HISTORY

Bushrangers' Hill sits up behind Bungan beach like a bunnet cap and is visible from miles around. It can be accessed via a walking path from Bungan Head Road (west). At the top are several habitable sandstone caves and rock platforms which have a commanding view in all directions. For this reason it was a favourite vantage point for bushrangers who escaped from the Sydney settlement and the word 'bungan' is said to be the word local Aboriginals gave to the noise of their muskets firing

At the easternmost tip of Bungan Head Rd is the Bungan Castle, built in the 1919 by an eccentric artists' agent named Gustav Wilhelm Albers. The castle was his abode at weekends and holidays and also acted as a kind of 1920s arts hub, an unofficial Sydney artists’ colony. Today, the castle houses a collection of old military artefacts and belongs to Albers' nephew.

The M24 was one of three Japanese midget submarines that entered Sydney Harbour in 1942 during World War II. They made their way up the harbour having navigated their way through the underwater-detection fence (passengers on a Manly ferry reported seeing a periscope travelling in the ferry's wake) and launched an attack that would bring the Second World War to the city’s doorstep. Their intended mission was to blow up the warship USS Chicago although by mistake they blew up one of Sydney ferry’s HMAS Kattabul, which had been converted to a troop dormitory. Twenty one soldiers were killed and ten injured.

Two of the three mini-subs were detected and blown up in Sydney Harbour but young Japanese commander of the M24 steered back out to sea undetected, and turned north. It is thought they ran out of fuel (or oxygen) and in 2006 the submarine was discovered on the ocean floor by amateur divers off Bungan Head. It is now a protected Commonwealth Government Historic Shipwreck and is also listed on the NSW State Heritage Register. There are penalties of up to $1.1 million for disturbing the site. The photo shows one of the Japanese mini-subs on sonar in 1942.