Cape Pallarenda Gun Emplacements - Townsville - World War II Sites on Waymarking.com

CAPE PALLARENDA FORTIFICATION.
Built on the Cape Pallarenda headland these gun emplacements and a searchlight installation, together with a sizable camp, were designed to protect the harbour and the shipping passage between the mainland and Magnetic Island. The plans indicate that there were 4.7-inch guns mounted on concrete gun foundations. Behind the open gun emplacements were reinforced cartridge shell stores.
NORTH QUEENSLAND IN WORLD WAR II
In 1939, at the commencement of the Second World War, the Australian Army in North Queensland comprised the militia units of the Kennedy Regiment (3lst Battalion), based in Townsville, and the Far North Queensland Regiment (51st Battalion), based in Cairns. A handful of regular soldiers were based at the ?xed defence installations at Kissing Point in Townsville as well as at Green Hill on Thursday Island and on nearby Goode Island. The Pacific War, which began in December 1941 with the invasion of Malaya (Malaysia), the subsequent capture of Singapore and the simultaneous attack on Pearl Harbor, highlighted an imminent threat of invasion. By February 1942 the Japanese forces had succeeded in advancing through South-east Asia and had captured much of the coast and islands of northern Papua New Guinea. The Australian Government established as a priority the defence of the industrial and commercial heartland in the south-east of the continent while the north, particularly the Townsville region, was to be defended by a few battalions largely for morale and psychological support for the isolated rural communities. However, priorities changed with the retreat of the American and British forces from South-east Asia. Townsville became a principal embarkation and disembarkation point for Allied troops serving in the New Guinea campaign following the decisive defeat of the Japanese Navy in the Battle of the Coral Sea in May 1942, fought in an area 1,200 kilometres off the northern coast of Queensland. The Battle of the Coral Sea marked the end of the threat of invasion to Australia. Townsville was heavily defended with radar, searchlights and anti-aircraft installations. Kissing Point, Cape Pallarenda and Magnetic Island were fortified against possible naval, rather than air, attack. In July 1942 long-range enemy ?ying boats originating from New Britain attacked Townsville but caused minimal damage. The American forces under General Douglas MacArthur, who was based in Brisbane, established forward defence positions in North Queensland. The towns and cities of the north-east served as supply, hospital and logistics bases for the advance towards Japan. Townsville was chosen as the location for the Area Combined Headquarters for the North East Area. The American forces used Townsville as the headquarters of the United States Army Base Section Two, the United States Army Air Forces Fourth Air Depot, a naval replenishment port and a major transhipment centre for troops and supplies in the campaign for the recapture of the Philippines. Townsville remained a secure supply base that served to support the successful campaigns against the Japanese forces in South-east Asia. A large military hospital was established by allied forces at Pallarenda, now the site of a beachfront suburb. The Garbutt aerodrome was expanded and strengthened and became a major air force base for the Pacific theatre of war. A convalescence hospital and a radar station were built at Paluma, 60 kilometres north-west of Townsville. Between 1942 and the end of the war in 1945 the Townsville/Charters Towers region became one of the largest concentrations of airfields, stores, ammunition depots and port operations in the South West Pacific theatre.
These developments changed the physical character of the town. About 5,000 people in the Townsville area were evacuated south in the early years of the war and the Australian Army tried unsuccessfully to have a further 10,000 people in the town evacuated in order to accommodate the rapid expansion of troops in the district. Life in the garrison city was hard and uncomfortable with reduced services, rationing and the inevitable queuing. Public buildings and schools were occupied and people lived with the constant threat of invasion. Social changes were enormous: the culture of the city was profoundly altered with the arrival of thousands of Americans. The in?ux of people was perhaps the most signi?cant social change since the ?ood of prospectors to the gold boom of the 1860s and 1870s. Reliable estimates indicate that the service population of the area in mid-1943 was 90,000. This was a ratio of 3: 1 between the service and the civilian populations.


Information was taken from the paper
Lawrence, D.R., Brown, R., McPhee, E. & Slaughter, E. 2006 1 1 01: Coastal forti?cations of Townsville. Memoirs of the Queensland Museum, Cultural Heritage Series 4(1): 53-87.
Brisbane. ISSN 1440-4788.

Related Website: [Web Link] Supplementary Related Website: [Web Link] Admission Fee: Nil Opening Days/Times: 24/7 Although the nearby parking acces is only available between 6am and 6pm

Visit Instructions:
Posting a picture(s) of the location would be nice although not required.

Recent Visits/Logs:

Date Logged Log User Rating   04/16/2022 dty73 visited it 04/16/2022 Kittykatch visited it 04/16/2022 Joolay visited it 11/01/2019 AT502 visited it 01/01/2014 Champs2Monkeys visited it 09/04/2012 WanderingAus visited it

View all visits/logs