Sunshine Coast Hinterland Times

IT WAS IN MAY 1943 that the Australian Hospital Ship Centaur was attacked and sunk by a Japanese submarine near Point Lookout off the Sunshine Coast.

Of the 332 medical personnel and civilian crew aboard, 268 were killed and it was one of several ships that were sunk off the east coast of Australia during 1942-43. The sinking of the Centaur helped create panic along the Queensland coast that the Japanese army would soon invade.

In the May edition of the Hinterland Times we reported that local identity Nev Anning had been captured by the Japanese in Singapore in 1942. What we didn’t report was that Nev’s Hinterland neighbours had also feared a Japanese invasion on the Sunshine Coast.

There remains a strong feeling amongst some oldtimers that a plan was formulated to help Coast residents escape east across the Blackall Range via Mooloolah. “Brandenburg Road and Bald Knob Road were put through when Singapore fell and we were taken prisoner”, says Nev. “There was a kilometre missing on Bald Knob Road and it was put through to get people quickly away from the Coast if the Japanese arrived. The route through the Blackall Range would take people out west and to Adelaide where it was thought the Japanese would not come.

“Those who thought up the Brisbane Line thought the Japanese would have been happy to stay on the Coast and we would have all moved to the west and into the desert. “ The possibility of invading Australia was indeed discussed by the Japanese Army and Navy on several occasions from early 1942. At the same time in Australia rumours of a ‘Brisbane Line’ were circulating, suggesting the Menzies government would concede the northern part of the country to the Japanese. While this ‘treasonous’ rumour contributed to Menzies defeat at the federal election in 1943, and John Curtin’s Labor landslide victory, there has been no evidence of official documents defining a Brisbane Line.

World War 11 histories generally agree that the Japanese army and navy considered invading Australia on several occasions, but decided to make it a ‘future option’ if other plans went well.

So invasion nerves on the Sunshine Coast, like elsewhere in eastern Australia can be easily understood, although plans on the Sunshine Coast to take the refugee trail to Adelaide were definitely premature.