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Palm Island Naval Air Station

Located North of Townsville and SE of the North Queensland sugar port of Lucinda is the Island Group known as Palm Isles. During 1943 the US Navy’s 55 Construction Battalion (Seabees) constructed a seaplane maintenance facility near Wallaby Pt, on one of the major islands in the group, Great Palm.

Place information

Location

Park Street

Palm Island, QLD 4816

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Place type

Airfield

History

Maintenance workshops and accommodation buildings were timber frame and quite likely were removed when the unit vacated. A substantial concrete slipway was constructed to allow typically PBY Catalina flying boats to be hauled onto land for maintenance.

This location is featured in the RAAFs publication ACD 157 but no particulars of the Maintenance Base appear there. The Unit responsible for construction did publish an account of the project during the latter stages of WW2 and that limited edition may be available to review. Perhaps because of censorship of the time, no photos of significance appear in the publication.

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