{"id":35971,"date":"2013-06-12T22:39:51","date_gmt":"2013-06-12T12:39:51","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/southburnett.com.au\/news2\/?p=35971"},"modified":"2020-12-18T11:34:52","modified_gmt":"2020-12-18T01:34:52","slug":"hunt-for-airport-veterans","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/southburnett.com.au\/news2\/2013\/06\/12\/hunt-for-airport-veterans\/","title":{"rendered":"Hunt For Airport Veterans"},"content":{"rendered":"

June 12, 2013<\/strong><\/p>\n

The Burnett War Memorial Museum is trying to locate servicemen and women who may have served at Kingaroy Airport during World War II.<\/p>\n

Spokesman Russell Cook said the museum had commissioned a 1:500 scale model of the airport as it looked in 1942.<\/p>\n

This will be officially unveiled at a ceremony later this month at the airport and the association is hoping to invite as many personnel as possible who have been associated with the airport.<\/p>\n

“Anyone who served in any capacity at Kingaroy is asked to contact the museum on (07) 4162-4632,” Russell said.<\/p>\n

* * *<\/strong><\/p>\n

\"\"<\/a>
A sign at Kingaroy’s Joh Bjelke-Petersen Airport lists the squadrons and units that served there<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

Some history from the Burnett War Memorial Museum:<\/strong><\/em><\/p>\n

The Royal Australian Air Force Station No 3<\/h3>\n

When Kingaroy’s pioneers cleared scrub and timber from Taabinga Village in the early 1900s, they could not have envisaged the activities that would take place there within the next 40 years.<\/p>\n

The pre-war Taabinga Village Airfield site had only a few buildings clustered on the western side, and was identified in October 1940 as an appropriate location for development as an airfield under the Empire Training Scheme. This was desperately needed, as at the outbreak of World War II, the construction of Amberley was still to be completed, Archerfield was operational, but the other major towns of Toowoomba, Maryborough and Bundaberg had only fledgling aerodromes at the time.<\/p>\n

The initial main problem with Kingaroy’s project was\u00a0water. In January 1940, the Kingaroy Council adopted\u00a0the Memerambi Water Supply Scheme with a loan of\u00a059,500 pounds, and a subsidy of a similar amount, and\u00a0thus began what was to be Gordonbrook Dam. As this\u00a0would take some time to implement, bores were\u00a0installed at the airfield.<\/p>\n

Most of the construction of the ‘drome was completed\u00a0by July, 1942. This included two contracts awarded to\u00a0the Queensland Building and Engineering Company for\u00a0165 buildings in one contract, and a further 30 in the\u00a0other. More were added later.<\/p>\n

When completed, it was almost a township on its own,\u00a0with accommodation units, canteen, bakery, hospital,\u00a0ambulance stations, morgue, meteorological building,\u00a0telecommunication building, boot makers, aeroplane\u00a0hangars, gun buttress, workshop, sports area etc and, of\u00a0course, the airstrip.<\/p>\n

During this period the airstrip ran\u00a0from east to west, where as today it runs from north to\u00a0south.<\/p>\n

The main gate was also at today’s back\u00a0entrance.<\/p>\n

The base was officially under control of the RAAF\u00a0and was seen primarily as a Service Flying School,\u00a0having approximately 3000 RAAF and WAAF\u00a0personnel there at one time.<\/p>\n

Armed guards were\u00a0secured in seven pillboxes constructed of railway\u00a0sleepers.<\/p>\n

Kingaroy was also the headquarters of an Australian\u00a0Armoured Division,whose sub-units were scattered all\u00a0over the South Burnett.<\/p>\n

The Kingaroy Airfield was a training base for many\u00a0thousands of our country’s airmen prior to their going\u00a0into combat overseas in New Guinea and the Pacific\u00a0Islands.<\/strong><\/p>\n

The selection of Kingaroy as an RAAF.\u00a0training base, and staging ‘drome for the United States\u00a05th Air Force in the South Pacific rendered the area a\u00a0high priority target in the then likely event of a\u00a0Japanese air or land attack.<\/p>\n

(On the way to Moratai, the aircraft A 52-526 and crew became the first Mosquito plane to fire its guns at the Japanese in the Pacific).<\/p>\n

At least eight planes crashed in the Kingaroy, Booie,\u00a0Inverlaw and Dangore areas.<\/p>\n

Most of the personnel\u00a0from these planes were laid to rest at the Taabinga War\u00a0Cemetery.<\/p>\n

The Burnett War Memorial Museum has\u00a0also built a monument at the airport with their names\u00a0and squadrons engraved in order to honour these brave\u00a0men.<\/p>\n

Today, most of the buildings from that era have been\u00a0removed, but a few remain and have been restored by\u00a0the Burnett War Memorial Museum.<\/p>\n

The\u00a0Meteorological Building, the Morgue, the Motor Pool\u00a0building (workshop), the Crash Ambulance Station,\u00a0and the Telecommunication Building will be the next\u00a0restored when finance is available.<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

\"\"<\/a>
Remains of a World War II-era gun buttress at Kingaroy Airport pictured in 2008 (Photo: Wikipedia)<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

The Burnett War Memorial Museum is trying to locate servicemen and women who may have served at Kingaroy Airport during World War II.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":20,"featured_media":35977,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":[],"categories":[3],"tags":[21],"yoast_head":"\nHunt For Airport Veterans - southburnett.com.au<\/title>\n<meta name=\"robots\" content=\"index, follow, max-snippet:-1, max-image-preview:large, max-video-preview:-1\" \/>\n<link rel=\"canonical\" href=\"https:\/\/southburnett.com.au\/news2\/2013\/06\/12\/hunt-for-airport-veterans\/\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:locale\" content=\"en_US\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:type\" content=\"article\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:title\" content=\"Hunt For Airport Veterans - southburnett.com.au\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:description\" content=\"The Burnett War Memorial Museum is trying to locate servicemen and women who may have served at Kingaroy Airport during World War II.\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:url\" content=\"https:\/\/southburnett.com.au\/news2\/2013\/06\/12\/hunt-for-airport-veterans\/\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:site_name\" content=\"southburnett.com.au\" \/>\n<meta property=\"article:published_time\" content=\"2013-06-12T12:39:51+00:00\" \/>\n<meta property=\"article:modified_time\" content=\"2020-12-18T01:34:52+00:00\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:image\" content=\"https:\/\/southburnett.com.au\/news2\/wp-content\/uploads\/2013\/06\/kingaroyairport.jpg\" \/>\n\t<meta property=\"og:image:width\" content=\"620\" \/>\n\t<meta property=\"og:image:height\" content=\"385\" \/>\n\t<meta property=\"og:image:type\" content=\"image\/jpeg\" \/>\n<meta name=\"author\" content=\"Anne Miller\" \/>\n<meta name=\"twitter:card\" content=\"summary_large_image\" \/>\n<meta name=\"twitter:label1\" content=\"Written by\" \/>\n\t<meta name=\"twitter:data1\" content=\"Anne Miller\" \/>\n\t<meta name=\"twitter:label2\" content=\"Est. reading time\" \/>\n\t<meta name=\"twitter:data2\" content=\"3 minutes\" \/>\n<script type=\"application\/ld+json\" class=\"yoast-schema-graph\">{\"@context\":\"https:\/\/schema.org\",\"@graph\":[{\"@type\":\"WebPage\",\"@id\":\"https:\/\/southburnett.com.au\/news2\/2013\/06\/12\/hunt-for-airport-veterans\/\",\"url\":\"https:\/\/southburnett.com.au\/news2\/2013\/06\/12\/hunt-for-airport-veterans\/\",\"name\":\"Hunt For Airport Veterans - 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