AUSTRALIA WILL ASSUME PRIME ROLE IN COMMONWEALTH DEFENCE

Bay of Plenty Times, Volume LXXVII, Issue 14928, 16 March 1949, Page 5

AUSTRALIA WILL ASSUME PRIME ROLE IN COMMONWEALTH DEFENCE

Supplanting United Kingdom As Empire's Military Arsenal

MUNITION PLANTS, JETS, ROCKETS. AND

GUIDED MISSILES

Australia is gradually taking- the place of the United Kingdom as the military arsenal of the British Empire and Commonwealth.

The dispersal of many of-Britain's light engineering industries capable of rapid cnange to a war footing, big rocket projects, jet aircraft programmes, and intensive research developments all add up to making Australia a country of great actual and potential military strength, says The Recorder (London).

Key experts in Britain's armament industry have been released to aid Australia's own engineers and scientists, vast tracts of land have been set apart for testing new types of war material, big munition plants are going up. Sir Henry Tizard has recently returned to London after ten weeks in Australia and New Zealand at the invitation of the Dominion Governments. Sir Henry, chief of Britain's Defence Research Committee, visited the main installations in. Australia devoted to weapon production and research to co-ordinate British developments with those of the Dominions.

Guided Missiles

High on the list of potential munition centres in the event of a war involving Great Britain and the Empire is the vast Australian rocket and guided missile programme This operation is the largest single ordinance- development in Australia.

The giant Salisbury munition plants in South Australia near Adelaide are now busily engaged in the manufacture of and research on guided missiles and rocket proiectiles. During the last war this installation which covers some 3,500 acres, was an explosive and filling arsenal on the order of Britain's Royal Ordinance Factory at Woolwich. The facilities at Salisbury have been reorganised and improved for the assembly, electronic and mathematical experimentation and photographic research of guided missiles and rockets. Salisbury is the centre of scientific, planning and development for the programme. Further major installations are going up at Woomera, South Australia, where the operational headquarters of the extensive firing range are in the process of building. These installations will form the "firing head" for the testing of the weapons made at Salisbury. From the buildings at Woomera. the firing lange stretches 1,500 miles to the north-west across uninhabited wilderness. A. security area of 3,000 -square miles has been staked out around

the Woomcra development, but so far the 180 inhabitants of live large sheep stations within the security area have not been asked to move. This would seem to indicate that firing on the test range has not yet begun. The difficulties of founding a major scientific centre in this wilderness have been largely *overcome. Water is piped from a linkup with the 200-mile pipe-line which connects Murray and Whyalla and the centre is connected by rail-spur line to the trans-continental railway at Pimba. jAlthough the actual type of missile being developed and the firing results are, of course, military secrets, the extent and scope of the developments at ' Salisbury and Woomera would indicate that Australia is not to be left behind in the development of modern weapons. An additional factor in Australia's growing military might is the jet aircraft programme which is well under way with the help of Government subsidies. Jet Aircraft Programme The first jet-propelled fighter manufactured entirely in the Dominion will take the air this month for its flight tests. This single-seat fighter is a modified version of the British Vampire as developed by the De Havilland organisation. The Royal Australian Air Force has ordered 50 of these machines. The Australian-built Rolls Royce Nene jet engine which will power this type is reputed to have a thrust of 5000 pounds—2ooo pounds more thrust than that of the Goblin engine which powers the British model. This extra power is expected to give the Australian aircraft a level-flight speed in excess of the 540 miles-oer-hour attained by the R:A.F. Vampires'. Mass production in the Dominion of jet-engined militarv aircraft is not yet an established fact, but with the completion of this first "pilot" order for 50 machines the Australian industry will be in a position to expand to the point of self-sufficiency in modern military aircraft production.