Information

Camp Oxley was a World War II base for the US Army. The 1943 ‘Brisbane Military Telephone Directories’ confirm that the 28th Chemical Company and the 577th Ordnance Ammunition Company were based at Blunder Road (reportedly ‘by the creek’). The site of the Chemical Camp is now Durack Common (landowners the Delbridge family continued their grazing and piggery throughout the war). The primary role of a decontamination company was to ‘counter the threat of crippling gas attacks on rear area service facilities’. The 28th provided decontamination demonstrations for the Chemical Warfare School in Hamilton. They also provided labour for the Darra Ordnance Depot (now Forest Lake). Camp Oxley was built as a 200-man camp (a typical chemical decontamination company had a strength of 120 men). As in the nearby US camps (Camp Darra and Camp Freeman), the troops at Camp Oxley were African-American soldiers with white officers.

In 1943, the US Army inventory for the Darra Ordnance Depot included mustard gas, tear gas solution and toxic smoke candles. There is evidence that after the war, chemicals such as mustard gas from this area were dumped at sea and more was buried nearby, possibly at Willawong.

Citations

Queensland Government, Queensland World War II Historic Places, ‘Camp Oxley’ (www.ww2places.qld.gov.au/places/?id=1068), sighted 2 august 2017.

Image Citations

Map References

Qimagery. Brisbane City Council Series 1946. Scale: 1:15,900.