Tufi airfield in New Guinea?

[Maury Markowitz]

I am reading an article on the LW/AW radar set designed in Australia. It states the first production unit went into full operation at Tufi in November 1942.

When I google Tufi airfield, all I find is this web page, which claims it was built in the 1960s:

Pacific Wrecks

World War II Allied and Japanese aircraft that served in the Pacific War.

pacificwrecks.com

Anyone have some better resources for this?

 

[ROLANDVN]

While there was no airfield at Tufi during WW II there was an advanced Naval Base primarily supporting PT boat operations. It is likely why the radar was located there and would have supported its operation.

 

[Grey Havoc]

There may also in addition have been an RAAF operated airstrip co-located at the Tufi base (also referred to as Tufi Fiord, Cape Nelson), supporting the base along with other US and Australian efforts in the area (which included, incidentally, the construction of a Allied forward base & airfield at Wanigela).

Regarding the LW/AW Mk I (also referred to simply as the LWAW) radar in general:

A Lightweight Air Warning (LW/AW) radar unit assembled for operation. Numbers of these units were ...

www.awm.gov.au

LW/AW Mk I - Radartutorial

www.radartutorial.eu

Light Weight Air Warning Radar

(Civil Aviation Historical Society & Airways Museum)

 

[Apophenia]

From what I can gather, a part of the problem is the name Tufi. Note that Tufi Fiords is a bit of a misnomer - having been created by a volcano rather glaciers - so 'Tufi' was/is also used to describe the remaining volcanic highground (including island 'plugs').

But, of course, Tufi was also the name of the village near the Australian dock - one of the few areas when ships could put equipment and supplies ashore. There was no radar installation immediately adjacent to the dock site during WW2. However, in the vicinity were two different radar station locations.

The first was to the north at Forduma where 303 Radar Station (303RS) was set up on 03 Nov 1942. 303RS personel were housing in thatched-roof accommodations built by locals which could be mistaken from the air for a Papuan village. But no real effort was made to camouflage the radar installation. On 26 April 1943, 303RS ceased operation at Tufi (moving on to Milne Bay, then to Boirama Island on 14 May 1943).

In mid-1944, 336RS relocated to the Tufi area from the Trobriand Islands. But 336RS was based at a different location - Safod, about 3 km south of Forduma. But, because of topography, straight line distances are rather misleading.

So to get to the camp you had to go [overland from the Tufi dock] up a fjord about seven or eight kilometres and then come back again. The [radar] station was only about perhaps half a kilometre away from where we landed, but [due to reefs] there was no way you could land in the vicinity of the radar station. You had to go right up seven kilometres and come back ...

Leonard Ralph (Len): Interview transcript; 27 January 2004
-- https://australiansatwarfilmarchive.unsw.edu.au/archive/htmlTranscript/1459

For a complete list of wartime Australian radar installations see:
-- http://ajrp.awm.gov.au/AJRP/remember.nsf/Web-Printer/87F10A39DF3514DFCA256B5A001930A9?OpenDocument