Combined Services Detailed Interrogation Centre, Brisbane, Military interrogation site in Indooroopilly, Brisbane, Australia
The Combined Services Detailed Interrogation Centre at 9 Lambert Road, Indooroopilly, consists of three brick and timber cell blocks built c. 1942–1943 by the Queensland Main Roads Commission, with an associated former exercise yard. These are the last surviving purpose-built elements of the facility, which served as headquarters of the Allied Translator and Interpreter Section from late 1942 to mid-1945.
The cell blocks were built in 1942–1943 by the Queensland Main Roads Commission on the requisitioned Tighnabruaich estate, once the home of railway chief engineer Henry Charles Stanley. From late 1942 to mid-1945 the site housed the Allied Translator and Interpreter Section, formed on 19 September 1942 under MacArthur's intelligence chief Charles A. Willoughby. It was Australia's only purpose-built WWII POW interrogation centre.
The center employed Japanese American linguists who used their language skills to gather information through conversation rather than coercion. Their work relied on direct communication with detainees.
The site is located on Lambert Road and the original buildings remain visible on the grounds today. Visitors should approach this location as a serious historical site and show appropriate respect for what took place there.
The linguists working here were nisei, second-generation Americans with Japanese heritage, who were brought in to support the war effort despite their American background. Their presence shows how the United States had to cross cultural boundaries during the war to gather intelligence.
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