U.S. Army General MacArthur arrived at Batchelor from Corregidor Island via Mindanao on 17 March 1942 aboard a USAAF B-17 Flying Fortress, before making his way to Melbourne.

From Batchelor, the unit moved to Java to take part in the defense of the Dutch East Indies, then was reassigned to Brisbane to regroup, resupply and rearm.

There was a hanging bedsheet and projector movie theatre, an agreeable swimming hole in the nearby Adelaide River, and a squadron store which sold any number of interesting items, acquired through questionable means or otherwise.

The young American men often ventured into the bush which surrounded their field bivouacs to wonder at the three-metre high, solid mud termite mounds that towered above the scrub floor.

Some caught the odd marsupial or exotic bird for pets, but learned early that the small grey bandicoots and kangaroos were impossible to domesticate.

They also swapped cigarettes for fresh fruit and wild yams to improve their lacklustre diet, but few Americans could tolerate the flesh of the lizards, snakes, fish and flying foxbats that their native hosts considered delicacies.