The State Savings Bank building was constructed c1891. The street frontage has been remodeledCOPYRIGHT Public records Office Victoria .05 - remodeled 1942 building with cars at front built environment - commercial, business and traders, transport - motor vehicles, state savings bank of victoria

photoww1, world war 1, aif, a.i.f, motorcycle, motorbike, officer

This photograph shows Gladys Marriott, aged 15, in the potato fields of her father's property in Moorabbin. Her cousin Graeme (centre) and younger brother Alfred (right) are with her. Moorabbin is a suburb in the City of Kingston that was originally established as a rural market gardening communityThe Marriott property in Moorabbin was adjacent to a secret wartime wireless receiving station established in March 1942 in Chesterville Road, Moorabbin. The station was established on requisitioned market garden properties, and soon housed WRAN (Women's Royal Australian Navy) personnel and up to 35 US Navy servicemen. The Navy personnel intercepted Japanese coded communications and then despatched these by motorbike messenger to Queens Road, St Kilda where the Directorate of Naval Communications and the code-breaking unit called FRUMEL (Fleet Radio Unit - Melbourne) were housed. The information intercepted by the wireless receiving station helped shape the Allied response to Japan's advances in the Pacific. Declassified defence records show that this unprepossessing station handled some of World War II's most sensitive secrets, however the local community were unaware of its significance. Gladys Marriott, working on her father's property, would regularly take the family's cows to graze in the fields adjoining the station with no concept of what the Navy personnel were doing. Black and white photograph of a young woman and two small boys standing around a wooden crate filled with potatoes. They each have potatoes in their hands. They are standing in a field. Handwritten in red ink: A 601 / 72% Handwritten in black ink: CHAP 6. Handwritten in black ink: GLADYS STOTT (MARIOTT) / DURING WAR YEARS / With Spybase Storymarket garden, children, farming, local production, world war ii, wireless receiving station, moorabbin