Pallarenda Battery, Cape Pallarenda, Queensland, during WW2

PALLARENDA BATTERY
PALLARENDA, TOWNSVILLE, QLD
DURING WW2

visits since 12 November 2003

The first gun emplacement with Townsville and Castle Hill in the distance

"The Gunners - A History of Australian Artillery" by David Horner shows that there were two 4.7" Mark IV QF guns at the Pallarenda Battery in August 1944. They were the two Quick Firing (QF) guns that had been relocated in 1943 along with the coastal artillery searchlight unit from Kissing Point Battery to the new Battery at Pallarenda.

There may have also been a battery of two 155mm guns at Cape Pallarenda.

Lt. Robinson of 2 Australian Fire Command, acted as the Battery Officer at Pallarenda Battery on 13 January 1944 while his unit was based at HQ Coast Artillery at Kissing Point in Townsville. Lt. Robinson left Pallarenda Battery for a training camp at Antill Plains on 2 March 1944. He went on 24 days leave from 24 April 1944 and returned to Pallarenda Battery on detachment on 25 May 1944.

Major Greet and Captain Stewart inspected Pallarenda Battery on 25 January 1944.

The first gun emplacement at Cape Pallarenda

The first gun emplacement at Cape Pallarenda with
the military radar on the hill in the background

My sister Vicki Stanfield and her daughter Kristy
at the first gun emplacement at Pallarenda

The first gun emplacement at Cape Pallarenda with Magnetic Island in the background

Inside the first gun emplacement at Pallarenda Battery

Jake Stanfield on the roof of the 2nd gun emplacement at Pallarenda

A cable pit beside the second gun emplacement. There was a cable still inside this cable pit.

The second bunker at Pallarenda

Inside the second gun emplacement. It had two rooms at the rear of the bunker.

Close-up of the gun mount arrangement inside the second bunker

Looking inside one of the rooms of the second bunker

The third gun emplacement located just behind the second bunker

Depression in the ground near the third bunker. There is a large wrought iron hoop around this hole.

Any ideas what this was for?

Jake and Kristy Stanfield at the fourth bunker which appears to have been the command bunker.

Sapper McVe??? (perhaps McVeigh) and L. M. Dandon RAE left their
mark in some concrete near the fourth command bunker on 24 May 1943

Rod Burgess from Townsville told me that a person named McVeigh also has his name written in some concrete at some cement and stone military buildings at West End.