Instruct: Given a question, retrieve passages that answer the question.
Query: When was the Dubbo RAAF Stores Depot constructed?
The Dubbo RAAF Stores Depot is an heritage-listed former Royal Australian Air Force (RAAF) stores depot located at Cobra Street, Dubbo in the Dubbo Regional Council local government area of New South Wales, Australia. The depot was designed by Sidney Williams & Co and built from 1940 to 1943. It is also known as Dubbo RAAF Stores Depot (former), No. 5 (1942) and No. 6 Stores Depot (1942–52); No. 2 Stores Depot Detachment D (1952–92); Defence National Storage and Distribution Centre Detachment (1992-1995). The property is owned by private companies, Andorra Developments and Belmorgan Property Development. The depot was added to the New South Wales State Heritage Register on 29 June 2004.[1]
The full extent of the RAAF military base at Dubbo comprised six sites including and clustered around the Stores Depot. These were:[1]
Rabaul Store (Building 1)
Dubbo RAAF Stores Depot was listed on the New South Wales State Heritage Register on 29 June 2004 having satisfied the following criteria.[1]
The building was assessed for listing on the Commonwealth Heritage List; however, it was deemed ineligible.[8]
Encompassing an area of approximately 38 hectares (94 acres), the former RAAF Stores Depot is located south east of the centre of Dubbo and is surrounded by suburban development. The site is fenced and buildings are dispersed around its perimeter, connected to an internal sealed road network, which was aligned with the nearby urban blocks to suggest that the area was effectively an extension of the town. Buildings are surrounded by grassed areas, with forest remnants also present, predominantly in the southern and western areas of the site. The vegetation includes features remnant Eucalypt species, with grassland dominating in the north and east, and remnant pine forest (Callitris endlicheri) dominating the remainder.[8] The site is currently used by "mobile fauna", such as threatened bats and birds, as a habitat area and stepping stone corridor between the Macquarie River and larger bushland tracts.[1][9]:57
Dubbo abuts the Macquarie River at the southern end of the Darling Plains and also links with the north west part of the Central Tablelands region of NSW. Aboriginal people have lived in the Dubbo area for more than 40,000 years. The immediate lands around Dubbo and to the south and east are the territory of the Wiradjuri people, who were made up of six smaller communities including the Dubbogo or red ochre people. There are a number of references which describe Aboriginal people in the area maintaining their cultural traditions and ceremonial activity well into the nineteenth century, although from the 1860s the development of the town and the pastoral properties resulted in their social disruption and dispersal. In 1898 the Talbrager Aboriginal Reserve was gazetted, 6 kilometres (3.7mi) north of Dubbo. There is a substantial Aboriginal community in present-day Dubbo, including many people who identify as direct descendants of the original owners and who retain strong links to particular territories within the district. Aboriginal relics that have been identified on the former RAAF Stores Depot site include two scarred trees, and an area of "open artifact scatter" that may signify a camp site, but requires further archaeological investigation.[1][2]
Built at the same time as several other RAAF premises in Dubbo (including the Dubbo aerodrome and the "Barracks" for housing personnel), the selection of the RAAF Stores Depot No.6 site capitalised on its use by the NSW Forestry Department. The existing cypress pine forest and railway line allowed immediate rail servicing while camouflaging the site's military nature. Indeed, the site was referred to as "The Pines", due to the prominence of the State Forest vegetation. In June 1942 the State Forest was revoked. By July 1942, two Bellman Hangars were well under construction. By November 1942, the residential quarters in the associated Barracks were complete. By April 1943, all 27 buildings at the Dubbo Stores Depot were also complete, and stores were arriving daily. The site was used to store aeroplane parts, wireless equipment, ammunition and bombs.[9]:56 By June 1945 there were approximately 866 men and women personnel, both military and civilian, employed by the RAAF in their six sites in the town of Dubbo. With the cessation of hostilities the RAAF Stores Depot at Dubbo was the largest in Australia in terms of its size and the stock held.[8] A delegation from the Dubbo Chamber of Commerce inspected the site at the end of the war and was told that the total cost of construction had been over A₤300,000.[1][7]
The five Igloos at Dubbo, alongside a similar building at the Macrossan Stores Depot in Queensland, are the only surviving examples of this building type in Australia. The Rabaul Store is the only known example of its type to survive on Defence property. The five Igloos, the Bellman Hangars, Rabaul Store, former Inflammable Liquids store and supporting and administrative structures in context with the site comprise the only extant, relatively intact example of its kind, due to the progressive disposal and demolition of other components of the major nationwide wartime RAAF Logistics network in the postwar period.[1]
The former RAAF Stores Depot has strong associations with the thousands of military personnel and civilian employees who worked there between 1942 and 1996. It is also significant to the Dubbo community for its association with the major role played by the RAAF and the Australian military generally in economic and social life during World War II and over the succeeding decades.[1]
Igloo stores (Buildings 4, 5, 7, 8, 11)
The RAAF Stores Depot, Dubbo is significant for demonstrating the principal characteristics of military stores depots erected during World War II, in terms of both landscape and buildings. The landscape is significant for demonstrating the retention of trees as a strategy for camouflaging the site to minimise the risk of aerial attack. The resulting stand of Cypress pines also harks back to the State Forestry uses of the landscape, and is representative of the original vegetative cover of the Dubbo region, as a remnant which escaped the rigours of intense and cyclical farming that has altered much of the rural landscape in the region. The contemporary large scale, open and wooded nature of the site, with its scatter of very large storage buildings, also provides a unique component of the urban character of Dubbo. The Igloo stores, Bellman hangars, Sidney Williams Hut, Rabaul store and former Inflammable Liquids store are of exceptional interest, as a group, for demonstrating the range of prefabricated and pre-cut structures and building technology employed and developed during World War II. The buildings have a political and technical significance for indicating how standing design preferences and practices were overthrown as part of national wartime reorganisation.[1]
As at 9 September 2003, the former RAAF Stores Depot at Dubbo, a complex of 1940s military storage buildings, is significant as a large and intact example of NSW's participation in the network of military bases that were erected in strategic locations around Australia during World War II. Encompassing an area of approximately 38 hectares near the centre of Dubbo city, the former RAAF Stores Depot features thirty buildings including five huge Igloo stores buildings, three Bellman hangars, a Rabaul hangar, a Sidney Williams Hut and a large semi-underground PBX bunker, as well as a road system, railway spur lines and remnant state forest. This complex of substantial military structures in their original configuration and landscaping is the only extant, relatively intact example of its kind in Australia. It is unusual and probably unique in Australia to find five different types of 1940s prefabricated buildings remaining on the one site. The Igloo stores, still in pristine condition, were adapted from an American design but using Australian hardwood and corrugated iron, and are five of the only six examples of this building type left standing in Australia. The prefabricated steel-framed Rabaul hangar is the only structure of its kind still extant in Australia. The site is a coherent 1940s cultural landscape that combines forestry remnants with the careful placement of the buildings to result in a site that was innovatively camouflaged to reduced the risk of aerial attack. As the only World War II stores depot to remain in military service until the 1990s, the former RAAF Stores Depot is important for its historic association with the development of Australia's defence over 50 years. The site also has heritage significance for its association with Aboriginal relics, previous forestry uses of the landscape, its use as a makeshift camp during the Great Depression, and more recent community and recreational uses.[1]
The former RAAF Stores Depot also made effective use of prefabricated building designs. These techniques accommodated the enormous demands made on the local construction authorities across Australia following the bombing of Darwin. The site displays five types of prefabricated buildings: the five Igloo stores buildings, three Bellman hangars, the Sidney Williams Hut, the Rabaul Store and former Inflammable Liquids Store. The site is unusual and important in its demonstration of the variety of design and innovative construction techniques used in prefabricated storage buildings constructed during World War II.[1]
Approximately 6 by 18 metres (20ft ×59ft),[7] this was a component of the communications centre for the region, one of three such bunkers, which provided a critical regional command and communications role to support the operations of the depot and the RAAF during the war. It is a reinforced barrel vaulted structure partly underground covered by mounding. A simple form with one set of timber entrance doors.[8][1]
At the end of World War II the Dubbo Stores Depot was the largest stores depot of its kind in Australia in both size and stock.[9]:6 The site features five types of prefabricated buildings and it is unusual to find all of these together. The pristine condition of the buildings is seen as the result of several factors including: superior hardwood used in construction; simple construction with no problem areas; dry climate conditions; and military standards of maintenance.[7] The buildings have a political and technical significance for indicating how standing design preferences and practices were overthrown as part of national wartime reorganisation. Technologies that had previously had little impact in Australia were used extensively while technologies introduced by the USA military were embraced. Unseasoned local hardwood, a material that had previously been regarded as unsuitable for large buildings, achieved primacy. The technical achievements of this period for timber construction can hardly be overstated. The longest span and most widespread timber structures in Australian history were constructed in this period. Almost every species of Australian timber was placed in extreme field test.[1]
The layout of the former RAAF Stores Depot indicates it was comprehensively planned as an entire complex with all new buildings. The buildings, features and roadways were constructed in such a way to deceive overhead observers. The layout of the streets for example followed the lines of the surrounding suburbs. Garden beds were created around buildings and planted with vegetables. The semi-underground PBX bunker (or Wireless Transmitting Station) was constructed in the centre of the site. The Igloo storage buildings are particularly important in illustrating the techniques employed to camouflage such large structures. In attempting to pass off these huge structures as hills, the buildings were oriented to minimise shadows and appropriately painted. Galvanised iron sheeting, cut to resemble tree shapes, was used to modify the profiles of their openings and gables. Much of this camouflage treatment has since been removed.[1]
The RAAF Stores Depot, Dubbo is significant for demonstrating the principal characteristics of military stores depots erected during World War II, both in terms of site planning, orientation and landscaping; and also in terms of design and construction techniques characteristic of the range of prefabricated and pre-cut storage buildings. The three Bellman hangars at Dubbo are representative of Bellman Hangars erected on sites around Australia during and after the Second World War. The Sidney Williams Hut is a good example of one of the earliest examples of prefabrication used by the Commonwealth from 1935. The former Inflammable Liquids Store is a good example of the range of medium size, pre-cut timber framed workshop and storage buildings. The supporting and administrative buildings are in general characteristic of the range of supporting and administrative structures which housed the necessary ancillary functions on such large military sites. Of particular interest are the domestic scale Administration Building and the Pump House. The latter, in conjunction with the water storage tank, clearly illustrates the need to differentiate materials storage and the risks associated with such storage, and is also clearly part of the safety regime needed on such sites. The site is characteristic of sites developed during the Second World War in its location on, and use of, existing railway infrastructure.[1]
In 1874, a large chunk of land abutting the south end of the Dubbo Common was notified as "Reserve Not For Sale No.442", of which the former RAAF Stores Depot is the largest remnant.[5]:2 In parish maps between 1916 and 1933 it was marked Blocks 147 and 148, and remained bushland dedicated to "public recreation" with a "gravel pit" marked in its north-west sector.[6] It was said to be known as "Bradfield Park". Around 1919, as a result of the Amending Forestry Act of 1916, this area became the Dubbo Acclimatisation Area. Dubbo State Forest No. 807 was dedicated in 1927, two years after the railway spur line to Molong cut across the site.[1][3]:10–11
The site is a coherent and intact demonstration of a 1940s military cultural landscape. The strategic choice of Dubbo for the depot site placed it well out of range of carrier borne aircraft; the extant prominent ring road on the heavily wooded site was a natural extension of the neighbouring urban pattern; the 30 buildings were scattered around the site with the five huge Igloo store buildings fitted with jagged edge roof profiles and barrel vaulted volumes to cast broken shadows and painted in camouflage to resemble hills. The choice of a site immediately adjacent to the railway meant that spur lines could be taken into the two adjacent Igloo stores without the construction of a large spur line that would have been more easily spotted from aerial reconnaissance. All of these elements were specifically orchestrated and integrated for defence purposes and have a direct bearing on the continued cultural significance of the site.[1]
Consultation with the Aboriginal community in 2003, which included meeting with a number of Elders, confirmed that the former RAAF Depot site is an important place in the living memory of the Dubbo Aboriginal community. Several generations of people had lived in tents and shanty buildings in the native bushland in the State Forest that later became the RAAF base, that was known as "the Pines. Older people in the community had fond memories and would retell stories of the time spent there. It came up frequently in oral history recollections. The Aboriginal people living in the Pines were moved out to make way for the RAAF base in the early 1940s and there were few Aboriginal memories associated with the site once the military moved in. Only one or two Aboriginal people were recalled as having worked there. It was thought that the scarred trees on the RAAF base site would have been marked by earlier tribal Aboriginal people rather than by the twentieth century Pines community. The existence of Aboriginal burial sites was not advised at the meeting.[1]
The RAAF Stores Depot, Dubbo, is significant for its military and employment associations for people who worked on this site during and since World War II. There are also strong cultural associations between these buildings and times of national change and stress.The site is also significant for its association with Aboriginal relics, previous forestry uses of the landscape, its use as a makeshift camp during the Great Depression, and more recent community and recreational uses. Given its large size, unique landscape and built features and suburban location, the former RAAF site is an integral part of the urban identity of Dubbo. The Defence buildings on the site are culturally significant as a demonstration of the versatility and self-reliance of the Australian Government and people in a time of national emergency.[1]
Most of the ten RAAF stores depots built around Australia were only temporary and were disbanded within the decade after the end of the war. The exceptions were Dubbo, Sandridge, Waterloo and Drayton. Only the former RAAF Stores Depot, Dubbo remained in military operation until the 1990s. It functioned in the immediate post-war period as a receiving store, holding a large numbers of weapons and surplus stock. The RAAF unit was also acknowledged in the town history as having rendered flood relief to the town and surrounding areas in February 1955, and more generally having "rendered invaluable service both to the town brigade and the bush fire brigades".[10] In 1951 the National Service used the depot to support training flights from the military aerodrome, now Dubbo Airport. The site was transferred to the Army in 1952, leading to it being disbanded in November 1953 and reformed as "No.2 Stores Depot, Detachment D". RAAF involvement ended in 1956. The operational life of Detachment D ended in 1992. From 1992-1995 the depot was used as a tri-service facility before becoming surplus to requirements. Two small blocks of land were alienated in 1971 and 2003, on the north west corner and the south west corner respectively, for sale or transfer to the Department of Health and the Vietnam Veterans Association. In 1997 the associated RAAF Barracks site in Dubbo was sold for residential development.[8] In June 2003 the former RAAF Stores Depot site was also sold to Belmorgan Property Development, the first time the land had passed out of public ownership.[1]
The former RAAF Depot Site, Dubbo has been identified as being of significance to the Aboriginal community in Dubbo. There are two layers of significance. The first is associated with tribal Aboriginal people who lived in the area before European settlement and who were responsible for the scarred trees. The second is associated with Aboriginal people who lived in Dubbo in the late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries and who camped at "the Pines" when the site was part of the State Forest before being bought by the Department of Defence c.1941.[1]
The former RAAF Stores Depot at Dubbo, a complex of 1940s military storage buildings in their original configuration and landscaping, is significant as the largest and most intact example of the network of RAAF stores depots that were erected in strategic locations around Australia during World War II. The full collection of buildings, including the five Igloo stores, the three Bellman hangars and the Rabaul store, together with the various support buildings, internal roadways, connecting railway spur-lines and scattered siting, clearly demonstrate the scale and operational systems of a major wartime logistics depot for the RAAF. Moreover, the site can be seen to exemplify the notion of a cultural landscape that has evolved over an extended period. Various aspects of its historic cultural layers - including inhabitation by Aboriginal people, associations with State Forestry, uses by unemployed people during the Depression, uses by the military during and after World War II, participation in the management of civil emergencies in the postwar period, and recreational uses by the Dubbo community - can be read in the landscape and in the buildings. As the only World War II stores depot to remain in military service until the 1990s, the former RAAF Stores Depot is important for its historic association with the development of Australia's defence over 50 years.[1]