Lone Pine and Henry Herbert King

¹The battle of Lone Pine was intended as a tactical diversion from attempts by New Zealand and Australian units to force a breakout from the Anzac perimeter in the north at Chunuk Bair and Hill 971.

The Lone Pine attack, launched by the 1st Brigade, AIF, took place in the late afternoon of 6 August 1915 and pitched Australian forces against formidable entrenched Turkish positions, sections of which were securely roofed over with pine logs. In some instances the attackers had to break in through the roofs of the trench systems in order to engage the defenders. The main Turkish trench was taken within 20 minutes of the initial charge, but this was the prelude to four days of intense hand-to-hand fighting as the Turks counter-attacked.

Herbert Henry King, Service No. 1667 4^th Infantry Battalion, of Port Pirie died at Lone Pine on the 6^th of August 1915. Initially Herbert was listed as missing which is not surprising since the dead piled three or four high and the reinforcements ran over them to get to the fighting. The dead Australians and Turks were either buried, stacked in heaps, thrown over the parapet, or used to block the Turkish communication trenches along with sandbags and soil.  ³Proceedings of a court of enquiry held at Flairbax, France on 22^nd April 1916 finally determined that Herbert King was Killed in action. His next of kin and mother Margaret who lived at 30 Howe Street, Jean Park, Port Pirie West was contacted by the AIF Base Records Office as late as May 1921 asking her for any details on her son’s death that might help establish his final resting place; to obviate the necessity of interring him under the heading “An Unknown Australian Soldier”.

 

Lone Pine Memorial, Port Pirie.

²Six Australian battalions suffered nearly 2,300 killed and wounded at Lone Pine.

Seven Australians were awarded the Victoria Cross, the highest number ever awarded to an Australian division for one action. ¹Turkish losses were estimated at 6,390.

¹After the battle, Private Thomas Keith McDowell, a miner from Wonthaggi and a soldier in the 23rd Battalion, took a cone from the remains of the actual tree, which was des­troyed in the infamous Battle of Lone Pine in 1915.

The original Lone Pine tree was the only tree to survive from a group of trees that were cut down by Turkish soldiers who had used the timber and branches to cover their trenches during the battle. From the Gallipoli Peninsula, across the deserts of North Africa and the mud of the Somme, for the next year the pine cone accompanied Private McDowell until his return, ill with tuberculosis but uninjured, to Melbourne in October 1916.

Remarkably, about 12 years later, nurtured by the fertile Western District soils at Grassmere by Emma Gray, the green-thumbed aunt of the by-then Sergeant McDowell’s wife Iris, the pine cone produced four flourishing seedlings. 

This tree is a third generation Lone Pine propagated from the pine tree cone, Pinus Brutia.

²Lone Pine Cemetery is the location of the Memorial to the Missing in the Anzac are of Gallipoli and is situated on the ground captured by the Australians during the battle. It commemorates 4,224 Australians who have no known grave. There are 652 Australians buried at Lone Pine cemetery.

Sources:

¹https://www.awm.gov.au/media/lone-pine

²http://www.awmlondon.gov.au/battles/lone-pine

³https://recordsearch.naa.gov.au/SearchNRetrieve/Interface/ViewImage.aspx?B=1971765

World War 2 Memorial Gates and Patricia Cashmore

¹Patricia Cashmore (Patty) was born on the 23rd of July in 1905 at Port Pirie, South Australia. She was the eldest daughter of Arthur Brook Cashmore, manager of Elder, Smith, & Company, Limited for some years in Port Pirie and Annie Amelia Cashmore, nee Whallin of Northcote, Victoria, Australia. Her schooling in Port Pirie included attending the Port Pirie High School and her early training in medical nursing began at the Port Pirie Hospital.

Patricia graduated in Surgical Nursing at the Royal Adelaide Hospital in August 1930 before moving interstate to a position with the Melbourne Women’s Hospital. In 1939 she left Australia for England to do a special course, but while she was on her way war broke out, and she enlisted in the East African Military Nursing Service and spent time nursing in Italian Somaliland and Kenya.

Patricia 'Patty' Cashmore. Circa 1930

On the 5^th February 1944 Khedive Ismail, a troopship, left Mombasa bound for Colombo carrying 1,324 passengers including 996 members of the East African Artillery's 301st Field Regiment, 271 Royal Navy personnel, 19 WRNS, 53 nursing sisters (including Patricia) and their matron, nine members of the First Aid Nursing Yeomanry and a war correspondent, Kenneth Gandar-Dower. She was part of Convoy KR 8 and it was her fifth convoy on that route.

The convoy was escorted by the Hawkins-class heavy cruiser HMS Hawkins and P-class destroyers HMS Paladin and HMS Petard. Khedive Ismail was carrying the Convoy Commodore.

Early in the afternoon of Saturday 12^th February, after a week at sea, KR 8 was in the One and a Half Degree Channel south-west of the Maldives. After lunch many of the passengers were below watching an ENSA concert, while others sunbathed on deck. 

³There was also a meeting of passengers in the saloon and Patty had offered to go down to her cabin - on the waterline - and fetch some photographs of interest.

The explosion happened while she was in her cabin and she would have been killed instantly. 

Sister Patricia Cashmore.

At 1430 hrs the Japanese submarine I-27 had taken position off Khedive Ismail's port side to attack. A lookout sighted I-27's periscope and raised the alarm; Khedive Ismail's DEMS gunners opened fire on the submarine. At the same time I-27's commander, CDR Toshiaki Fukumura, fired a spread of four torpedoes, two of which hit Khedive Ismail.
The troop ship's stern was engulfed in flame and smoke and she sank in three minutes. As the convoy's merchant ships scattered for safety, Paladin lowered boats to rescue survivors and Petard released depth charges. The troop ship had sunk too quickly to launch any lifeboats, but her Carley floats floated free and some survivors were able to board them.

After three patterned releases I-27 was forced to the surface. The two destroyers engaged her with their 4-inch (100 mm) QF Mk 5 main guns and Paladin moved to ram her, but as a Type B1 submarine, she was considerably larger than the destroyer so Petard signalled Paladin to abort the manoeuvre. Paladin therefore took avoiding action but too late, and I-27's hydroplane tore a 15-foot (4.6 m) gash in Paladin's hull.

I-27 submerged again and took refuge beneath the survivors. The destruction of a submarine that might sink more ships took precedence over the lives of survivors, so with Paladin out of action Petard resumed the attack with first depth charges, then 4-inch shellfire and finally 21-inch (530 mm) Mk IX torpedoes. The depth charge fuses had to be set to detonate at the most shallow depth, and they killed or wounded many people who had survived the initial sinking. The seventh torpedo finally destroyed I-27, sinking her with all hands. The battle had lasted two and a half hours.

Of 1,511 people aboard Khedive Ismail, only 208 men and 6 women survived the sinking and subsequent battle. 1,220 men and 77 women were killed. The sinking was the third largest loss of life from Allied shipping in World War II and the largest loss of servicewomen in the history of the Commonwealth of Nations.

Nursing Sister Patricia Cashmore, 38 years of age, missing believed drowned, has no known grave – she is Known unto God and is honoured on the Australian War Memorial Commemorative Roll, the East African Memorial in the Nairobi War Cemetery, the Henley Beach Council WW2 Honour Roll and is the only female on the WW2 Memorial Gates in Port Pirie South Australia with 91 others who made the supreme sacrifice.

Panel 1 of 2 (Not Shown) WW2 Memorial Gates, Port Pirie.

An In Memoriam death notice states: 4Of your charity, pray for the repose of the soul of Patricia Cashmore, killed in action at sea, February 12^th 1944. Sacred Heart of Jesus, have mercy on her soul.

Sources:

¹Recorder, Port Pirie, SA Friday 3 March 1944

²https://www.militaryimages.net/media/patricia-cashmore.140211/

³https://anzacportal.dva.gov.au/stories-service/australians-war-stories/pilots-pride-australian-efforts

4Southern Cross, Adelaide, SA Friday 13 February 1948

R.A.A.F. Gunnery Range

¹No. 2 Bombing and Gunnery School (BAGS) was established at the newly-built RAAF base in Port Pirie on 15^th June 1941. It was one of three in Australia; the others were at West Sale in Victoria and Evans Head in New South Wales.

² It was an advanced specialist school where aircrew flying Fairey Battles and Avro Ansons were trained in bombing and gunnery techniques. Much of the gunnery practice was air-to-air, with the gunner firing at a target drogue being towed behind another aircraft. However, there was also training in firing at ground targets, and gunnery ranges were required.

³A 32 mile long air gunnery and bombing range was proclaimed that took in a strip of coastline and extended out to sea. 4Six ranges were overland, and three ranges were over-water (two for bombing and one for aiming at moving surface targets).

Attention was drawn to the Air Force Regulations that a ship, boat, aircraft or person shall not come or remain within the area while practice was in progress and that this could occur any time day or night. Red flags were flown at roadway control points leading to the range.

The range target area was established on a low coastal sand ridge that runs from north-west to south-east, roughly parallel to Old Pirie Road about 18 miles south of Port Pirie, South Australia. The target complex was about 328 yards long, and consisted of a row of six timber target frames spaced about 32 yards apart. Some kind of target must have been attached to these - perhaps a bullseye painted on canvas or plywood.

RAAF Range Target Four

Beside each target frame is a 2 metre high Roman numeral from I to VI, made of sheet metal on a timber frame, angled backwards to be visible from the air. These were presumably intended to allow each gunner to identify an individual target for scoring purposes. The targets were aligned to be fired on by aircraft from the north-east, firing out to sea.

At each end of the row of targets is a small concrete hut to provide shelter for attendants maintaining the targets. Nine bombing and gunnery ranges were established along the Spencer Gulf on a desolate coastal strip between Port Pirie and Port Broughton. No. 2 BAGS operated for two and a half years, until December 1943 when the school was closed and RAAF Port Pirie became No. 3 Air Observer's School, which operated until January 1946.

Sources:

¹ Report to Department of Environment and Heritage; Peter Bell, Carol Cosgrove, Susan Marsden & Justin McCarthy Historical Research Pty Ltd Adelaide.

² Book, Port Pirie Remembers, Dick Wordley & Ken Madigan 1982.

³Recorder, Port Pirie, SA Monday 23 June 1941

4 South Australian Aviation Museum

No. 2 Operational Training Unit

¹During World War II, the RAAF established several operational training units (OTUs) to convert recently graduated pilots from advanced trainers to combat aircraft, and to add fighting techniques to the flying skills they had already learned. No. 2 (Fighter) Operational Training Unit (No. 2 OTU) was formed on the 6^th April 1942 at Port Pirie, South Australia.

Its inaugural commanding officer was Wing Commander Peter Jeffrey, a fighter ace who had led No. 3 Squadron in North Africa.  Jeffrey had recently brought on line Nos. 75 and 76 Squadrons, two of the first three fighter units raised to help defend northern Australia as the Japanese advanced toward New Guinea.

CAC Wirraway

His team of instructors at No. 2 OTU included fellow aces from the North African campaign, Clive Caldwell and Wilf Arthur. Largely equipped with CAC Wirraways and Fairey Battles, the unit's complement was augmented by P-40 Kittyhawks, Vultee Vengeances, Avro Ansons, CAC Boomerangs, Supermarine Spitfires and Airspeed Oxfords after it relocated to RAAF Station Mildura, Victoria, its permanent base, on the 14^th of May 1942. 

Sources:

¹ https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/No._2_Operational_Conversion_Unit_RAAF

No. 3 Aerial Observers School

¹ On the 9^th of December 1943, No. 2 Bombing & Gunnery School (2 BAGS) was formally redesignated No. 3 Aerial Observers School (3 AOS). After 8 weeks initial training an air observer or aerial observer’s course was of 12 weeks duration. This consisted primarily of navigation (an Aerial Observer was later designated a Navigator), photography reconnaissance and signals which were supported by lessons in mathematics, trigonometry and logarithms. ²Trainees at the navigation course gained a thorough understanding of meteorology, had detailed lessons in the use of maps and charts and learned the theory of dead reckoning.

Classroom interior revealing trigonometry, charts and aerial photographs.

To navigate the aircraft wireless air observers needed to thoroughly understand the aircrafts instruments, including the airspeed indicator, altimeter, gyroscopes and sighting instruments so this formed an essential part of the navigation course.

The training also included lessons in air photography, photo interpretation, and how to install and maintain the aerial cameras. All lessons were then put to practical test in navigation and reconnaissance exercises during cross country and interception training flights.

¹In November 1944, for the first time the 3 AOS returns show some details about the flying carried out. For example, on the 9^th November four Avro Ansons flew the course Crystal Brook – Bute – Brinkworth – Jamestown - Port Augusta - Whyalla before returning to base in a time of 2 hours 30 minutes. Such exercises were routine for the unit.

By the end of 1944, a total of 833 trainees had passed out of 3 AOS since its commencement the previous December. No. 3 Air Observers School closed in October 1945.

Sources:

¹South Australian Aviation Museum

²The Empire Has an Answer-Tony James Brady

No. 2 Bombing & Gunnery School

¹No. 2 Bombing & Gunnery School (2 BAGS) officially formed on the 15^th June 1941 to provide bombing and aerial gunnery training for pilots; this was an eight week course of lectures and practical exercise. ²Here, trainees learned the workings of machine guns before engaging in live fire practices. They were taught tactical exercises, including ‘offensive and defensive moves and counter moves, fighting control and the recognition of enemy aircraft’. Further lessons in pyrotechnics, theoretical and practical lessons in bomb sighting, and the tactics of bombing. The lessons were reinforced through specialised air exercises wherein trainees used a variety of machine guns and spent hours practising the bombing of moving targets, low-level bomb aiming and night bombing exercises.

¹2 BAGS was located at Port Pirie, South Australia where available space, good flying conditions year round and adjacent coastal land suitable for bombing and gunnery ranges were available. The Port Pirie site had been extensively developed such that it could accommodate hundreds of men and dozens of aircraft.

The principal aircraft type operated was the Fairey Battle Mark 1. This could train men in bombing or gunnery (a few were also equipped for Wireless instruction). The fuselage was large enough to accommodate up to three trainees who could each take turns in either the rear gun or bomb-aimers position, making it an efficient training platform.

Fairey Battle Mark 1.

The second sub-type Fairey Battle was the Battle TT, which was fitted with target-towing equipment. These were painted in high-visibility yellow and black stripes. The TTs usually flew with two crew: a pilot and a towing winch operator.

Another role performed by 2 BAGS Battle TT’s at this time was to tow targets over Whyalla for the benefit of the 3.7-inch Anti-Aircraft gun battery which protected the BHP steel works. 

2 BAGS strength peaked in June 1943 when it was operating 119 Fairey Battles, three Ryan Trainers and a Gypsy Moth; a handful of Wirraways were also flown. Overall personnel strength remained at around 1,100, although this number now included over 100 WAAAFs.

Operations began to wind down in the later months of 1943 and Avro Ansons were received in preparation for the change to an Aerial Observers School, which mainly provided navigation training. On the 9^th December 1943, No. 2 BAGS was formally redesignated No.3 Aerial Observers School (3 OES). Bombing and gunnery operations ceased at Port Pirie and accordingly, the Fairy Battle /TTs were sent to the Aerial Gunnery School at West Sale.

Sources:

¹ South Australian Aviation Museum

²The Empire Has an Answer-Tony James Brady

14 Australian Personnel Staging Camp

During World War 2 the 14 Australian Personnel Staging Camp was located at Prince’s Park, Solomontown, Port Pirie to feed and accommodate troops joining or leaving trains at Pirie Junction (Solomontown Railway Station). Pirie Junction was created in 1937 to accommodate the broad-standard passenger interchange and included minor narrow gauge facilities. Pt Pirie South yard and the eastern "subsidiary sidings" provided the freight interchange between the three gauges. These components made up the truly three gauge 'station'. 

¹The marshalling yards frequently held military trucks, tanks, armoured cars, Red Cross vehicles, and other artillery pieces and auxiliary equipment ready to be deployed to a forward area. Hundreds of troop trains stopped at Port Pirie before going to Western Australia with their Australian or American battalions bound for war in the Pacific.

Initially the camp was managed as a detachment from HQ SA but in October 1942 a separate 14 Australian Personnel Staging Camp was formed for Port Pirie and the former detachment moved to take over 5 Australian Personnel Staging Camp at Barrow Creek (NT). 14 Australian Personnel Staging Camp continued in this role until the end of the war.

There were about 30 huts of prefabricated construction for troops described as 16 feet x 12 feet with a door, 8 opening shutters and a malthoid roof.

³14 Australian Personnel Staging Camp Huts, Port Pirie

Tents were also set up with board flooring; and at one stage Captain. T.H. Lonnen (Officer Commanding the Camp) appealed to the public to provide matting or carpet or anything that provided padding to provide more comfort. There were mess and canteen facilities where meals were provided; an ablution block, a recreation hut which included a donated piano, a women’s restroom, a sergeant’s mess, a Y.M.C.A War Service Hut and a Red Cross Thumbs Up Hut.

Red Cross Aids and Transport Service frequently met at Pirie Junction helping sick and wounded servicemen passing through. They gave the men fruit, milk, cigarettes, playing cards and books to speed the men on their journey overland and carried stretchers from one train to another. They also provided breakfast for invalids at the Staging Camp.    

Source: 

¹Trove Digitised Newspapers 

²War Diaries : AWM 52 30/2/10.

³Des Parker, Port Pirie.

Port Pirie Volunteer Air Observers’ Corps

“THEY ALSO SERVE WHO ONLY STAND AND WAIT”

In February 1942 Mr. Reginald Gordon Lambert was appointed Commandant by Flight-Lieutenant Horner, RAAF to establish a Volunteer Air Observers Corps (V.A.O.C.) in Port Pirie. The object of the group was to man an Observation Hut on a continuous watch to detect and report aircraft movement, and to identify aircraft as either hostile or friendly, whenever possible. Observer posts were located at approximately 20 mile intervals in all directions around South Australia, and were linked to the RAAF's regional air control rooms. The State control room was intended to have knowledge and oversight of all aircraft movement and notify fighter aircraft to intercept where necessary.

Recruitment Poster V.A.O.C.

The formation of a 50 person corps in Port Pirie afforded a large number of patriotic citizens otherwise debarred from service, an opportunity to participate in a vital war activity; later this number grew to 90.

Chief Observer Mr. S.J. Parker was responsible for selecting a site on high ground, in a quiet spot, with an unobstructed view in all directions to situate an Observers Post. ʸA tower on Children’s Playground (now Pirie West Primary School Oval) became the Observation Post; after the war it was relocated to Memorial Oval by the Pirie and District Trotting Club for broadcasting purposes on race days. A hut 4 ft. square and 7 ft. high was provided with field glasses, a clock, a telephone, a brazier, a hurricane lamp, a map of the State, a card showing the principal points of the compass, illustrations of planes, a book of plane silhouettes, and a logbook.

The Federal Hotel watchtower was also thought to be used for plane spotting.

Once members of the V.A.O.C. were enrolled and their watching post was established, they were provided with all of the information that helped them to identify aircraft, Japanese, or otherwise. A roster was published in "The Recorder" for three hours watches, where two persons were on duty simultaneously where one kept watch for planes and the other made the necessary reports and filled out a logbook. The Corp were expected to work in conjunction with other Observation Posts within the State.

The observer noted the number of planes, whether it was Australian or foreign, had been seen or only heard, height in general terms, direction in which it was seen, approximate distance, the direction of travel and time. Accurate identification was obtained by studying ‘type silhouettes’ rather than by attempting to sight and record the markings on individual aircraft. Generally aircraft were too high for fuselage markings to be noted with accuracy, even through binoculars, and, in any case, signs could be painted over and altered. Thus, the red disc which was the international marking for Japanese aircraft, could be altered easily.

Sources:

Recorder, Port Pirie, SA Monday 5 January 1942 p 4

Recorder, Port Pirie, SA Wednesday 18 February 1942 p 1

Recorder, Port Pirie, SA Friday 5 June 1942 p 3

Recorder, Port Pirie, SA Monday 7 December 1942 p 4

ʸ Recorder, Port Pirie, SA Wednesday 8 November 1944 p 2

State Library of Victoria http://handle.slv.vic.gov.au/10381/122429

H.M.A.S. Pirie

¹H.M.A.S. Pirie was one of fifty six Australian Minesweepers (commonly known as corvettes) built during World War 2 in Australian shipyards as part of the Commonwealth Government's wartime shipbuilding programme.

Six months to the day after commissioning off Oro Bay (New Guinea) on the 11^th April 1943, H.M.A.S. Pirie had her baptism of fire.

She was escorting a British merchant ship SS Hanyang along the coast of New Guinea as part of operation 'Lilliput', the reinforcement, supply and development of the Buna - Gona area after its capture when a particularly determined attack by a large force of 15 Japanese dive bombers and Zeros swarmed overhead and bombed both ships; the merchant ship was hit and near-missed.

H.M.A.S. Pirie  J189

H.M.A.S. Pirie experienced six very close misses and one direct hit which struck the armoured canopy over the bridge, penetrated it, glanced off the helmsman's protective apron, struck and killed instantly the Gunnery Officer and then striking the forecastle, exploded killing six ratings and wounding four others. ²Had it not struck the bridge first, the bomb would likely had penetrated the magazine before detonating and destroying the entire ship.

Fortunately after hitting Pirie the enemy broke off the attack having lost two aircraft shot down by Pirie’s anti-aircraft fire. H.M.A.S. Pirie shepherded the merchant ship to port and landed her own wounded; then she went out to sea again, and as dusk fell the bodies of one officer and six men were committed to the deep - Lieutenant John Winston Ellershaw, Able Seamen Victor Joseph Cremer, Frederick George Delaney and John Isaac Keeling, and Ordinary Seamen Arnold Edwin Catley, Douglas Maxwell Gladman and Victor George Ross.

Aboard her this time was Chaplain-Captain Frederic Fox Bartrop, United States Army, who read the burial service. Chaplain Bartrop had been the senior United States officer aboard the merchant ship at the time of the attack, and at the earliest opportunity he visited H.M.A.S. Pirie to express gratitude for her protection and to offer assistance. Damage to H.M.A.S. Pirie's forward deck and superstructure necessitated in her returning to Australia to undergo repairs. A gaping hole had been torn in the bridge and the decking was ploughed up with raking fire from cannon and machine guns even the forward gun barrel was perforated.

Repairs were completed in May 1943 and Pirie resumed operations escorting convoys proceeding between the Australian east coast and New Guinea.  During the second half of 1944, the ship operated in the Great Barrier Reef as a minesweeper with H.M.A.S. Kalgoorlie where between them, the two ships swept up and destroyed more than 600 mines.

In November, Pirie was attached to the British Pacific Fleet's Minesweeping Flotilla.  In July 1945, the corvette was used as a convoy escort off Okinawa and Iwo Jima. Pirie was the third Australian warship to enter Japanese territorial waters during the war, entering Tokyo Bay on 31 August 1945.

 ²She remained in Tokyo Bay until mid-September and was present on Victory over Japan Day (2 September 1945), when the Japanese Instrument of Surrender was signed. Pirie's wartime service is recognised by three battle honours: "Pacific 1942–45", "New Guinea 1943–44", and "Okinawa 1945".

Pirie returned to Sydney in February 1946. She was decommissioned from Royal Australian Navy service on the 5^th April, and was immediately recommissioned into the Royal Navy as HMS Pirie. On the 21^st May, Pirie, along with sister ships Launceston and Gawler, sailed for Colombo for transfer into the Turkish Navy.

Sources: 

¹https://www.navy.gov.au/hmas-pirie-i

²Frame & Baker, Mutiny!

³ https://trove.nla.gov.au/newspaper/article/110520316

32nd United States Infantry Division – Clements Gap

¹The 32^nd United States Infantry Division, located at Fort Devens, Massachusetts in preparation for deployment to Northern Ireland in 1940, had a quick change of orders and was sent to Australia in May 1942.

Upon arrival in Port Adelaide, South Australia on the 14^th May 1942, the main body of the division camped at Sandy Creek near Adelaide while units totalling about 75 men quickly erected a camp/depot near Clements Gap, South Australia; 120 miles north of Adelaide. The Clements Gap Primary School was closed down and its students sent to nearby Port Broughton for schooling.

²The Crystal Brook District Council overseer had his tractors commandeered by military authorities. The soldiers cut down trees and made inroads into what was called Block ’F’ (The Clements Gap Conservation Park) where an ammunition depot and fuel dump was established. Crates of munitions and pallets of fuel in four gallon drums were stored beneath the trees.  

There were two ammunition magazines built as well as latrines and a shower block, mess hall, a 40 meter high lookout tower, and tented sleeping quarters. The school building itself was used as the headquarters and the social hall was used as a canteen and games room. A 2 inch water main was run and connected to the school along with telecommunications. 6 civil guards patrolled the perimeter of Block ‘F’ on horseback and there was a sentry posted at the entrance to the school ground.

³During this period the 4^th Australian Advanced Ammunition Section, a sub-unit of the 4^th Australian Advanced Ammunition Depot, occupied the Merriton Institute and grounds and was engaged in the movement of ammunition to the camp at Clement’s Gap; 12 miles away.

On the 5^th of September 1942 the 32^nd United States Infantry Division closed the camp and were deployed to New Guinea. The camp was dismantled at the end of 1942 and the Clement’s Gap Primary School was never reopened.

Sources:

¹ US Army Attaché Letter – USA Defense Attaché Office Canberra, Australia 15 October 1979

²Laura Standard and Crystal Brook Courier, SA Friday 3 July 1942

³Archives Letter - Headquarters 4^th Military District Keswick Barracks, Keswick SA 17 April 1979

Air Raid Trenches

Japan's intrusion into World War 2 roused sudden desire for certitude of safety among the civilians of Port Pirie. Port Pirie was considered a prime target for air raiders given its importance to the war as a key port and railway hub, lead smelter, and armaments manufacturing site.

7 weeks before the bombing of Darwin, a survey was carried out to determine excavation sites for the establishment of slit trenches around Port Pirie for the protection of schoolchildren.

Trenches were dug in Pirie Primary School, and the Children’s Playground (Pirie West Primary School Oval); Solomontown School and Prince’s Park; St. Mark’s School (in Soldier’s Memorial Park), at the rear of St. Anthony’s School in Solomontown; south of Pirie High School and west of the Technical School.

Looking skyward

The trenches were zig-zagged (each section 15 yards long) in nature so that the occupants may have protection from dive-bombing from any direction and included entry and exit ramps.

The trenches were ideally dug 2 feet wide and to a depth of 4 feet 6 inches but due to the low water table this was not always possible; therefore low trenches were shaped-up with protective banks on the surface to afford protection.

Whilst 600 people gave their time at different stages, one survey counted voluntary labour of 300 men digging in the trenches and about 100 more helpers.

School staffs and officials, school committees, mothers clubs and similar organisations attended with enthusiastic assistance, particularly in regard to the arrangements made for afternoon tea for the working parties.

On all ‘fronts’ a flagon or two of beer arrived at intervals, and men halted just long enough to swallow a glass of the amber liquid.

Almost 3 miles of trenches were excavated for the protection of 2,300 children. It was described as the greatest piece of voluntary hard work ever accomplished in Port Pirie.

Several people also dug trenches and shelters at home at their own expense.

Civil Defence Authorities conducted air raid signals tests where the Port Pirie Smelter ‘whistle’, a siren on Esmond Road and a siren at Forgan’s Foundry alerted citizens of an “impending air raid”. Opportunity was taken by headmasters to rehearse the scholars in approaching and entering the slit trenches.

Source: ¹ Trove Digitised Newspapers