1942

Australian military authorities identified Bondi Beach as being a likely invasion point after the Imperial Japanese Navy Air Service mounted a surprise bomb attack against the US naval base at Pearl Harbor, Honolulu on 7 December 1941. The authorities fortified Bondi beach by constructing barbed ‘concertina’ wire and other barriers along it. There was limited open space on the beach, so the members of Bondi Surf Bathers’ Life Saving Club’s Bronze Medallion squads had to train in Bondi Park rather than on the sand, and an army officer had to give permission for any beach activity to go ahead.

Being a military operation, very little is known about the blowing up of Bondi’s concrete groynes. The groynes were shore-protection structures built perpendicular to the shoreline, they acted as viewing platforms and entrances to the sand from the Pavilion changing areas and towel hire. Both concrete groynes were now considered threats through which Japanese forces could directly enter the Pavilion and invade Sydney. The army engineers tasked with destroying these structures overestimated how many explosives were required, and the force of the explosion caused shattering of windows and breaking of tiles on the Pavilion, the surf clubs and buildings along Campbell Parade.

Courtesy Waverley Library Local Studies Collection.