Townsville, North Queensland Australia c 1943 ...

[Mark Allen M]

Townsville has always fascinated me over the years of researching the early war years in the Pacific Theater. First time seeing any sizable amount of photos of the area.
Absolutely fascinating stuff!!! ... This is another LIFE series called "Air Depot c 1943" ... hopefully a few of the Aussie members will set us Yanks straight as to what we are seeing in a these photos.

Edit: there's a photo of a B-17 which J Baugher lists as being shot down in 1942. "2660 shot down near Rabaul, New Britain Aug 9, 1942"
So I'm not sure if these photos were taken in 1942 or 1943.

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[Chris Brame]

Good stuff! B-26 40-1363 was the victim of a belly landing; the newsreel cameras caught it - think this is it at the end:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Xl8mX1jAOGg

[ALOHADAVE]

I love the boneyard photos. I wish that stuff was still there.
here is another colorized photos maybe from the same place
SWPA Recovery

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[BAJ]

Lovely photos Mark thanks for sharing.

Here is a link to a very good web site which covers 3 x Satellite RAAF Bases in the immediate vicinity of Townsville.

http://www.ozatwar.com/ozatwar/woodstock.htm

Certainly, seems to that some of your photos would have came from these bases. The scrubby type forest is typical for this part of Australia.

In addition there is a link to RAAF Base Garrbut (Townsville) which shows photos of the large clear span hangars.

http://www.ozatwar.com/garbutt.htm

Good Reading !!!

[43-2195]

I LOVE YOU MARK ALLEN.

Your post depicts life at the 5th U.S. Army Air Force's number 2 depot located in the suburb of Garbutt, Townsville, Queensland, Australia. It is called Garbutt because Garbutt Brothers had a slaughterhouse there prior to 1942. It was located on the western outskirts of the small town. When war broke out and the adjacent airfield became critically important, the commonwealth government worked with the U.S. Army to lease the cattle padocks for an airbase. Today Garbutt is considered an inner city suburb.
There were several Air Depot Groups based at Depot #2. But the 4th ADG was the largest, most well documented and most well publucised. The line up of B-25's in one of the photos is (I believe) 345th BG aircraft having 4 .50 calibre machine guns installed in the bombardier's position. The B-26s depicted are 22nd BG. When the Group handed all their remaining aircraft over to the 19th Bomb Squadron to form the Silver Fleet, the stripping of the olive drab paint back to bare metal was done at Depot #2. The 4th was also heavily involved in installing gun turrets in B-24's. They carried out 500 hrly overhauls on P&W 1830 engines and operated their own airline. Many of their C-47's had Townsville Air Depot written on the fuselage. Many aircraft new to the SWPA theatre entered through #2 Deport, fighters by ship and bombers (predominantly B-24) by ferry route. The high pressure hose seen in the photos was often used for removing cosmoline from newly arrived fighters. The Depot also had a very effective scrap metal recovery program. As the war progressed, the 81st ADG moved from Eagle Farm to Finschafen, New Guinea and the 27th ADG moved from Port Moresby to Finschafen. Most of the aircraft in bound from stateside stopped arriving in Australia and went direct to Finschafen. There is a series of cellabratory photos showing 81st ADG personnel at Finschafen with the 1000th P-38 assembled. Late in 1944 the 4th ADG moved up to the Philippines and another ADG was left to close #2 Depot (15th ADG, I think). Quite a significant number of derelict airframes left behind were dumped in two large man made pits and set on fire before being covered with earth. A member of the work party was killed when avgas used to start the fires exploded. These pits are now located under a suburban park. I am hoping to bring out a large pictorial coffee table book on Depot #2 in the coming year. Predominantly for Townsvillians and 5th Air Force supporters. GREAT PHOTOS MARK. THANK YOU.

[43-2195]

The B-25 BUTCH over ran Rorona/Rogers strip and is still in the kunai grass there. I last visited 2 years ago. It has been heavily pruned by people with bush knives. It was a 345th BG aircraft flown by Lt Bill Cather.

[Johnno60]

Being interested in all things relating to this depot and living in Townsville I would be very keen to buy your book when it is published.
I have read Wings Around Us at least a dozen times and like most Townsville people learnt to drive on these taxi ways.

Regards
Peter J

Last edited by Johnno60 on Fri Jan 22, 2016 4:02 pm, edited 1 time in total.

[Malo83]

Awesome Mark!

[Steve Birdsall]

Mark, the B-17E 41-2660 shown in two of the photos became Muffins, the 4th Air Depot’s “administrative” aircraft or General Bertrandias’ personal transport, or both. I recall that Mike Claringbould did a good story about it for Flightpath.

For the record, the plane shot down on the 9 August 1942 mission was 41-2643, flown by Lt Hugh Grundmann.