Macarthur Museum

Few who pass the glass doors of MacArthur Chambers Hotel would know that it was from a floor in this building, now the Macarthur Museum, that General Douglas MacArthur directed the Allies in holding back the Japanese invasion of the entire Pacific region. 

And it is this office, which remains just as it was when he left, that forms part of this intriguing little museum.

As the World War II headquarters of the South West Pacific, for 2 and a half years between 1942 and 1944 General MacArthur travelled daily from his suite at Lennons Hotel (Brisbane’s only modern hotel at the time) to the office and board room of the AMP building, via streets lined with bedazzled onlookers.

Today visitors can view the leather chair in its room from which he directed the war effort, or sit on the original chairs at the conference table where strategies were thrashed out, watch fascinating film footage and photos of Brisbane during wartime such as when Ann St was one long line of bomb shelters, read the apologetic letter from Prime Minister Curtin to the school children of Australia and view artefacts from the time when it was the frontline city in Australia for fighting the war.