|
|
"Wavescan" is a weekly program for long distance radio hobbyists produced by Dr. Adrian M. Peterson, Coordinator of International Relations for Adventist World Radio. AWR carries the program over many of its stations (including shortwave). Adrian Peterson is a highly regarded DXer and radio historian, and often includes features on radio history in his program. We are reproducing those features below, with Dr. Peterson's permission and assistance.
Wavescan N531, April 28, 2019
The Radio Scene on Disputed Diego Garcia – 2 (and Nearby Boddam Island)
We pick up the radio scene again in the Chagos Archipelago during the intense days of World War II. Diego Garcia is the main island in the Chagos Archipelago at the southern end of this long geographic chain of islands, and its ownership is disputed between Great Britain and Mauritius.
Paul Caboche from Mauritius had set up his own amateur radio equipment as a Coast Watch Station on the island of Diego Garcia at the request of the British government in May 1940. In 1941, Radio Operator Caboche received a consignment of professional Marconi radio equipment from Singapore that replaced much of his own equipment at station Y in Diego Garcia. A few months later again, he received an additional set of Marconi equipment from Mauritius, together with a contingent of soldiers who were appointed to guard his communication station. This station was identified with the callsign T.
To add to the tension of serving on this lonely and isolated island during World War II, a German commerce raider was sighted in the area; and then a few days later again, a navy cruiser sailed into the lagoon, though this one was soon identified as friendly. Subsequently, a contingent of Japanese soldiers landed in the copra plantation area on the same island, though they departed later the same day without any confrontation. While the Japanese soldiers were on the island, the local citizens fled inland and hid in a heavily treed area.
In February 1942, the British established an advanced Royal Air Force RAF flying boat unit with waterside facilities on the edge of the lagoon, and local headquarters in one of the colonial homes at the East Point Plantation on Diego Garcia. Detachments from RAF Squadrons 205 and 240 at the Koggala Airport in Ceylon were seconded to Diego Garcia for aerial surveyance in the Chagos Archipelago.
The RAF installed a shortwave communication station at East Point on Diego Garcia, which had been the administrative site for the Chagos islands during the earlier colonial era. This radio station was established for airplane flight communications, and also for communication with squadron headquarters at Koggala, 1,000 miles distant, at the very southern tip of the island of Sri Lanka.
After four years of service on Diego Garcia, the war was well and truly over, and the RAF base was no longer considered necessary. It was closed on April 30, 1946 when the last flight out carried the last eleven servicemen off the island.
The Radio Scene on Nearby Boddam Island
Another island of radio significance in the Chagos Archipelago is Boddam Island, which is the largest island in the Salomon Atoll. This island is located 140 miles north of Diego Garcia.
Boddam Island, with its less than half a square mile of land area, was settled in the middle 1700s with African plantation workers from Mauritius. At the height of its activities, there were more than 500 people living in the entire atoll, which at that stage had several local amenities, including shops, school, church, offices, a water well, and even a jetty for incoming ships.
The local administrator on the Salomon Archipelago was Governor Boddam, after whom the island was named. He was apparently part of the extensive heraldic Boddam family living in colonial India.
There are no inhabitants on Boddam Island these days, and it is now overrun with coconut palms and low jungle. However, the island has become a historic and abandoned tourist haven for passing yachtsmen, who sometimes stock up with fresh water and spontaneously growing food crops.
Back in May 1940, when Paul Caboche from Mauritius was invited by the British government to install his amateur radio equipment as a Coast Watch Radio Station on Diego Garcia, another Coast Watch Radio Station was installed on Boddam Island. The small shortwave station on Boddam Island operated under the callsign 2Y, and it communicated with station T on Diego Garcia, which in turn communicated with station W on Mauritius.
On the next occasion when we present information on the radio scene in these Chagos Islands, we plan to tell the story of the huge American/British radio station that is still there on Diego Garcia to this day.