Hillside danger zone
THE Townsville City Council’s desire to open up the public areas of Mount Louisa to recreational activities does require some rethinking.
The Mount Louisa precinct, particularly the ridge line area, may not be safe for widespread public access. The history of the locale has to be considered.
July 1941 aerial photography from the Australian National Archives indicate United States and Australian engineers tunnelling into the eastern and western ends of Mount Louisa and using the overburden as fill for the Garbutt RAAF runways, tunnelling into the “Tank Hill” area of Lavarack Barracks and using overburden as fill for the Ross River airfield at Annandale and also about 200 odd “1938 US Pyramid tents” at Kelso Field where they had cleared and set out the centre lines for runways along with earthworks for antiaircraft defences.
I have not been able to ascertain exactly who the likely engineers were. Aerial photography by several agencies up to about 1986 does indicate that there were considerable unexplained engineering projects in the locale.
In 1941 the RAAF No. 3 Replenishment Centre was situated near the suburb of Cosgrove. This was in fact a bomb dump.
In 1942 the western and south western areas of Mount Louisa was a defensive area for two battalions of infantry.
Between February and July 1943 the western area of Mount Louisa was to become the second largest military base in Townsville.
In April 1944 there were extensive earthworks being performed at least at the north eastern area of Mount Louisa.
During August 1941 the United States Army high command contacted the Australian Government requesting information on the airfields at Rockhampton, Darwin, Port Moresby and Rabaul for their Project No. 1 which was an aircraft ferry route from Hawaii to The Philippines that bypassed the Japanese territories in the Northern Pacific. It must be presumed that the US high command was ignorant of the aviation engineering works then being performed in Townsville.
The history of the Townsville Fortress during World War II has never been adequately researched or articulated so that our town planning professionals can make decisions that do not compromise public safety because of ignorance. This also does not bring about an environment that is conducive to investment. KEVIN PARKES,
West End.