Woman recalls night during World War II enemy spy plane flew over her Port Melbourne house

It was the night a rogue enemy spy plane brought World War II terror too close to home for Melburnians — and you’ve probably never heard about it.

Port Melbourne historians Janet Bolitho and Steve Tserkezidis in Gladstone St, Montague, where spy Nobuo Fujita flew overhead in 1942. Picture: Valeriu Campan

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IT was the moment a rogue plane visited World War II terror on Melburnians — and you’ve probably never heard about it.

“It came right over the top of us heading towards the bay and you could see the rising sun emblem on the plane.”

Marlene Bailey was just nine years old when her father pulled her out of bed in the early hours of February 26, 1942 — 75 years ago today.

Now living in Tarneit on Melbourne’s outskirts, Ms Bailey remembers that night like it was yesterday.

She, her younger sister and their parents rushed outside to see a Japanese spy plane fly low over their family home in Gladstone St in the former suburb of Montague - now Port Melbourne.

Her father first noticed the spy plane circling over his workplace, the Dunlop Rubber factory, on his way home from night shift.

Japanese WWII pilot Nobuo Fujita.

“My mother was in bed, and Dad said, ‘Don’t turn the light on, there’s a plane outside, it’s been flying over Dunlops and I don’t know what it is’.

“He woke up my sister and I, we went out the front and stood underneath the street-light.

“It came right over the top of us heading towards the bay and you could see the rising sun emblem on the plane.

“I didn’t think much of it at the time, I wanted to go back to bed.”

The spy plane was flown by Japanese pilot Nobuo Fujita, who was on a reconnaissance mission from a submarine off King Island.

He flew over Melbourne’s docks, surrounding factories, Port Phillip Bay and suburbs including Williamstown, South Melbourne and Port Melbourne.

Ms Bailey, now 84, said she still had vivid memories of the incident.

“If he’d have bombed Dunlops it would have been the end of us,” she said.

“All the material in the factory would have blown out the Port Melbourne train line which was very busy in those days taking troops out to the boats.

“It could have done a lot of damage but I think he was on a recon and he didn’t have any bombs on board.”

Garden City historian Steve Tserkezidis met Ms Bailey and learnt of her sighting on a walking tour almost two years ago.

Mr Tserkezidis is researching the former suburb of Montague’s early history and said it was “extremely fortunate” Japanese forces did not return to the area after the incident.

“Even today, the vast majority of Melburnians would have no idea a spy plane flew very low over the Montague, South Melbourne and Port Melbourne areas, it was kept very quiet,” he said.

“He obviously took back a lot of photographs, and that was his mission, to photograph all the factories and docks, and that was the Japanese’s idea to come back and bomb them and disrupt production more.”

“It was extremely fortunate for Melbourne the tide against the Japanese turned and they weren’t able to bomb the factories.

“How fortunate we are to not have an experience like that in Melbourne, and the vast majority of people living then in 1942 didn’t even know it had come past.”

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