Holland Park Hospital, Logan Road, Holland Park, Brisbane, QLD

The US Army established the 3,000 bed Holland Park Hospital on a 100 acre paddock at Logan Road at Holland Park. About 300 men were involved in its construction. It took its first patients in about June 1943 when the 42nd General Hospital moved out of Stuartholme on Mount Coot-tha.

The 42nd General Hospital's newspaper "Stethoscope" of 12 August 1943 noted that the nurses left the Hospital at Camp Columbia in August 1943 to return to the 42nd General Hospital at Stuartholme. The 1 November 1943 edition of the "Stethoscope" indicated that the remaining members of Section II at Camp Columbia then moved to the new hospital at Holland Park on 21 October 1943. The officers in charge of the Hospital at Camp Columbia included Major William Walker (the first and last officer-in-charge), Major Simon Bager, Captain Crawford, and Captain Muller.

View towards Logan Road, with Brodie Street at right, through grounds of the Holland Park
Military Hospital, erected in 1943. The prefabricated wards of the hospital are in the foreground.

The US Army Holland Park Hospital was located in the areas bounded by Nursery Avenue and Gorban Street, Holland Park and approximately between Seville Park and Logan Road.

It is believed that the Mount Gravatt Scout Group Hall was one of the huts from the Holland Park Hospital. It was possibly the Administration building from either Unit No. 1 or Unit No. 2 of the Holland Park Hospital.

Fighter ace, 1st Lieutenant Thomas B. McGuire, was in one of two P-38 Lightnings shot down on 17 October 1943 about 8 miles to the east of Buna in New Guinea. A cannon shell burst into the radio in his cockpit, and a 7.7 shell hit his wrist and passed into the instrument panel. He also suffered shrapnel wounds in his right arm and hips. He then released his canopy escape hatch and bailed out. McGuire landed in the sea about 25 miles from shore and remained in the water for about 30 minutes. He could not inflate his life raft due to shrapnel damage.

At 1045 hours McGuire was rescued by the crew of PT Boat PT-152 and was initially taken onboard the PT Tender boat USS Hilo and placed in their comfortable sick bay. McGuire was then admitted to the Tenth Evacuation Hospital in Port Moresby, New Guinea.

Thomas B. McGuire arrived as a patient in Brisbane around the time that the 42nd General Hospital was relocating from Stuartholme to this new hospital at Holland Park. The 42nd General Hospital's war book states that the hospital move occurred on 21 October 1943 so it is not clear whether McGuire may have spent a short while at the first hospital at Stuartholme in Brisbane. One source suggests that he spent three weeks in the 10th Evacuation Hospital in Port Moresby and three weeks on convalescent leave in Brisbane.

It is rumoured that Thomas B. McGuire had a romance with one of the nurses at the US 42nd General Hospital at the Military Hospital at Holland Park in Brisbane, Queensland whilst he was a patient there for about three weeks. The nurse fell pregnant and had a son to Thomas B. McGuire. He was released from hospital and he was greeted in the 431st Fighter Squadron's camp on 3 November 1943 just 16 days after he was shot down and severely injured.

I'd also like to thank Martha Ranc, whose aunty was a nurse at Stuartholme during WWII. Martha has written a research paper on the 42nd General Hospital. Martha made me aware of the connection with Camp Columbia.

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