Photo: Boeing Australia Limited

Tower Zero

View from the top of Tower Zero

In 1963, the US leased an area of North West Cape, Western Australia, for the establishment of a VLF Communications Station, as part of its world wide nuclear submarine force communications network. The area's cloud-free atmosphere suited to VLF transmissions. The base was subsequently named the Harold Holt US Navy Communications Base, named after the former Prime Minister of Australia - who mysteriously drowned while he was in office. The town of Exmouth, which is quite remote, was originally constructed in 1964 as a support town for the base. Today, Exmouth's claim to fame is the fact that it is the closest mainland town to the continental shelf. This results in there being very rich fishing grounds within close reach. In addition, it has colourful coral reefs very close to the shore.

The base's vast array of antennas and towers stand out in stark contrast to the harsh natural beauty of the surrounding terrain. The facility is divided into three principal sites - Areas A, B and C.   Area A lies on the northernmost tip of the peninsula is the North West Cape VLF Transmitter Station. It is supported by a central tower surrounded by two concentric circles each of six smaller towers ranging from 304 to 387 metres in height and is 2.5 km in diameter. It communicates over immense distances with submerged submarines in the Indian Ocean. The towers are the tallest located on a tropical cyclone prone coast in the world. When constructed, they were the tallest man-made structures in the southern hemisphere.
Rising to a dizzying height of 387 metres is Tower Zero, the tallest man-made structure in the Southern hemisphere when it was completed. It has carried anemometers at several levels since the early 1970's, although these have been in a poor state of repair for some years. Another 12 towers stand in two concentric rings around it. The towers support "large spider webs of wire" - the Very Low Frequency (VLF) antenna array covering one thousand acres - the largest in the world.
A few kilometres to the south is Area B. It consists of the installation's headquarters and the High Frequency transmitter site.  Area C - the main receiver site of this secretive facility - is located 60 km further to the south.
Collectively the 3 sites function as a window into an extraordinary world that few of us are privy to, the vast and often mind boggling world of military intelligence. In the overall web of facilities that make up the worldwide US intelligence gathering network, North West Cape, until recently, played an important and acutely sensitive role. It was never very far from the drama and controversy that pivoted around the fears of possible nuclear war between the superpowers.
The base played a major role in US communications and intelligence throughout the Cold War, its importance first being realised by the Australian Government during the Middle East War of 1973. On 11th October, 1973, five days after the Middle East War broke out, North West Cape along with other US bases in Australia were put on full alert. North West Cape was used to communicate the alert to both conventional and nuclear forces in this region. The acute security alert status "Def. Con. 3" was reached.
During its early years, the base was manned totally by hundreds of US military personnel whose left-hand-drive fully imported Chevrolets, Pontiacs and Chryslers were more common around the town of Exmouth that Australian right hand drive vehicles. The Boeing Aircraft Company alone had 145 employees based at Exmouth to instal and service the communications equipment it had manufactured for the base. In 1972, US Naval Communications Station Harold E Holt became a joint facility, with an RAN officer as second in command, and 35 Royal Australian Navy personnel integrated into the general operations at the base. Though many of the US personnel went home, enough stayed to retain the "American" flavour of the town.
Perhaps the collapse of the cold war has removed the need for covert communication by the US in the Indian Ocean, but for whatever reason, the United States turned over control of the station to Australia in 1999 and withdrew all its personnel. It was then run by the Australian Department of Defence with only a handful of staff, none of whom live on the base.
Today, the base is run by the private concern, Boeing Australia. In addition to the operation and maintenance of the Royal Australian Navy's Very Low Frequency (VLF) and High Frequency (HF) communications systems, Boeing's NES Systems Support and Operations division team provide comprehensive infrastructure support services at the base. Boeing Australia is also the prime contractor for the operation and maintenance of the Transmit and Receive sites associated with the Naval Communications Station located in Darwin; he Maritime HF communication facility in Belconnen, ACT, the Defence Communications Network, located at the Defence Centre in Deakin, Canberra, the satellite communications systems, equipment laboratory and the telephone system at JDFN Woomera, SA, and to the Australian Defence Force for the operations and maintenance of classified satellite communications facilities at Geraldton (WA) and Shoal Bay (NT).

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