DURING World War II, it was a top-secret Victorian bunker.

So secret, there are only three photographs of it from the war.

Today the bunker, on the cliff at Cape Otway National Park, nestled behind the area’s much-visited lighthouse, is almost a forgotten relic.

But when it was built in 1942 it played a significant role in Australian and American war history, according to Cape Otway Lightstation manager Paul Thompson, who says it was one of only four built on Victoria’s southern coast (the others are at Wilsons Promontory, Metung and Gabo Island).

He said the bunker was erected after the US steamship, SS City of Rayville, sank off Cape Otway, struck by one of 40 mines laid by the Germans in the area.

“Very few people realise the Germans came down this far south, or that they successfully sank three ships in Bass Strait,” Paul says.

“The Germans pirated a Norwegian merchant trading vessel called the Storstad off the coast of north Western Australia and turned it into a mine layer and renamed it Passat.”

As the Rayville began to sink the lightstation raised the alarm, on November 8, 1940, and Apollo Bay fishermen rescued 37 crew members. One man was lost, becoming the first US merchant navy casualty of World War II.

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“Just off Cape Otway there was also a Japanese submarine that had a light aircraft on deck, which flew over Melbourne and took photos,” Paul says. “Both the submarine and the German mines were kept secret to ensure the public weren’t frightened that the Germans and Japanese were this far south.

“The station is one of the best remaining examples of this secretive war effort.”

As fascinating as the bunker is, the Cape Otway Lightstation offers an intriguing window into much more of Australia’s past.

The lightstation is the oldest, surviving lighthouse on mainland Australia, with the light in continuous operation since 1848.

It was commissioned after more than 399 lives were lost in shipwrecks off the coast of King Island in 1845.

“In 1835 there were 250 people killed but they were convicts,” Paul says. “The deaths in 1845 involved free settlers and the authorities saw it as more serious.”

Paul says public outcry forced the NSW government to commission lighthouses around Bass Strait.

Manning the lighthouses was a bleak job, with lighthouse keepers responsible for keeping the light lit, and rescuing shipwreck victims.

The lightstation’s first keeper, Lieutenant Lawrence, was dismissed for mismanagement and “improper and ungentlemanly language”.

No sooner had the lighthouse been built than pressure grew to improve communications, with increasing numbers of ships landing at Cape Otway.

In 1859, a telegraph station was built in the lighthouse grounds, connecting with Tasmania.

Yet within six months the submarine cable failed, the costly anticlimax totalling £53,000 and after attempts to repair it, the cable was abandoned.

It was eventually turned into a signal station, telegraphing details of all vessels passing Cape Otway to Melbourne.

A more recent addition to the site has been a hut recognising the traditional indigenous owners of the land, the Gadabanud, who resided along the forests and coastline of the Cape Otway peninsula.