THRIVING TOWNSHIP

Otago Daily Times, Issue 27277, 31 December 1949, Page 6

THRIVING TOWNSHIP

AUSTRALIAN ROCKET RANGE HEADQUARTERS. BARREN WASTE CONVERTED By Cedric R. Mentiplay, Special Australian Correspondent, NZPA By Air Mail. SYDNEY. Though much progress has been made with the construction of the Empire long-range weapons project m Central Australia, the most recent inspections reveal that by far the greater part of the work has yet to be done. Pressmen who visited the rangehead and the Long-range Weapons Establishment base on a tour conducted by ,the Department of Supply and Development, reported that conditions on the range site were still in the sandbag and army vehicle stage and that the rockets which were being fired were 3in ones of well-established pattern. The main’change has been the conversion of Woomera (the aboriginal name for a throwing stick) from a desolate waste to a raw construction camp and then to a thriving town. In the midst of a waterless and treeless expanse of dusty ground housewives live in homes which cost £3OOO to erect, without counting the cost of materials. Each home is all electric, with a refrigerator and hot water service. The water comes in all the way from the Murray River, by way of a pipe-line which has only just been completed. Housewives can buy the choicest cuts of steak for Is 3d lb, but they wage , a continuous war with the red gibber dust, which penetrates everywhere. The town boasts a solitary tree, 3ft high, which various experts have pronounced dead. Its proud owner is not downcast by this news, and ‘ has announced that directly its demise is established he will paint it green.

'The 2000-odd inhabitants of the settlement include army personnel, technicians and scientists, construction engineers, labourers and 500 Baltic migrants who receive about £25 for a? 12-day fortnight as unskilled labourers. Pressmen reported spine grumbling by army personnel on the old theme that they work long hours at exactly the same jobs as the civilians but receive only a fraction of civilian phy. One story is of a corporal, who, tired of his job at the pumping station, obtained his discharge—and was rfc-employed at the, same job as a civilian at three times his previous images.

jThe Long-range Weapons Establishrpent consists of a research and development base at Salisbury, 16 miles fijom Adelaide; an air component which will soon be moved near Salisbury; and Woomera, 250 miles northwest. From Woomera the main range rpns north-west across the desert country of Central Australia to the coast of Western Australia, 1200 miles a|vay. It can be extended a further 1500 miles over the Indian Ocean towards Christmas Island.