The Mustard Gas Men
A History of Mustard Gas and Australia’s Secret WW2 Chemical Weapons Program
By Ned Young
CONTENT WARNING: Confronting war imagery:
Gas! GAS! Quick, boys! —An ecstasy of fumbling
Fitting the clumsy helmets just in time,
But someone still was yelling out and stumbling
And flound’ring like a man in fire or lime. —
Dim through the misty panes and thick green light,
As under a green sea, I saw him drowning.
In all my dreams before my helpless sight,
He plunges at me, guttering, choking, drowning.
Dulce et Decorum Est by Wilfred Owen
In 1886, German chemist Viktor Meyer combined aqueous potassium sulfide with 2-chloroethonal and treated his mixture with phosphorus trichloride and thiodiglycol. His solution killed most of the laboratory rabbits he tested it on.[i] Hans Thacher Clarke, an English chemist working in Berlin in 1913, replaced the phosphorus trichloride in Meyer’s solution with hydrochloric acid. He was hospitalised for two months with severe burns when one of his flasks broke.[ii] The accident was described by Clarke’s lab partner Emil Fischer in a report for the German Chemical Society. When the German Government obtained a copy, Fischer’s report transformed from a routine incident statement to a tantalising military opportunity. From one leaky canister, mustard gas was born.
World War II Gas Identification Poster
US Army
Mustard gas was first used in warfare by the German army against British and Canadian soldiers at Ypres in 1917. It was like nothing they had ever encountered. As the thick, reddish-brown vapour floated across no man’s land, the air was filled with the musty, earthy smell of onions, garlic and horseradish. The Allied gasmasks, effective protection against tear gas and chlorine, proved useless against mustard gas, which seeped into the soldiers’ skin, causing intense blistering and burning. If the mustard gas did manage to enter the lungs, it stripped the mucous membranes and attacked the bronchial tubes, as its victims suffered from vomiting, internal bleeding and choking.
A German gas attack on the Eastern Front, photographed by a Russian airman. The original title for the image is ‘German Frightfulness from the Air’.
Bundesarchiv, Bild 183-F0313-0208-007/CC-BY-SA 3.0
Death from mustard gas poisoning is uncommon but possible if exposed to a large enough dose. Victims suffer terribly, often enduring for 4 or 5 weeks before finally succumbing to the effects. Mustard gas is particularly dangerous because of its ability to remain potent on the battlefield for weeks after its release. Being heavier than air, excess gas settles on the ground and continues to incapacitate nearby soldiers. The freezing Belgian conditions at Ypres also meant that mustard gas vapours could solidify and contaminate soldiers’ clothing, only to become airborne once again when temperatures rose to above the melting point of 14 degrees Celsius.[iii] This commonly occurred in confined spaces shared by many bodies, like trenches or hospitals.
Unidentified Canadian soldier with burns caused by mustard gas attack at Ypres 1917.
Library and Archives Canada MIKAN ID 3194270
The British first used mustard gas at Cambrai in November 1917 after capturing German shells. A year later, they had developed their own mustard gas formula, which they employed during the breaking of the Hindenburg Line in September 1918.[iv] West to east wind conditions on the Western Front favoured the Allied positions, which meant they could benefit from the destructive effects of gas more frequently than the Germans.[v]
When the United States entered the war, poison gas development only increased. The Americans developed lewisite, a compound similar in nature to mustard gas that smelt like geranium flowers and caused burning pain in the respiratory tract.[vi] About 20,000 tons[vii] of lewisite was produced by the United States beginning in November 1918,[viii] however the armistice had already been signed by the time it was ready to be implemented on the front lines.
A lewisite warning poster from 1942. Lewisite was never used in combat during World War II.
National Museum of Health and Medicine, Washington D.C.
World War I proved just how devastating chemical warfare could be. It is estimated 90,198 soldiers died from gas attacks during the war, and that over 1.3 million were injured in some way.[ix] Approximately 16,000 Australian soldiers sustained injuries caused by toxic gas, making up 12% of Australia’s total casualties.[x] Many victims were scarred for life; rendered blind and susceptible to respiratory disease due to damaged lung tissue.
The Treaty of Versailles and other like post-war treaties included provisions that prohibited the creation or importation of chemical weapons by Germany, Austria, Bulgaria and Hungry. However, the victors of the war, namely Britain and Russia, allegedly continued to use chemical weapons in the Russian Civil War and the Middle East. In 1922, the Allies looked to reaffirm the Treaty of Versailles and introduce a new treaty concerning submarines and noxious gases.[xi] The treaty failed to gain force in any country because France objected to the submarine provisions.[xii]
At the 1925 Geneva Convention, a breakthrough was made. The ‘Protocol for the Prohibition of the Use in War of Asphyxiating, Poisonous or other Gases, and of Bacteriological Methods of Warfare’ was signed on 17 June and came into force on 8 February 1928. Australia ratified the treaty on 22 January 1930,[xiii] and most other First World War combatants followed, barring the notable exceptions of Japan and the United States.
The signatory nations agreed, at least in theory, that the use of chemical weapons had been “justly condemned by the general opinion of the unified world”.[xiv] What had been intentionally omitted in the treaty, but discussed in length at the convention, was the ability for nations to stockpile chemical weapons. The fear among some States was that they would not have any chemical weapons of their own to use in defence if a non-signatory State attacked or a signatory State violated the terms of the treaty. As the Hungarian delegate Zoltan de Baranyai eloquently noted, “the real danger for a nation was to go to sleep peacefully trusting an international undertaking and to awake finding itself defenseless”.[xv] Turkish delegate Colonel Mehmed Tevfik Bey continued the argument: “If, in the event of war one party make use of these substances and its use is definitely established, the opponent should also have the right to make free use of them, if only as a legitimate means of defence”.[xvi]
The Australian Department of Defence too feared what might happen if they were without protection in the event of an invasion. Thus, as early as August 1937, the Controller-General of Munitions Supply advocated for the chlorine industry to be expanded in order to create chemical weaponry.[xvii] Tentative consideration of a chemical weapons program suddenly became an urgent investigation in September 1940 when risk of a Japanese attack on home soil became a real possibility.[xviii] It was known that Japan had ample chemical weapon stocks, and recent history in China suggested they would not hesitate to use them in spite of the Treaty of Versailles and the 1925 Geneva Protocol (which they were yet to ratify). Reports from 1941 suggested Singapore was particularly vulnerable to a chemical attack,[xix] and, although the Japanese army ultimately captured Singapore by conventional means, fear of chemical weaponry only grew within the ranks of the Department of Defence.
Containers filled with mustard gas on the island of Okunoshima, Japan pictured 30 August 1946. Japan launched Operation Lewisite to destroy their chemical weapon stocks at the end of World War II.
Australian War Memorial 131766
On 24 March 1942, Britain determined “immediate action was [to be] taken to supply Australia’s chemical weapons needs”.[xx] By May, chemical weapons sent from San Francisco began arriving in Australia.[xxi] No. 1 Central Reserve RAAF was formed at Marrangaroo on 1 April 1942 and were responsible for the unloading and storage of the mustard gas and phosgene being sent to Australia from the United Kingdom and United States.[xxii] The work, monotonous yet incredibly dangerous, was above all top secret. The men involved were mostly young, fresh army recruits with ambitions of service overseas in New Guinea, and were unaware of their true duties until they arrived at the docks.
Left to Right: Tiny Waterman, Mark Williams, Geoff ‘Tassie’ Burn, Les Parsons, Arthur Blackwell and Alan Jack sit atop drums filled with mustard gas.
RAAF Chemical Warfare Armourers
Initially, four depots were chosen around the Sydney area. Each were abandoned railway tunnels. The Glenbrook Tunnel was mainly used to store bulk drums of mustard gas, the Picton Tunnel stored spray tanks and the Clarence Tunnel took the overflow of stocks from Glenbrook.[xxiii] The largest storage tunnel at Marrangaroo was designed to appear from the air as a country town, with the mess hall and kitchen disguised as ‘Ryan’s Hotel’ and the guardhouse as the local butcher shop.[xxiv] From 1943-1945, the Marrangaroo Tunnel housed 19,582 separate mustard gas and phosgene bombs.[xxv] Over 1 million bombs were imported to Australia in that time, and were stored all over the country from central Victoria to the tropics of Queensland and the Northern Territory.[xxvi]
‘The town that never was’. The mess and guardhouse at Marrangaroo. The chicken shed behind the butcher had paper mâché chickens that were moved around by hand each night.[xxvii]
‘The Big Secret: Australia's mustard gas men break their silence’, Illawarra Mercury Weekender
As the Japanese moved south to New Guinea, the stores of chemical weapons in Australia moved north in preparation for a potential retaliation attack. Talmoi in Central Queensland housed many of the bombs and drums from Marrangaroo and Glenbrook, and the 88 Mile Chemical Warfare Depot, located near Robin Falls, Northern Territory, was home to several mustard gas and phosgene sheds filled with 44-gallon drums.[xxviii] The United States forces based in Australia also began independently importing chemical weapons around this time. Their biggest storage facility was in Darra, 10 miles from Brisbane.[xxix]
There was, however, something more sinister than the mere storage of mustard gas unfolding in far north Queensland. The Australian Chemical Warfare Research and Experimental Section (ACWR & ES) relocated from Bonegilla, Victoria to Innisfail, Queensland in December 1943 in order to conduct research into mustard gas reactions in a tropical climate. The Chemical Warfare Research Base comprised five houses on the Innisfail Esplanade, left vacant by their Italian owners after they were interned by the Australian Government.[xxx] If chemical weapons were to be used on Australian soldiers in Papua New Guinea, the ACWR & ES sought to discover how best to protect against them, and in turn, how to most effectively use them.
The ACWR & ES was “a most unorthodox group of people lead by two UK Officers of the Royal Army Medical Corps (RAMC) and three civilian scientists from…the UK”.[xxxi] Alongside the UK Officers were RAAF and AMF personnel, a Captain from the United States, Australian civilian bio-chemists, British physiologists and meteorologists and at times observers from as far away as South Africa.[xxxii] Women from the Australian Women’s Army Service (AWAS) and Australian Army Medical Women’s Service (AAMWS) made up a large portion of the Unit, and completed tasks ranging from laboratory assistants to meteorological observer.[xxxiii]
An informal group portrait of members of the ACWR & ES.
AWM P01831.009
Not everyone in the ACWR & ES was a scientist or observer, however. Some soldiers were the subjects. Behind the Headquarters house in Innisfail, a 100 cubic metre gas chamber was constructed, designed by Dr Hugh Ennor, physiologist Jack Legge and refrigeration engineer Walter Bassett, within which tests were conducted on human guinea pigs.[xxxiv] The gas chamber tests required subjects to “exercise vigorously” (often by moving heavy sacks)[xxxv] within the chamber before exiting and completing an obstacle course at the showgrounds across the road. This gave the researchers an indication of how long the subjects were able to continue physical exercise under the battle conditions of Papua New Guinea. It also allowed them to compare how long it took for injuries to present themselves within the air-conditioned chamber as compared to the humid conditions outside.[xxxvi] Within the chamber, the walls were saturated with mustard gas vapour and the doors airlocked.[xxxvii] Respirators and protective ointment were used, although, as the tests concluded, they were not very effective.
An unidentified solider hoses down the gas chamber to help control the temperature inside. Wooden cladding and tarpaulins were also used to regulate temperatures.
AWM P05252.022
The first of seven obstacles at the Innisfail Showgrounds – a 12 foot high wall built with 4 inch logs.
The assault course was over 400 yards long.[xxxviii]
AWM P05294.001
By mid-January 1944, most necessary data from the gas chamber experiments had been recorded. Field testing was the next phase carried out by the ACWR & ES. Three tests were performed on the Brook Islands, located 30 kilometers east of the mainland town of Cardwell, Queensland. In the first trial on 21 January 1944, 90 mustard gas bombs were dropped on North Brook Island from six American Liberators.[xxxix] Soon after, a selection of personnel from the ACWR & ES were ferried in from South Brook Island, wearing full protective gear and respirators, to sample gas levels at various pre-allotted points on the island.
A member of the ACWR & ES in full protective gear taking a sample after the first field trial on North Brook Island.
AWM P01831.027
The second trial in early March 1944 expanded upon the procedure of the first. Beaufort Bombers dropped 159 mustard gas bombs on North Brook Island, and samples were collected from 43 sampling points.[xl] Included in this trial were goats, who were left in foxholes and weapons pits during the bombing. The aim was to test how protective these measures were against mustard gas. Many goats died from their injuries or had to be put down to reduce their suffering. Postmortems were carried out to reveal the extent of the goats’ injuries.[xli] The use of these goats was incredibly cruel but considered by the ACWR & ES as necessary in protecting Australian soldiers in the event of a gas attack in the South West Pacific.
A member of the ACWR & ES in full protective gear records data after the second field trial on North Brook Island. Inside the foxhole is one of the many goats used during this trial.
AWM 065123
A third and final test used American Vultee A-31 Vengeance Dive-Bombers and American M47 high-explosive bombs and was commanded by US Captain Howard Skipper.[xlii] In 1974, Skipper was awarded a Nobel Prize for research in the chemotherapy of cancer, within which he referred to experiments possibly associated with Brook Island.[xliii] This test also involved the aerial spraying of gas on a beach of North Brook Island.[xliv]
An informal portrait of biochemist and physiologist Captain Howard Skipper taken in Innisfail, 1944.
AWM P01831.013
Testing continued into 1945, with bombing and field firing practice conducted in the Mission Beach area until as late as 4 February. A trial on 9 August 1944 involved several volunteers who marched through contaminated jungle at various intervals after it had been bombed.[xlv] One volunteer, John Henry Roche (NX149287), recalls slipping into a pool of mustard gas while on a two and a half hour hike. Within hours, his “buttocks and back of the thighs” were “severely burned”.[xlvi] To best replicate battle conditions, Roach left his mustard gas soaked uniform on for the remainder of the week, by which point he was unable to walk and declared medically unfit. The size of his burns were recorded, and his lesions drained and tested daily.[xlvii]
Men like John Roche who worked at the early supply depots and were involved in the Queensland trials never left Australian shores, yet still endured some of the most hellish of war experiences. The Mustard Gas Men, as they have become known, were refused pensions because they “did not incur danger from hostile forces of the enemy whilst serving inside Australia”.[xlviii] In maintaining the secrecy of their work by order of the Australian Government, these men were unjustly penalised by the Department of Veterans’ Affairs. Moreover, the embarrassment caused by family, friends and other veterans believing these men were ‘dodging the front’ was worse than any unpaid annuities, as was the shame in being involved with the chemicals that had left the generation before them scarred for life.
Japan surrendered on 2 September 1945 and the ACWR & ES was disbanded on Christmas Eve, but the work with chemical weapons was not over yet. Tens of thousands of tons of mustard gas and phosgene remained in Australia, and the Australian Government wanted it destroyed as quickly and as quietly as possible, whatever the cost. Three methods of disposal were identified. The first, burning, commenced in late October at the Australian Field Experimental Station in Proserpine, Queensland.[xlix] At least 2000 chemical mines were burnt at No.1 Base Ammunition Depot, Albury during November.[l] Mustard gas was also incinerated in Talmoi, at 88 Mile and at the Marangaroo and Glenbrook storage tunnels. Phosgene at Talmoi and 88 Mile was vented from its containers and allowed to dissipate.[li] It could be disposed of this way because it is less potent than mustard gas and does not remain active in an area for as long.
Large cylinders once filled with mustard gas lie burnt in the Queensland bush.
AWM P05254.014
Gas is vented by the Japanese at Okunoshima as part of Operation Lewisite. A similar method would have been used in Australia.
AWM 131758
The final method of disposal was the most secretive and remains to this day a potential danger to the environment. In the late 1990’s, trawling boats working in deep Australian waters began uncovering some disturbing finds. Their nets brought in mines, bombs and drums filled with solidified mustard gas and other chemical warfare agents. This sparked an investigation by the Department of Defence in 2000, who found that at least 21,030 tons of chemical munitions were dumped in Australian waters.[lii] The main dumping sites were Cape Morton, Queensland, King Island, Victoria and in New South Wales off the coast of Sydney. Some of these weapons were loaded onto disused ships and scuttled[liii] (purposely sunk), but a large majority were dropped as loose bombs or shells.
As the steel drums and shells begin to corrode, leaking mustard gas hydrolyses, forming a solidified gel that takes at least five years to breakdown.[liv] The exposed mustard gas is fatal to organisms it encounters, and too much in one area could be disastrous for biodiversity. The 2000 Department of Defence Report found that the dumping grounds in Australia do not “correlate with designated marine sensitive environments”, and that the gas is leaking slowly enough that it will not spread very far from its original position.[lv]
Maps of the estimated locations of the three main dump zones for chemical weapons.
Chemical warfare agent dumping off Australia 2000 Figures 1, 2 and 4
Every year, new details surrounding the disposal of chemical weapons after World War II are exposed. In 2009, a cache of 144 shells was discovered at an old US ammunition depot in Columboola, Queensland.[lvi] Exploded drums are continually found by hikers in the Lithgow-Blue Mountains area[lvii] (near the Marrangaroo Depot), as well as in the Northern Territory at Burrell Creek[lviii] (near the 88 Mile Base) and at Mission Creek in Queensland. Upwards of 5,000 bombs were unearthed at the Marrangaroo Base in 2009[lix] after the community became aware of the buried munitions, buried less than 100 meters from residential housing in some cases.[lx]
Mustard gas has, in some way or another, touched almost every nation on the planet. Perfected by a British scientist, used by or against every World War I belligerent, globally denounced in 1925 and stockpiled extensively by Australia in World War II. Even today, the use of chemical and biological weapons remains a daunting possibility. Just 30 years ago, during the Gulf War, soldiers of the Coalition and the governments of Saudi Arabia and Israel feared Iraq could launch missiles filled with chemical nerve agents.
Only now are the scars of the Australian chemical warfare program revealing themselves, from the controversial work of the ACWR & ES at Innisfail, to stores of weapons in railway tunnels and to sunken ships filled with bombs. The most important scars to remember however, are the ones on the bodies of the Mustard Gas Men, who were burdened with secrecy and have been forgotten for far too long. The weapons buried at Marrangaroo were only discovered because ex-Mustard Gas Man Geoffrey Burn (31981) identified the site on an aerial map.[lxi] There are without doubt more of these sites hidden in Australia, but no one in the Australian Government or Defence Force can be certain where they are or how volatile they remain. The Mustard Gas Men, of whom there are few left alive, may be the only ones to hold the answers.
References:
[i] Johnson, F, 2021, Mustard Gas In WWI: Effects And History, [online] Study.com, Available at:
[ii] Ibid.
[iii] Plunkett, G 2021, Chemical Weapons Types, Chemical Warfare in Australia, [online], Available at:
[iv] The History Press, 2021 Breaking The Hindenburg Line: The Capture Of St Quentin Canal. [online] Available at:
[v] Lockwood, J 2003, ‘Chapter 3. The Earth's Climates’, in Hewitt, C and Jackson, A (eds.), Handbook of Atmospheric Science: Principles and Applications, Blackwell Publishing, Oxford, pp. 72–74.
[vi] U.S. National Research Council 1999, ‘Committee on Review and Evaluation of the Army Non-Stockpile Chemical Materiel Disposal Program’, Disposal of Chemical Agent Identification Sets, National Academies Press, Washington DC, p. 16.
[vii] Vilensky, J 2005, Dew of Death - The Story of Lewisite, America's World War I Weapon of Mass Destruction, Indiana University Press, Indianapolis, p. 36.
[viii] Ibid, p. 50.
[ix] Schneider, B 1999, Future War and Counterproliferation: U.S. Military Responses to NBC, Praeger, New York, p. 84.
[x] Cavander, L and Wong-See, T 2019, ‘Australia imported mustard gas in WWII, son uncovers father's role’, [online] Available at:
[xi] ‘Treaty relating to the Use of Submarines and Noxious Gases in Warfare’, Washington Naval Conference, Washington DC, 6 February 1922.
[xii] Ibid.
[xiii] Plunkett, G 2021, Why were there chemical weapons in Australia?, Chemical Warfare in Australia, [online], Available at:
[xiv] The Protocol for the Prohibition of the Use in War of Asphyxiating, Poisonous or other Gases, and of Bacteriological Methods of Warfare.
[xv] Zanders, J 2015, The Geneva Protocol At 90, Part 1: Discovery Of The Dual-Use Dilemma, [online] The Trench, Available at:
[xvi] Ibid.
[xvii] Plunkett, G 2021, Why were there chemical weapons in Australia?, Chemical Warfare in Australia, [online], Available at:
[xviii] Ibid.
[xix] Ibid.
[xx] Ibid.
[xxi] Ibid.
[xxii] Ibid.
[xxiii] Ibid, Depots.
[xxiv] Verity, W 2008, ‘The Big Secret: Australia's mustard gas men break their silence’, Illawarra Mercury Weekender, pp.3-6.
[xxv] Plunkett, G 2021, Depots, Chemical Warfare in Australia, [online], Available at:
[xxvi] Ibid.
[xxvii] Verity, W 2008, ‘The Big Secret: Australia's mustard gas men break their silence’, Illawarra Mercury Weekender, pp.3-6.
[xxviii] Plunkett, G 2021, Depots, Chemical Warfare in Australia, [online], Available at:
[xxix] Ibid.
[xxx] Dunn, P 2015, Australian Chemical Warfare Research And Experimental Section, Later Absorbed Into 1 Australian Field Experimental Station, Then Renamed To 1 Australian Field Trials Company, Australian Army, In Australia During WW2, [online] Ozatwar, Available at:
[xxxi] From the diary of Sylvia Stoltz (VF396141), who worked as a Meteorology Section Assistant, , Available at:
[xxxii] Ibid.
[xxxiii] Ibid.
[xxxiv]Australian War Memorial, 2021, An Unidentified Soldier Hoses Down The Gas Trial Chamber To Help Control The Temperature, [online] Awm.gov.au., Available at:
[xxxv] Ibid.
[xxxvi] Australian War Memorial, 2021, Flight Sergeant (Flt Sgt) Maurice Maunder and another unidentified patient in the Chemical Warfare Unit hospital. Flt Sgt Maunder returned from New Guinea to be involved in the Unit's chemical trials, [online] Awm.gov.au., Available at:
[xxxvii] Australian War Memorial, 2021, An Unidentified Soldier Hoses Down The Gas Trial Chamber To Help Control The Temperature, [online] Awm.gov.au., Available at:
[xxxviii] Australian War Memorial, 2021, The first of seven obstacles on the assault course at the Innisfail Show Ground designed to assess the resilience of volunteers who had been affected by various amounts of mustard gas during the Australian Chemical and Warfare Research and Experimental Section trials, [online] Awm.gov.au., Available at:
[xxxix] Dunn, P 2015, Brook Island Mustard Gas Trials During WW2, [online] Ozatwar, Available at:
[xl] Ibid.
[xli] Australian War Memorial, 2021, Brook Island, Qld. c.1944-03-04. Mr John (Jack) Legge, a pathologist with the Australian Chemical Warfare Research and Experimental Section, Royal Australian Engineers, carrying out a post mortem on a goat killed by mustard gas during an experiment on the island in the Innisfail area, [online] Awm.gov.au., Available at:
[xlii] Dunn, P 2015, Brook Island Mustard Gas Trials During WW2, [online] Ozatwar, Available at:
[xliii] Dunn, P 2015, Australian Chemical Warfare Research And Experimental Section, Later Absorbed Into 1 Australian Field Experimental Station, Then Renamed To 1 Australian Field Trials Company, Australian Army, In Australia During WW2, [online] Ozatwar, Available at:
[xliv] Dunn, P 2015, Brook Island Mustard Gas Trials During WW2, [online] Ozatwar, Available at:
[xlv] Dunn, P 2015, Artillery Practise and Chemical Warfare Trials at Mission Beach in Far North Queensland in Australia During WW2, [online] Ozatwar, Available at:
[xlvi] Ibid.
[xlvii] Ibid.
[xlviii] Verity, W 2008, ‘The Big Secret: Australia's mustard gas men break their silence’, Illawarra Mercury Weekender, pp.3-6.
[xlix] [xlix] Plunkett, G 2021, Chemical Weapons Disposal, Chemical Warfare in Australia, [online], Available at:
[l] Ibid.
[li] Ibid.
[lii] Department of Defence 2003, ‘Chemical warfare agent dumping off Australia’, 3rd ed., Defence Publishing Service, Canberra, p. 3.
[liii] Ibid.
[liv] Bull, J 2005, ‘Special Report Part 1: The Deadliness Below’, Daily Press, [online], Available at: < https://www.dailypress.com/news/dp-02761sy0oct30-story.html?page=1>.
[lv] Department of Defence 2003, ‘Chemical warfare agent dumping off Australia’, 3rd ed., Defence Publishing Service, Canberra, p. 3.
[lvi] Frazer, I 2009, ‘Bunker battleground 1020 mustard-charged bombs dumped in our waters’, Townsville Bulletin, [online], Available at:
[lvii] Ashworth, L 2008, ‘Hidden Newnes Forest storage has added to military puzzle’, Lithgow Mercury, [online], Available at:
[lviii] Bellamy, C 2019, ‘At Burrell Creek rusty barrels at old chemical depot site, Northern Territory, [online], Available at:< https://www.abc.net.au/news/2019-12-09/burrell-creek-barrels/11776078?nw=0>.
[lix] Ashworth, L 2009, ‘Marrangaroo Secrets Brought Into The Light’, Lithgow Mercury, [online], Available at:
[lx] Keats, M 2008, ‘Marrangaroo - What can go wrong?’, The Bushwalker, Vol. 33, No. 4, pp.6-7.
[lxi] Ibid.