Mareeba Airfield Heavy Anti-Aircraft Gun Station 449

Mareeba Air Defences

Fortifications
Atherton Tablelands

West of the Kennedy Highway (east of Beaufort Road), Mareeba 4880

Heavy Anti-Aircraft (HAA) Gun Station 449 is located on farm land south of the airport, west of the Kennedy Highway. The four gun emplacements were laid out in a square, but only three are evident. Each has been filled to varying depths. It is probable that the missing fourth gun emplacement and underground CP are also buried. Four ammunition storage magazines are located nearby. The reinforced concrete elements of Heavy Anti-Aircraft (HAA) Gun Station 448, the northernmost of two HAA gun stations at Mareeba, are spread over a number of properties south of McIvor Road to the west of Ray Road. There is a single room underground Command Post (CP); two octagonal in-ground gun emplacements (of four that were laid out in an arc west and north of the CP); and four semi-underground magazines. The magazines are covered with earth mounds, and each has two entrances with stairs down to a central corridor, with a doorway to a single room.

Source/comments

Mareeba Airfield and HAA Gun Stations 448 and 449. Queensland Heritage Register reported place 602740.

Pearce, Howard. January 2009. WWII-NQ: A cultural heritage overview of significant places in the defence of north Queensland during World War II. EPA, Brisbane.

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Simpson, B, “Mareeba’s Anti Aircraft Batteries", Heritage Bulletin, Number 7, November 2007, Mareeba Historic Society Inc.

Fowler, SR, November 2007. Plans and photographs of elements of northern Heavy Anti Aircraft Battery site.

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National Archives of Australia 823, Mareeba 1942

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Dunn, P. 94th Coast Artillery (AA) Regiment, 40th Anti-Aircraft Brigade in Australia during WW2

Australian War Memorial photographic collection

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