In addition to the public shelters, the Brisbane City Council also constructed shelters for leased wharves and council properties, including at the Stanley Wharf, Circular Quay Wharves 2,3 and 4, Norman Wharf, and Musgrave Wharf. It was believed that one person could be accommodated by each foot of trench. In addition, around three kilometres of covered trenches were constructed in public parks, in 13 projects, including 315 metres (1,033 ft) of concrete-pipe covered trench in the City Botanic Gardens, and 150 metres (490 ft) of the same in Victoria Park. However, only 235 air raid shelters were constructed, the building programme being 90% complete by June 1942. Work had already started on 15 December, and later another 75 shelters were ordered. In the Protection of Persons and Property Order No.1, gazetted 23 December 1941, Premier William Forgan Smith, with powers conferred by Regulation 35a, National Security (General) Regulations, ordered the Brisbane City Council to construct 200 public surface shelters in the city area. Slit trenches were built in parks and schoolyards, windows were taped, and brownouts were applied to buildings. On Christmas Eve, 1941, each Australian State's Emergency Committee issued instructions for government, private employers and private households to immediately start building shelters. Aboveground salt water pipes were laid along city streets to aid in firefighting. The Brisbane City Council took responsibility for Air Raid Precautions activities, including establishing an Air Raid Warden system, firefighting systems and constructing air raid shelters. Designs took into account the scarcity of skilled labour and of some materials. To help overcome these problems, some buildings were prefabricated and standard designs for many structures were used. Before the war, Queensland had a small population and no heavy manufacturing industries. Heavy Anti-Aircraft batteries were built at Victoria Park, Hendra, Pinkenba, Fort Lytton, Hemmant and Balmoral, and coastal artillery batteries were established on Bribie and Moreton Islands. The demand on materials, services and labour was enormous and military projects took precedence in their allocation. Brisbane was obviously a strategic target for bombing, and rapid action had to be taken to protect the population in the event of air raids. General Douglas MacArthur, Commander in Chief of the Allied Forces, Southwest Pacific, was based in the AMP building at the corner of Queen Street and Edward Street in Brisbane, and General Sir Thomas Blamey, Commander in Chief of the Australian Forces, used the recently constructed University of Queensland buildings at St Lucia. ![]() ![]() As it was the major city in Queensland, and the most northerly major population centre in Australia, military planning headquarters were set up in Brisbane, as were a number of important maintenance, communication, and supply facilities. The population of Brisbane swelled dramatically. ![]() Australian and American personnel poured into Queensland and urgently required a wide range of new buildings and facilities. Plans to defend Australia from an anticipated Japanese invasion and to use Queensland as a support base for the conduct of the Pacific war were implemented quickly. The Japanese first bombed Darwin on 19 February 1942 and 14,000 Australians were taken prisoner following the fall of Singapore. England and its Commonwealth had been at war with Germany since September 1939, but now the war was truly global. On 7 December 1941, the United States of America entered World War II following the bombing of the American fleet at Pearl Harbor in Hawaii by Japanese carrier-borne aircraft. ![]() The Brisbane City Council built the concrete shelter at Albert Park (north) as an air raid shelter in 1942.
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