The Heritage Uncertainty Principle: Excavating Air Raid Shelters from the Second World War

Abstract

For the last few years, archaeologists at Flinders University, Adelaide, and staff at a former military hospital have been on the trail of an elusive structure: a subterranean air raid shelter (or series of shelters) built in 1942 to protect the lives of doctors, nurses, and their soldier patients in the event of a Japanese airraid. The search has attracted enormous public interest, as well as the attention of conspiracy theorists, convinced that the air raid shelters conceal military surplus and other secrets. The project has involved professional archaeologists, students, hospital staff, patients, veterans, and members of the local residential community. However, despite the investment of resources in documentary research, oral history collection, geophysical survey, and excavation, archaeology has revealed few material traces of the shelters, stranding them largely in people’s imagination.