From Wednesday's Bundaberg Newsmail:
Bomb claims target airport
27.04.2005
WAR relics including bombs and ammunition stores are buried in secret bunkers beneath Bundaberg airport if a sensational claim by a group on the Internet is true.
The secretive group, which has made its allegations public on
www.australianbunkerproject.com states World War II machinery and weapons have been buried under the airfield.
Bundaberg Mayor Kay McDuff denied the group’s claims and expressed concern about the unnecessary panic the website could create.
She said council was seeking legal advice over the website.
“I have seen some of the information they put out and it is quite disturbing. But we believe there’s no substance to it and we are talking to our solicitors,’’ she said.
“If we were aware of any hint of danger, then we would have been on to it straight away,’’ Cr McDuff said.
The anonymous author of the website contacted the NewsMail with an amazing story of secret bunkers that contain a cache of weapons, machinery and partially dismantled aircraft.
The Australian Bunker Project website recounts a story of two men who in 1997 allegedly broke into the underground bunker at Bundaberg - avoiding a grenade booby-trap on the way - and discovered rooms that housed guns, explosives, sleeping quarters and two dismantled fighter planes.
Bundaberg man Stan Lohse worked at the airport site with the airforce construction corps in the early 1940s and could recall no secret bunkers.
“I’ve heard the rumours before but I never saw anything in my time like that,’’ Mr Lohse said.
Bundaberg Aero Club member Ray Foley confirmed there had once been demolition tunnels under the airport runway, a legacy of Australia preparing for the advance of Japanese troops.
“I know the tunnels were there because I filled them in,’’ Mr Foley said.
As a Department of Civil Aviation contractor, Mr Foley backfilled the tunnels with concrete in the 1960s.
“I have heard the stories before about bunkers and the like but I’ve yet to see any evidence that they exist,’’ Mr Foley said.