Griffith University helps uncover Charleville’s war history through interactive WWII Secret Base exhibition

A top-secret US air base at the edge of Charleville is now the heart of a new interactive exhibition which reveals the region’s clandestine role during World War II.

The WWII Secret Base in Charleville is a new interactive and educational exhibit that is attracting tourists to the outback. Photo: Sam Cunningham, Murweh Shire Council.

During the height of World War II, 3500 United States Army and Air Force personnel called a top-secret base near Charleville their home, and now an interactive exhibition centre is telling their story, and the role the region played during the conflict.

The air base was part of General Douglas MacArthur’s ‘Brisbane Line’, a defence strategy that would have involved large areas of northern Australia surrendered in the event of a Japanese invasion.

The military outpost was home to thousands of soldiers, as well as B-17 bombers and P-40 fighter planes, but its true purpose was to test top-secret military hardware used by US bombers.

Griffith Institute for Tourism Associate Professor Brent Moyle was tasked with bringing this history to life by Murweh Shire Council, and the new interactive and education WWII Secret Base exhibition is a culmination of his years of work.

“The Murweh Shire Council developed a tour to showcase the military heritage. However, many of the relics were crumbling away and at risk of being lost forever to other potential competing development priorities,” he said.

Relics including an aircraft hangar, revetments, a building to house the top-secret Norden bombsight, living quarters for soldiers and nurses, kitchens and ablution blocks were built in secret during WWII.

“How many other towns have a secret US air base active during WWII?” Dr Moyle said.

“It’s got bunkers, buried bombers and all sorts of secrets. It was a major opportunity to preserve this unique heritage for future generations to experience.”

A three-year research and development project used 3D scanning to help tell the story of the base through augmented and virtual reality.

“We try to take visitors back to that point in time when the base was active, so we enlist them into the US military and simulate the journey on the ship from New York to Sydney, around the coast of Brazil and the train ride from Sydney to Charleville,” Dr Moyle said.

“Then there’s a whole raft of different experiences in the WWII centre recently constructed as part of an Outback Tourism Infrastructure grant, an outcome of the Advanced Queensland Fellowship.

“By connecting with a team at Griffith Engineering, we were able to do 3D laser scanning to within two millimetres of accuracy of all the heritage sites, now preserved in a digital format that won’t degrade over time. There’s an opportunity to take what we’ve done into classrooms and share it through online digital libraries.”

For more details or to book visit the Experience Charleville website.