Yesterday was a warm humid day in Melbourne and I had planned to play golf in the morning. However, I decided to change it at the last minute and instead, figure out something else to do with my time.

I got online and started searching on YouTube and stumbled upon this little-known fact that the closest Melbourne got to World War II at its shores was on 26 February 1942 when a Japanese plane flew over and along the bay even south to where we are in Brighton and Sandringham. For some reason, this captured my imagination completely.

Here’s that story….(not many people know about this).

I started to think how I could wangle this tidbit into a storyline for a novel.

For over two years now, I have been obsessed with the story of the listening station hastily built in our street by the government of the day back in March 1942 to respond to the Japanese threat. The listening station listed to the signals coming in from the Pacific from the Japanese fleet.

No one knows much about this radio receiving station as it was Top Secret long after the war but WRANS and about 35 American soldiers evacuated from the Philippines weeks before worked there. It would have been a very strange sight in our local area to see tanned American soldiers driving their motorcycles in and out of this station when around it, were flat market gardens.

After more investigation, I found out that there’s a historical library in Prahran which is an inner-city suburb so I decided to take the train from Brighton Beach (and imagine what it would have been like to see a Japanese plane flying low across the skyline). The station which is one of the old buildings in the area would have been around in 1942 and the houses near the station are all stately homes from the Victorian era or early 20th century. I started to concoct a story of a character that I could include in a potential book idea and got quite excited, standing there waiting for my train, to see it all come together.

I look at one of the trains on the opposite platform and the carriages advertise a drink called Japanese Spirit. The advert is all along the train carriages, you couldn’t miss it.

Coincidence?

Then when I boarded the train, there was a guy sitting ahead of me and he must have been watching something on YouTube on his phone and the music was loud. He was playing 1940s big band music so my trip into Prahran was like going back into a time warp. All the signs point to the fact that this idea of a book has been germinating in my head for all this time and I need to get motivated to start writing it.

But how to start?

I visited the Mechanics Institute and found out that the library holds only history books, journals and documents. I trawl through their catalogue and ask the librarians for help and they are more than accommodating. They find some books that I then read for the next few hours learning more about the time and place and how I can include this into my storyline.

Anyway, I don’t know how it’ll all pan out but one thing is for sure is that I seem to have gone down a rabbit warren (again) with this story of how our listening station in our street was first to find out about the impending Japanese plans for the Battle of the Coral Sea and thwarted their plans of the invasion of Port Moresby and basically decimated their fleet. This battle – this find by the Australians – is believed to have saved Australia from an invasion by the Japanese.

I share this entire story in this video below:

Will I write this book? Who knows but it seems floating at the back of my mind for some years now. Thing is, I don’t know how to start it. The process.

It’s not as simple as writing non-fiction which you can easily structure and then commence writing. Fiction is difficult because you have to write the character, story, plot, emotions, and environment….

I’d like to do a writing course that will help me with the structure. Maybe 2024 will be a chance to do this….