Fascinating war history facts found
HAVING been born and raised in Townsville, amateur historian Peter Dunn was always aware of this city’s incredible military history.
Although now Brisbanebased, his interest in how World War II affected his home town led him to discover as much as he could about Australia’s war effort.
Google Townsville @ War and you will discover a treasure trove of pictures and information about Townsville’s role in Australia’s war effort.
If you want to know where later US president Lyndon Johnson stayed during a wartime Townsville visit, Dunn has the details.
Since some of the buildings no longer exist, it is also a glimpse of Townsville’s domestic history.
Although his now thousands of web pages cover every facet of the war, Dunn has a particular interest in military aviation history.
He has chronicled every World War II military aviation crash, with technical details of all incidents, casualty lists and photographs where available.
As a side interest, he maintains a watch on aviation crashes worldwide to the present day.
Dunn is the complete historian who understands history is not just a linear chronicle, but a complex, interconnected web of events, people, places and equipment.
He is an informed and entertaining speaker.
His presentation on significant wartime sites in Brisbane makes you aware buildings with now innocuous purposes were once military hospitals, secret communications bases and intelligence centres. Even things as simple as concrete bus stops were once air raid shelters, refuge in the event of Japanese air attacks.
Camp Cable, near Logan Village south- west of Brisbane, was home to almost a million US troops, with all the facilities required to support such numbers.
The presence of so many Americans with their smarter uniforms and better conditions wasn’t always universally appreciated.
They were sometimes described as “overpaid, oversexed, and over here”, particularly by serving Australian personnel who were annoyed that their sisters, girlfriends and even wives could be seduced by the Americans’ charms.
Sometimes violence resulted. In late November 1942, riots erupted in Brisbane over access to US military canteen facilities.
One Australian soldier was killed and several others suffered gunshot wounds.
Similar, related events occurred in Townsville.
Disputes also occurred over access to prostitutes in the brothels which flourished in inner Brisbane.
Not all Americans sought sexual gratification with prostitutes, for there were many Australian women happy to accommodate their needs.
Some formed permanent relationships and Dunn’s research has discovered there are probably more than one million descendants of Australian war brides currently in the US.
Dunn’s extensive work has discovered another side to US military relations in Australia.
He has been receiving many requests from people attempting to discover the identities of their fathers, who were US servicemen based in Australia during the war.
Requests have come from as far away as Canada from people born to unwed Australian mothers.
Dunn has been able to provide some assistance, while advances in DNA have positively confirmed links to previously unidentified fathers. It is a fascinating historical sidebar.