Orchard Hills - lovely name for No. 1 Central Ammunition Depot

By the way, I'm not obsessed with the history of military establishments in Sydney, it just happens that many of the locations that interest me have military links. And one thing just leads to another, doesn't it? 

Anyway, to get back to the subject in hand, No. 1 Central Ammunition Depot (1 CAMD) was originally formed as 1 Central Reserve at Marrangaroo, New South Wales on 1 April 1942. Sub-depots were also formed at Moorebank and Glenbrook. The primary role was storage and supply of munitions for the RAAF. In August 1942 Picton (Redbank Range) railway tunnel became a storage area and given the title 4 Sub-Depot. Further sub-depots created included Glenbrook (Lapstone) tunnel, Clarence Tunnel, Kowguren (Qld), Hume Camp (Albury), Mt. Druitt and Kingswood (probably St Marys).

And of course Ropes Crossing was a nearby munitions factory with its own railway branchline and extensive internal tramway.

But let's describe what was once Marrangaroo Army Camp in a bit more detail. It's near Lithgow, NSW, situated at the end of Reserve Road. It was a major ammunition depot from 1941 to the late 1980s. It is now used for demolitions and training by all three Australian Defence Force services. But it's not Orchard Hills, is it? 

If you look closely and zoom in on the Google Map you'll see traces of the old spur line branching from the main railway line, entering the defence lands on the northern side of the existing buildings. 

It's worth noting that during World War II Marrangaroo housed then-secret wartime chemical warfare facilities; Marrangaroo was the administration headquarters for all of the Royal Australian Air Force chemical weapons Stores, kept in tunnels and sidings at Marrangaroo and the various (otherwise disused) railway tunnels previously mentioned.

In September 1943 a War Dog Training School was established at Marrangaroo, transferring to the dispersal airstrip at Mt.Druitt in 1944.

Which (finally) brings us to Orchard Hills. The 1 Central Reserve headquarters were transferred to Kingswood (Orchard Hills) on 12 November 1956. Marrangaroo closed in 1958 (to reopen as a joint services training facility at a later date).

The RAAF first began using the Kingswood site in early 1945 for local explosive storage. This avoided double-handling of explosives on consignment to and from Sydney. The Royal Navy and Royal Australian Navy also used the area to store wartime munitions (see below). After the transfer in 1956, Kingswood was developed further to encompass guided weapons as well as the disposal of obsolete munitions. From January 1963, 1 Central Reserve's responsibility included explosive inspection of all RAAF units. On 1 October 1967, 1 Central Reserve was renamed 1 Central Ammunition Depot, its role evolving over time into a centre of expertise for the handling and storage of explosive ordnance as well as training. In April 1993 the Bogan Gate depot (2 Base Ammunition Depot Bogan Gate approx 40kms west of Parkes) was reactivated as Detachment A to 1 CAMD, with excess ordnance from Kingswood being relocated from July 1993 for long term storage.

A more extensive history (from which much of the above was derived) is available at Robert Curran's RAN Armament website.

Further detailed work including original land grants may be found at this Penrith City website. That resource includes details on Frogmore, Regentville and the Mulgoa Irrigation Scheme. I'm not kidding. The Orchard Hills area and the York Estate (to the north) were within scope of this proposed and ultimately unsuccessful irrigation scheme. The promoter was George Chaffey, the Canadian irrigator who had arguably failed, despite considerable effort, expense and no little amount of political struggle to make a success of the irrigation scheme at Mildura, in company with Henry Gorman (of Hardie and Gorman, estate agent and property speculators) and Arthur Winbourn Stephen of Mulgoa. The scheme was authorised by the Mulgoa Irrigation Act, as passed in December 1890, which permitted the promoters to acquire land, erect plant, and use and distribute the waters of the Warragamba River through to South Creek and as far north as St. Marys. The proposal was contemporary with the Wentworth irrigation scheme.

It wasn't the first time that irrigation was used in Mulgoa but it was the most ambitious attempt. A more successful - if short-lived - example was in evidence just a year earlier at George Cox’s Winbourn estate.  The irrigation engineering included a 16 h.p. steam-driven pump and a 75,000 gallon capacity cement-lined reservoir set atop the hill above the house. 

In contrast the more ambitious Mulgoa Irrigation Scheme required the sinking of a 47 ft deep brick-lined shaft complete with connecting tunnel. Water would be drawn from the Nepean River and then stored in a 4 million gallon earthen dam. At the wellhead a steam driven suction pump was apparently erected. From the reservoir a canal (only partially completed) including tunnels under Littlefields Road and The Northern Road, wended its way north-east to the St. Marys district. Integral to the scheme were the town and farm subdivisions of  Littlefields, formerly part of Cox's earlier attempt at Winbourne. Two new towns were also planned, being Sovereign Town and the Mulgoa Irrigation settlement. The company was listed on the stock exchange in April 1892. Having completed the engine house the company went into liquidation in May 1893, with the works being sold at auction in 1898. More detail is available at this Penrith City website.

But I digress. Other sources have suggested that naval armoury needs also drove development of Orchard Hills. In 1944 the Royal Navy (RN) took over operations of the Schofields airfield (well to the north of Orchard Hills) in preparation for the planned assault on Japan; Schofields thus became the support base for the RN Fleet Air Arm; by April 1945 some 1,600 personnel were stationed at the Schofields base. Presumably they needed to house some ammunition, too, preferably well away from civilians (and themselves). So the establishment of an ordnance storage facility at Orchard Hills, circa 1945, for both the RN and the Royal Australian Navy (RAN) was a justifiable outcome.

Later the RN/RAN facility became No. 1 Central Ammunition Depot for the RAAF and RAN, and more recently "Defence Establishment Orchard Hills". I believe it's on the market if you are looking for a sizable block of land in the area.

Image via Google Maps, by the way. The Orchard Hills establishment fills the centre of the screenshot. In the southwest corner of the defence land is the "old" or "ANZAC" area, occupied by the US Army for munitions purposes from 1942 until war's end. The old road layout can still be seen. Again Robert Curran's website provides more detail.   

Penrith is to the north and slightly west, out of view in this image. Richmond is further north again and Schofields a little closer and slightly east.  You can see Sydney's water supply running left to right in pipes at the bottom of the image. The airstrip on private land south of those pipes is Kennett's airfield ("Kennett G C & H L Pastoral & Aviation" in the Yellowpages) at Luddenham (near the old RAAF Fleurs strip). You can see a couple of hangars and a parked C337 by the looks of it if you zoom in close enough. 

My list of Sydney's race tracks and circuits. 

or checkout my list of Sydney and surrounding airstrips and airports.   

Tiger Moths at RAAF Schofields Sept '76 - or was that HMAS Nirimba?

Tiger Moths Schofields Sept 76_409
Originally uploaded by gtveloce

An Air Show at where? Schofields? Well yes. It was a Naval Air Station (HMAS Nirimba) for many years, boasting an intersecting set of 3 runways in a triangle formation. This is a shot from 1976, showing Tiger Moths in formation during one such air display - before we lost yet another airport.

Of course it wasn't always HMAS Nirimba. First of all it was land occupied and managed by the Darug peoples for thousands of years.

Post-invasion, 2 land grants were made in 1814 and 1816, to Major West and John Pye respectively, forming the essential extent of the future Schofields Aerodrome, Quakers Hill, site. The land was duly acquired in 1941 as a satellite field to RAAF Richmond. Construction commenced in 1942 but with the formation of the British Pacific Fleet in November 1944 it was decided to allocate the airbase to the Royal Navy (RN)  as a MONAB (Mobile Naval Air Base). MONAB III arrived and the base became the RN's HMS Nabthorpe on 5 February 1945. However just a few months later, in November 1945, the RN shut down Brisbane-based MONAB VI, or HMS Nabstock, and transferred most of its personnel and equipment to Schofields. Thus Nabthorpe morphed into Nabstock.

Following the war's end the Royal Navy vacated the base (c.1946). It duly reverted to the RAAF and once again became known as RAAF Schofields. But not for long!

In 1952 the RAN moved in, re-establishing a naval atmosphere. The base was duly commissioned HMAS Nirimba,  RANAS Schofields, on 1 April 1953. Or maybe that was Royal Australian Naval Air Repair Yard (RANARY) Schofields. No, it wasn't an April Fool's Day prank. Whilst the plan was to make it an aircraft repair facility as well as an aircraft technical training school, it was the training function that umm, took off.

Why Nirimba? Naval air stations were traditionally assigned the names of sea birds, and the name 'Nirimba' is derived from an Eora Aboriginal word meaning 'pelican'; thus the pelican became the main theme for the HMAS Nirimba crest.

Sadly, according to one source, the responsible Federal politicians and adminstrators were heavily lobbied by the local aviation industry to get out of the aircraft repair and maintenance side of things and, of course let private industry do that instead. And the RAN being about ships not planes (at least in the eyes of some) it came to pass that on January 4, 1956 RANAS Schofields (or was that Royal Australian Naval Air Repair Yard (RANARY) Schofields?) was decommissioned. And on the following day the Royal Australian Navy Apprentice Training Establishment (RANATE) was commissioned instead. To complete the bureaucratic/administrative side of things and lend an air of gentle farce to it all the name Nirimba was also decommissioned on 4 January; but like a Phoenix rising from the ashes, it was recommissioned the very next day.

Of course it didn't last, but it had a good run. Nirimba finally decommissioned - for good, in an RAN sense - on 25 February 1994. In time most of the land, well the southern or building-side of the base, anyway, passed into the hands of the University of Western Sydney and other educational institutions. The name 'Nirimba' thus lives on as an educational precinct.

A good source of naval-era pics here.

When it was operational, both as Nirimba and as a civil airfield, it was probably just a bit too close to RAAF Richmond: big brother was always watching. Although it was a nice, quiet and well-designed place to do touch-and-goes, as I did as a student pilot during the late '70s, you had to be precise. As long as you kept clear of Richmond's airspace and its all-seeing radar, all was fine. But should you cross that invisible line - watch out!

There was an aero club building in the north-east corner and the HMAS Nirimba facility itself to the south. One day in - I think - the early or mid 1970s a DC-3 landed at the strip and parked near the aero club. Before it flew away a fence was erected to cut the long strip somewhat shorter. No, I don't know how it left the field - presumably by truck?

Another Tiger Moth at Schofields, 1976.

Schofields aerodrome was also a motorsport venue from 1950-59 (possibly that conflicts with the RAN records of operation there in 1953, though - shared use?).

The RAAF airfield data c.1944 describes three intersecting, graveled runways with "flight strips" (cleared, grassed and semi-prepared runway) either side. The graveled runways were 150ft wide and measured 3965, 4575 and 5030ft each in length, respectively. The adjacent flight strips were also all 150ft wide but measured 4400, 4975 and 5380ft respectively. In 1944 dispersal was incomplete (no confirmation on completion) and partially constructed hideouts were situated in "sparsely timbered" sections of Quakers Hill. The pre-existing roads of the town were widened and cleared to give enough width to taxi aircraft (to the hideouts!). The graveling of these taxiways was incomplete in 1944. A few huts and old farm houses reportedly occupied the western side of the intersection of two of the flight strips. By 1944 three hideouts were cleared, two were wire meshed and five others were cleared and formed.

Schofields has been closed since c.1994, although some operations were reported up to 1998. Now a housing and educational site, with aerodrome land, including a 'blimp hangar' and remaining portions of runway on sale from 2008. Grab yourself a bit of history.

Selected sources/further reading:
Some more detail available at There's a War On!
Some RAN seabird history
More detail on RN MONABs.

Checkout my list of Sydney and surrounding airstrips and airports.