[1] In 1941 Captain Koch of the Ceylon Garrison Artillery and his unit came to Horsburgh Island and installed two six-inch (fifteen-centimetre) guns to protect the atoll's main entrance and anchorage.

[1] In 2000 it was reported that due to the coastline having eroded so substantially, the barrel of the gun has been washed off into the sand further and the base now rests entirely on the beach rather than on the higher grassed lands as it once did.

[1] The Six Inch Guns, c. 1941, demonstrate the Cocos (Keeling) Islands' important strategic location in the Indian Ocean during World War II.

World War II ended the relative isolation of the Islands and the military presence led to Australian and international scrutiny of the Clunies Ross family's paternalistic administration of the Cocos Malay people.

[1] This Wikipedia article was originally based on Six Inch Guns, entry number 105222 in the Australian Heritage Database published by the Commonwealth of Australia 2019 under CC-BY 4.0 licence, accessed on 15 May 2019.