Cairns during World War II - stories and photos

Let’s look back and see how Cairns and the Far North region was involved in World War II.  It was a time of ration cards, restricted areas, censorship and backyard bomb shelters as the city was at the forefront of the Battle of the Coral Sea in 1942 and the general Pacific offensive during 1943.

When the Japanese started to make their way down the Malay Peninsula, the Commonwealth Government called for voluntary evacuation of the population.

About half of Cairns’s 15,000 population dropped everything and headed inland or to the south, some selling everything they had for a pittance.

Schools closed and authorities, including both Cairns and Mulgrave Councils and the Cairns Harbour Board, busied themselves devising a secret plan to demolish key sites like the wharves, oil tanks and reservoir if the enemy made it to Cairns.

Anti-aircraft gun emplacements were established along the Cairns foreshore and at False Cape, and every Sunday night, police would sound the siren so residents would practice air raid procedures including wearing gas masks.

Bombs were dropped at Mossman and a Japanese submarine was reported off the coast near Yarrabah.

Trinity Beach was used as a major training ground for defence forces for amphibious landings.

The Americans opened their own Post Office in Abbott Street and thousands of soldiers were housed in a massive transit centre built in Sheridan Street before being transported to New Guinea.