.

The stark majority of U.S. naval presence ended in 1993 with the withdrawal of all U.S. naval personnel.

In Western Australian domestic politics, the presence of foreign military installations in the state has occasionally been questioned over the decades.

In July 2002, the Australian Navy handed over operation of the station to the Defence Material Organisation.[3]

The base is currently operated under contract by Boeing Australia, Ltd.

[edit] Cyclone Vance 1999

In April 1999, civilian dependents were evacuated just hours after the strongest winds recorded in Australia, and generated by Cyclone Vance, caused millions of dollars damage to buildings throughout northern Western Australia. While winds of 330 km/h were reported, there were confirmed wind gusts of 267 km/h, the strongest wind ever recorded in Australia.

[edit] References

  1. ^ Builders' Labourers' Song Book, pp190, Published by Widescape International and the BLF, 1975. ISBN 0869320106. A recording was released of the speech by US ambassador Ed Clark titled "Ed Clark Pulls It Off", Liberation Records, Melbourne, Australia (April 1974)
  2. ^ Secrets of State by George Munster, Published by Walsh & Munster (an imprint of Angus and Robertson) 1982 ISBN 0207146349
  3. ^ Naval Communication Station Harold E Holt ( Area A ), Place Details, Australian Heritage Database. Accessed August 26, 2007

[edit] See also

[edit] Further reading

[edit] External links

  • "Google" satellite map: the map opens centered on the "Area A" very low frequency (VLF) towers site, which is at the northernmost edge of the Northwest Cape, approximately 4 miles north of the Main base; the "Area B" high frequency receiver (HFR) site was approximately 30 miles south of the Main Base
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