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jrcar -> RE: WITP AE AAR Feb 09 Cathartes-JRCAR (Jap) (3/4/2009 12:48:24 PM)
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Sorry they are 6 inch guns. The 9.2inches weren't completed until late war...
In 1932 the government announced its intention to fortify Darwin, the motive being to protect the naval oil depot. During 1933 barrack buildings at Thursday Island were dismantled and shipped to East Point and Emery Point (since 1891 there had been a garrison at Thursday Island to protect the coal depot against the imagined threat of a Russian invasion). In 1933-34 two 6 inch guns were installed at Emery Point (Larrakeyah) and two at East Point, together with associated magazines, observation towers, barracks and stores. The guns were first test fired in May 1934. In the same years various other military works were underway in Darwin: oil tanks, a new airstrip at Batchelor, a searchlight, officers' residences, and airport improvements. The threat of war led to improvements being made from 1938-42, including further 6 inch cruciform mounted guns, 4 inch proving guns, two 9.2 inch guns, machine gun posts, barracks and ancillary buildings, and a labour camp (Pee Wee Camp) built on the south side of the East Point Peninsula. After the Japanese air raids in February 1942 (when the 9.2 inch gun emplacements were not yet complete) work stopped and tools and materials were removed to Berrimah to prevent them falling into Japanese hands in case of an invasion. The 9.2 inch guns were completed in 1945. At the end of the war many of the buildings were sold off. In the 1960s the 9.2 inch guns and some other materials at East Point were sold to a Japanese scrap metal company and were cut up and removed.
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