At the Home Front Festival at Wolston Farmhouse on 16 August 2026, Associate Professor Geoff Ginn of the University of Queensland and Camp Columbia Heritage Association Chair Paul Budde delivered two complementary presentations about Brisbane during the Second World War.
Professor Ginn first established the broader historical setting. He explained how the Pacific War transformed Queensland, how Brisbane became a major Allied command centre, and how the arrival of tens of thousands of American military personnel changed the city.
Paul Budde then focused specifically on Camp Columbia, tracing its development as a United States Army complex, its use as the headquarters of the US Sixth Army and its later role as the principal base of the Netherlands East Indies Government-in-Exile.
Together, the presentations showed that Camp Columbia cannot be understood as an isolated military camp. It formed part of an extensive wartime network of headquarters, camps, airfields, hospitals, warehouses, communications facilities and transport routes that made Brisbane one of the most important Allied centres in the South-West Pacific.
This article draws primarily on Professor Ginn’s presentation to place Camp Columbia within that broader wartime landscape.
Watch the presentations
The video by Peter Rasey, below includes both presentations delivered at Wolston Farmhouse. Associate Professor Geoff Ginn first discusses Brisbane and Queensland during the Second World War, followed by Paul Budde’s presentation on the history and significance of Camp Columbia.
Australia’s imperial defence strategy collapses
When the Second World War began in 1939, Australia’s defence remained closely tied to British imperial strategy. The 6th and 7th Australian Divisions were sent to the Middle East during 1940, while the 8th Division was deployed to Malaya in 1941 to contribute to the defence of Singapore.
That strategy was shattered by the rapid Japanese advance through South-East Asia and the Pacific.
Between December 1941 and February 1942, Japanese forces moved through Malaya and captured Singapore. The short-lived American-British-Dutch-Australian Command—usually known as ABDA Command—was unable to halt the offensive. The Netherlands East Indies was invaded and largely occupied by March 1942.
Australia could no longer assume that its security would be protected through British naval power based at Singapore. The war had moved into Australia’s immediate neighbourhood, while many experienced Australian troops remained overseas.
The Pacific War reaches Australia
The first months of 1942 produced a succession of events that intensified fears of invasion.
Darwin was bombed on 19 February. General Douglas MacArthur left the Philippines in March and travelled to Australia. The Battle of the Coral Sea was fought in May, followed by the Japanese submarine attack on Sydney Harbour at the end of that month.
Queensland was also directly affected. Townsville was bombed three times in July 1942, followed by an attack near Mossman. The fighting at Milne Bay in August and September demonstrated how closely the defence of Australia had become connected with the struggle for New Guinea.
Queensland consequently experienced the Pacific War more directly than most of Australia.
A “brownout” was imposed on urban centres within approximately 160 kilometres of the coast. Schools in northern Queensland were closed temporarily, civilians were encouraged or required to leave threatened areas, and cattle and other resources were moved south.
Townsville’s civilian population declined substantially as women, children and other residents relocated to safer districts. At the same time, northern Queensland became an increasingly important military staging area.
The controversy of the “Brisbane Line”
This sense of vulnerability later became associated with the controversial expression “the Brisbane Line.”
The term suggested that, in the event of a Japanese invasion, northern Australia might have to be abandoned so that military forces could concentrate on defending the heavily populated and industrialised south-east of the continent.
No formal government policy simply surrendered everything north of Brisbane. However, the controversy reflected genuine strategic difficulties. Australia had an enormous coastline, a relatively small population and limited military resources. Much of its population, industry and infrastructure was concentrated along what has sometimes been called the “boomerang coast,” extending from Brisbane through Sydney and Melbourne to Adelaide.
Military planners considered how Australia could be defended if Japanese forces landed in the north. The possibility of scorched-earth measures was discussed, while Gladstone and Bowen were regarded as possible enemy objectives because their ports and surrounding resources could support further operations.
A proposal to concentrate Australian defences in the south-east was placed before the Curtin Government in February 1942 but was rejected. Nevertheless, rumours that northern Australia had been considered expendable caused lasting resentment, particularly in Queensland.
The “Brisbane Line” was therefore not a formal plan to hand half the continent to Japan, but neither was the underlying fear entirely imaginary. It reflected the severe strategic choices confronting Australia during the first months of 1942.
Brisbane becomes a wartime city
Brisbane was still frequently described as a quiet, sprawling and subtropical city. The arrival of the Pacific War changed it dramatically.
David Malouf later captured this transformation in his novel Johnno, describing Brisbane as a “sleepy sub-tropical town” that suddenly appeared on newsreels as the gateway to a war being fought across the islands to Australia’s north.
Air-raid shelters were constructed, windows were bricked over, blackouts and air-raid sirens became part of civilian life, and military authorities requisitioned buildings and land throughout the city.
Women joined auxiliary services including the Australian Women’s Army Service, the Women’s Auxiliary Australian Air Force and the Women’s Royal Australian Naval Service. Older men and veterans of the First World War served in the Volunteer Defence Corps, popularly referred to as “Dad’s Army.”
The Home Front was no longer geographically separate from the battlefield. Brisbane became a city preparing for possible attack while simultaneously supporting military operations extending across the South-West Pacific.
The “American invasion”
The arrival of large numbers of United States personnel brought another profound transformation.
The first American servicemen reached Brisbane in December 1941. By 1942 and 1943, tens of thousands of American troops were stationed in or passing through the city. At certain times, approximately 80,000 were present in Brisbane.
Military camps, hospitals, warehouses, workshops and recreational facilities appeared throughout the metropolitan area. American engineers also contributed to the rapid improvement of roads, bridges, airfields and supply routes across Queensland.
The Americans were generally welcomed, particularly during the frightening early months of 1942. Their presence provided visible evidence that Australia would not face Japan alone.
Relations were not always harmonious. American servicemen were generally better paid and often had access to consumer goods that had become scarce for Australians. Their uniforms, spending power and popularity with Australian women caused resentment among some Australian servicemen.
The familiar expressions that the Americans were “overpaid, oversexed and over here,” while Australians were “underpaid, undersexed and under MacArthur,” reflected both humour and genuine social tension.
The Battle of Brisbane
These tensions reached their most violent point during the Battle of Brisbane on 26 and 27 November 1942.
The incident began near the American canteen at the corner of Adelaide and Creek streets when an American military policeman challenged a US serviceman about his leave pass. Australian servicemen intervened, and the confrontation escalated as more American military police and Australian personnel arrived.
One Australian serviceman was killed, others were wounded, and further disturbances occurred the following night.
The authorities heavily censored reports of the incident. The Chief Censor’s Office prohibited the transmission or broadcast of details identifying the nationalities involved. American servicemen also had references to the disturbance removed from their mail.
Because so little reliable information reached the public at the time, the Battle of Brisbane subsequently became surrounded by rumour, exaggeration and urban folklore. Nevertheless, the incident revealed the pressures created when large numbers of Australian and American servicemen were concentrated in a relatively small city.
Brisbane as an Allied command centre
Beyond these visible social changes, Brisbane acquired enormous strategic importance.
General Douglas MacArthur transferred his South-West Pacific Area headquarters from Melbourne to Brisbane in July 1942. His principal headquarters occupied the AMP Building in the city, while he lived at Lennons Hotel.
From Brisbane, MacArthur and his staff directed operations across an immense region extending through New Guinea, the Netherlands East Indies and the Philippines.
General Sir Thomas Blamey, Commander-in-Chief of the Australian Military Forces and commander of Allied Land Forces, established his Advanced Land Headquarters in the Main Building—now the Forgan Smith Building—at the University of Queensland’s unfinished St Lucia campus.
These headquarters were supported by hundreds of military units spread across Brisbane and beyond. Communications centres, intelligence organisations, accommodation camps, airfields, hospitals, transport depots, workshops and storage facilities were all needed to sustain the Allied command structure.
Brisbane had become much more than a troop-staging point. It was one of the principal command centres of the war against Japan.
Camp Columbia within the Allied landscape
Camp Columbia formed an important part of this wider military system.
Established by the United States Army at Wacol, Camp Columbia developed into a large complex containing headquarters, accommodation, communications and support facilities. The headquarters of Lieutenant General Walter Krueger’s United States Sixth Army operated from the camp before the army moved forward to New Guinea in 1944.
The departure of the Sixth Army made the facilities available for another important wartime purpose. From 1944, Camp Columbia became the principal base of the Netherlands East Indies Government-in-Exile.
Dutch and Netherlands East Indies civilian and military organisations were concentrated at the site as they supported Allied operations and prepared for the restoration of administration in territories being recovered from Japanese occupation.
Camp Columbia was therefore connected with several levels of the Allied command structure:
- MacArthur’s South-West Pacific Area headquarters in central Brisbane;
- Blamey’s Allied Land Forces headquarters at the University of Queensland;
- Krueger’s United States Sixth Army headquarters at Wacol; and
- the Netherlands East Indies Government-in-Exile and associated Dutch and NEI organisations at Camp Columbia.
This concentration of commands demonstrates why Brisbane can properly be described as Australia’s Allied wartime capital.
Recovering Brisbane’s wartime landscape
Much of this wartime infrastructure disappeared rapidly after 1945. Requisitioned buildings returned to civilian use, temporary camps were dismantled, and former military land was redeveloped.
Parts of the Camp Columbia complex were subsequently incorporated into the Wacol Migrant Centre, while other areas became industrial, institutional and residential developments. As a result, the scale and importance of the original military landscape are difficult to recognise today.
Professor Ginn’s presentation demonstrated why the history of Camp Columbia needs to be interpreted within this wider setting. The camp was not an isolated collection of huts on Brisbane’s outskirts. It was part of a city and state transformed by global war.
Historical research, archaeology, local memories, family collections and surviving physical traces can now help reconstruct that landscape. The developing collaboration between the University of Queensland, the Camp Columbia Heritage Association and the National Trust of Australia (Queensland) provides an opportunity to bring these separate elements together.
Taken together, the two presentations demonstrated how quickly Brisbane changed from a relatively quiet subtropical city into an international military headquarters directing operations across the South-West Pacific—and why Camp Columbia formed such an important part of that transformation.