USN Mine and Torpedo Depot (Camp Cootha)

Mount Coot-tha Forest Park

The US Navy requisitioned Mt Coot-tha Reserve in 1942. Being heavily wooded, it was suitable to camouflage the USN Mine Depot constructed by the 55^th Seabees Battalion in mid-1943. Later the Depot undertook torpedo assembly and storage for Brisbane’s important USN submarine base. As the USN began to shift the Depot to Darwin in 1944, the RAAF took over the site for a Magnetic and Acoustic Mines Depot. The USN retained the lease of the site to war’s end.

Place information

Location

Sir Samuel Griffith Drive

Mount Coot-Tha, QLD 4066

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Place type

Ammunition facility

History

Mt Coot-tha was declared a Public Reserve in 1880. By the 1930s, it was a popular picnic spot, criss-crossed with walking tracks. On 1 August 1942, the Brisbane City Council lent the park to the US Navy for use as an ordnance depot. Its dense bushland provided suitable camouflage for munitions storage.

The 55th Naval Construction Battalion built the depot. The 55th Naval Construction Battalion arrived in Brisbane on 24 March 1943. Such battalions were known as Seabees after their unit emblem. The battalion was based at Camp Seabee off Lavarack Avenue at Eagle Farm, which the unit constructed prior to...

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