Visited 10 September, 2011
During the
Second World War my father worked at the Maribyrnong munitions works. I make this bare bones statement with absolutely
no way of fleshing out the story. He
never spoke of it; he never provided the context; I never asked; he died at age
45, when I was 20 and unaware of the importance of such things; and now there’s
nobody left who might be able to elaborate.
My father,
Gordon, was born at Korong Vale in central Victoria. I presume that my Grandma Andrews (nee Laity)
had gone there for the confinement, to be with her own mother. My grandparents were farmers near Chinkapook,
in the Mallee region of Victoria, about 100 miles to the northwest of Korong
Vale, and 250 miles (420 kilometres) from Melbourne. Gordon was
a farmer’s son, and doubtless when young had worked on the farm, and – again
I’m guessing – had the expectation of becoming a farmer too. I know little of his schooling. I’m pretty sure he went to the tiny Eureka school
about a mile from the Andrews home. The
one-classroom schools of the time were creatures of the numbers of school-age
children in the close vicinity, and the Eureka State School had three physical
locations over its lifetime from its opening in 1915 to its closure in
1940. On two occasions the local farmers
put it on a makeshift sled, and carted it to a new site more proximate to the
homes of the current enrolment – the first time dragged by a bullock team, the
second time drawn by draft horses.
Gordon attended the School during the period of its second
incarnation. Later, I know that he
attended Footscray Technical School. (His
two elder sisters were sent as boarders to Methodist Ladies’ College in
Hawthorn.) I think that while attending Footscray Tech he
would have boarded nearby. He later had
depression-time city jobs after completing school; and it’s likely that there
was a continuance of lodging and/or a work connection in the western suburbs. I say this because he was a member of a Masonic
Lodge based at Footscray. There was a
strong Freemason presence in the Mallee, and Gordon would have been recruited in
his home region as a young man………………..if he hadn’t already been recruited at Footscray!
At the time
of his marriage Gordon was back on the farm.
He never did but my mother, Gloria, sometimes spoke of the early years
of hardship, camping in a barn on the Andrews property, remote from the house
and the home block. The Andrews house
was commodious by local standards, with two bedrooms and a large sleepout, and
I expect that the exile in the barn was self-imposed, and the result of a
severe case of mother-in-law aversion. I
have no time line of Gordon and Gloria’s farming endeavours, except that by the
time I was five they were share-farming at a location named Daytrap, a couple
of miles further from Chinkapook than the Andrews farm, and a bit more
westerly. This was 1945 and the War was
over.
For the War
years Gordon, as a farmer, had been in a “reserved” occupation and exempted
from military duty. But this didn’t
exempt him from having to make a living; and there were serious droughts and
failed crops in the early 1940s. I
don’t know whether the time spent at the munitions factory was merely a way of
earning money; it’s more likely that there was a wartime arrangement whereby
cereal farmers were asked – perhaps obliged - to “report for duty” at the times
of year when the crops didn’t require their daily presence on the farm. It’s possible that Gordon worked at Maribyrnong
for short bursts over a number of years, and on these occasions I expect that
he stayed with his aunt and uncle Em and Frank Templeton, who lived at nearby Essendon
from the early 1940s onwards. [Having written the foregoing I received
quite a surprise when I referred to the Australian War Memorial website on the
subject of WW2 “reserved occupations”.
Farmer was not a reserved
occupation……..but munitions worker was! So Gordon could in theory have volunteered
for active service at any time before he commenced his munitions work – I put
that as a question rather than a statement.
And the second question: was it
his position as a munitions worker that prevented him from being called up when
conscription was introduced later in the War? Perhaps he had flat feet or was otherwise
medically unfit, and this answers both questions. Who knows?]
All this –
such as it passes for family history - came to mind as we drove past what
remains of the Maribyrnong factory site on our way to exploration of Military
Road, and breakfast. Let me get it said
right away: that the few shops in
Military Road, Avondale Heights, are a dreary bunch, and the place where we ate
is forgettable. The breakfast itself was
some once-hot bacon and egg trapped in a bun inside some cling-wrap. The coffee, however, was strong and hot.
By the way,
the route we traversed to Avondale Heights follows what is in effect the one
street with multiple names. It zigzags
all over, with the differently-named sections slipping into each other, across
the metropolis, rather like the so-called ring roads in Sydney 40 years ago. Starting from Merri Creek in North Fitzroy
the continuous thoroughfare from east to west is named, in sequence, Holden
Street, Brunswick Road, Ormond Road, Maribyrnong Road, Raleigh Road, Cordite
Avenue, Corning Street, Military Road, and terminates in Keilor East as
Milleara Road. Follow it on a map; it’s
quite a journey.
The history
of the munitions sites in Melbourne’s west is one of the more remarkable of
Melbourne’s industrial stories. And a
remarkable military story too: it is not an exaggeration to say that for more
than a century the Western Suburbs works were the centerpiece of the Australian
defence industry. Over time there came
to be hundreds of buildings on the sites.
The colony
of Victoria, in early times, was not short of self-confidence. From its 1835 beginnings through the gold
rushes of the 1850s to the resultant booms in population, in community wealth,
and in extravagant civic and private building, there was swagger in the
air. The term “Marvellous Melbourne”
captured the astonishment of visitors who - in 1880 say – found at the end of
the world a city of half-a-million people, larger than most of the capitals of
Europe at the time. Surprising, then,
that there was considerable concern about potential invasion, first fear of the
Russians, later fear of the French; although perhaps not so surprising, given
what Melburnians had to lose. This
underlying concern triggered serious moves for the colony to become
self-reliant in terms of arms. This
concern then received a substantial fillip from the repatriation, in 1870, of
the last British troops from Australia.
There was, thereafter, a rapid increase in the colony’s volunteer
forces, and continual public debate about the perceived need to manufacture
armaments locally. This led, initially,
to the government establishing, in 1874, the Saltwater Gunpowder Magazine at
Footscray – known to all as Jack’s Magazine, it is still there today, abandoned,
but inevitably sturdy! Incidentally, the
formal name comes from the Saltwater River, as the Maribyrnong River was then
known. The existence of the River was a
key to the location chosen for each element of the armaments and defence
establishments over the next generations: available water transport down to the
Port, for shipment to other parts of Australia, and abroad.
The
manufacture of basic explosives at Jack’s Magazine, was not sufficient for
military purposes, so in 1888 the Colonial Ammunition Factory was established (also
at Footscray), as it happens by private enterprise, albeit with a government cash
incentive and a free grant of land and assurances of custom from Victoria and
other colonies.
Some twenty
years later, in 1908 - after the federation of the Australian colonies - the
Commonwealth established the Commonwealth Explosives Factory at Maribyrnong. By the commencement of the First World War
the Footscray/Maribyrnong area had truly become the arsenal of Australia. It is said that 2 million .303 bullets were
produced for Australian troops each year of WWII.
More was to
come. The Commonwealth Ordnance Factory
was established on the Maribyrnong site in 1924. And in 1927 the Footscray ammunition works were
acquired by the Commonwealth, bringing all core defence ordnance under
government control.
Little more
than a decade later there was massive gearing-up for the Second World War.
What existed
at Footscray and Maribyrnong during WWII was a huge integrated military
industry: explosives manufacture; and bronze manufacturing and metals extruding
works, with the incorporation of these down-stream products into the
manufacture of small arms; plus the manufacture of the range of military paraphernalia. The several works provided employment for most
locals (and expatriate farmers!), and there developed a unique works culture. Significantly, large numbers of women were
employed (around 45% across all factories).
Overall, thousands of workers were involved, one source says 8000,
another says 16000, a third says 20000 throughout the course of the War. Clearly there was mass domestic mobilization
to serve the military needs of the time.
A sense of
the dangers of life in the world of munitions comes from the following extract
from a study prepared by Igor Bera, a year 10 student of Footscray City
College:
“Safety
precautions were strictly applied at the factories. Buildings were separated by great distances
so that one explosion would not set off a chain reaction of explosions. This resulted in factory sites being the size
of small suburbs. Mounds were created
around buildings so that if an explosion occurred it would blow upwards,
instead of laterally. Mowers were not
used to cut the grass, because of the fear that the vibration could cause an
explosion, so sheep were allowed to graze within the factory grounds. The buildings had very thick walls to contain
an explosion if it occurred. Not all
safety solutions were as elaborate as these.
Some were quite primitive……….exposure to toxic chemicals often went
unrecognized……….exposure to TNT left workers with yellow skin, nausea and
violent headaches. The solution was to
rotate workers more often…………”.
Young
mister Bera has managed to locate some statistics too. Prepare to be staggered. During WW2 the Maribyrnong/Footscray output,
among a lot of other ordnance, was 9.6 million artillery shells, 1.8 million
mortars, 750 thousand anti-personnel land mines, 4.3 million anti-aircraft
shells, and 1845 million rounds of small arms.
Although
still operational during the later Korean and Vietnam Wars and beyond, the Maribyrnong
complex closed in 1994. The Edgewater
housing estate today occupies some of the site.
A few of the old buildings remain but most have gone.
By
definition, history is a passing parade.
I regret that I heard none of the wartime Maribyrnong history first-hand
from my father.
Gary
Andrews
