At the end of World War I, the Royal Australian Navy felt that there was a need to establish a body of trained observers around Australia's extensive northern coastline to give warning of hostile or dangerous intrusions. A volunteer civilian Coastwatcher Organisation was established and it had grown in numbers to about eight hundred by 1939.
With the outbreak of World War II in September 1939, Lieutenant Commander Eric Feldt was recalled to service in the office of the Director of Naval Intelligence, and he was given responsibility for the Coastwatcher Organisation. Feldt was the ideal choice for such a task. He had served in the Australian Navy in World War I, and in the interwar years, he had worked in the Australian Territory of New Guinea as a civilian mine warden. He knew the territory and its people well, and he took charge of naval intelligence for New Guinea and the Solomon Islands.
Feldt viewed the New Guinea Territory and the Solomon Islands as a natural protective barrier for Australia, and he set to work establishing Coastwatcher stations along the shores of New Guinea and the Solomons. He expanded the program to include non-government volunteers, including plantation managers. Each of the Coastwatcher stations was equipped with portable radio transmitter/receivers. The limited range of these radios, and the likelihood of interference from natural barriers such as mountains, called for Coastwatchers to cooperate with each other in receiving and passing on messages. By mid-1941, Feldt was supervising sixty-four Coastwatcher stations in New Guinea and the Solomon Islands, and he put a great deal of effort into training his Coastwatchers and visiting each station. Feldt also set in place emergency procedures for the withdrawal of his Coastwatchers if the Japanese occupied their areas. For example, the Coastwatcher on the small island of Tulagi in the British Solomon Islands was to move from the British administrative centre to the nearby large island of Guadalcanal if Tulagi was threatened.
At this stage, Feldt did not view his Coastwatchers as guerrillas or commandos. They were almost all civilians, and he saw their role as being a passive one, namely, to gather intelligence and then pass it back to Naval Intelligence in Australia. This passive function was reflected in the code name for the Coastwatcher Organisation. It was called "Ferdinand", after the passive bull in the children's story.
In response to the Japanese threat, Feldt extended his Coastwatcher stations across Australia's northern approaches to the British Solomon Islands and the New Hebrides (now Vanuatu).
The status of the Coastwatchers altered dramatically when the Japanese invaded the Australian Territory of New Guinea in January, 1942. The effort that Feldt had put into selecting and training his volunteer Coastwatchers was rewarded by their dedication and efficiency as intelligence gatherers. Many of the Coastwatchers soon found themselves behind enemy lines and liable to be treated as spies and executed. The Royal Australian Navy had decided that civilian Coastwatchers should cease reporting and await evacuation when the Japanese occupied their area, but many declined to do so. In an attempt to provide them with some protection if captured, the Navy gave them military rank and badges of rank, but there was no optimism that the Japanese would treat Coastwatchers as prisoners of war.
This very brief account of the important and heroic role played by the Coastwatchers in the defence of Australia during the Pacific War cannot give a full picture of their achievements. A short account of the Coastwatchers' achievements by their own leader, Lieutenant Commander Eric Feldt, is provided here, and those who would like a full account are referred to Commander Feldt's book "The Coastwatchers".
Here there is only space to deal with the important role of the Coastwatchers in achieving an Allied victory in the Battle for Guadalcanal.