Mossman Commemorative Air Raid Cairn

Memorial information

Description

The memorial is a cairn made up of several large rocks on a concrete base. Steps lead up from the road with white hand rails and a white rail behind the cairn. There is a sculptured aerial bomb position on the top of the memorial.

Inscription

JAPANESE AIR RAID ON DOUGLAS SHIRE - 1942

At 3.30 a.m. on 31/7/42, a Japanese aircraft dropped eight bombs in this Shire, one landing fifty metres directly behind this point. Carmel Zullo aged 2 1/2 years was asleep in the home
of her parents when the bomb exploded nearby.

Shrapnel pierced the iron walls of the house, one fragment grazing Carmel's skull. She was the only civilian casualty inflicted by the enemy on the Eastern Australian mainland throughout
World War 2.

This plaque was unveiled by Mrs. Carmel Emmi (nee Zullo) on 31/7/92 at a public ceremony to commemorate the attack, fifty years later.