When was the Dubbo RAAF Stores Depot constructed?
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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.
Dubbo RAAF Stores Depot
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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 In June 1942 the State Forest was revoked.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. 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. 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.
Dubbo RAAF Stores Depot
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The former RAAF Stores Depot is of significance for the expansion it provided to Dubbo's traditional role as a regional freight handling hub within national transportation networks. It is of significance for the role of the depot and its personnel in the regional economic development of Dubbo during World War II. The variety and arrangement of innovative, prefabricated and other stores buildings, constructed during World War II, provides an intact example of a 1940s military cultural landscape. It also has research significance for its Aboriginal relics, especially in relation to the recommended archaeological excavation of the "open artifact scatter" on the western side.
Dubbo RAAF Stores Depot
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The RAAF operated ten stores depots around Australia during World War II and Dubbo was one of two within NSW. Its siting at Dubbo is important for illustrating the military decision to locate training and maintenance depots well inland, away from coastal areas and carrier borne aircraft. Several sites in inland NSW were surveyed in February 1942, and in April Dubbo was chosen in preference to Orange and Parkes. The Commonwealth Government bought the state forestry land from the NSW Government in 1943 for A₤1,911. Dubbo was well sited within the triangle formed by the "Strategic Land Corridors" between Bourke, Sydney and Melbourne, and was also located conveniently to the "Brisbane Line" (running from Brisbane to Melbourne or from Brisbane to Adelaide). In December 1942 the RAAF Stores Depot No. 5 (renamed No. 6) was formed at Waterloo, Sydney, before being quickly moved to Dubbo. Stores Depot No.5 was never built. Stores Depots 1-4 were located in the suburbs of the capital cities. Like the Dubbo base, Stores Depots 7 and 10 were located well inland to support training and maintenance functions. Stores Depots 8, 9, and 11 supported operational units in the northern areas of Australia.
Dubbo RAAF Stores Depot
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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". 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. 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.
Dubbo RAAF Stores Depot
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The full extent of the RAAF military base at Dubbo comprised six sites including and clustered around the Stores Depot. These were:
Dubbo RAAF Stores Depot
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Dubbo RAAF Stores Depot was listed on the New South Wales State Heritage Register on 29 June 2004 having satisfied the following criteria.
Dubbo RAAF Stores Depot
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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.
Dubbo RAAF Stores Depot
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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.
Dubbo RAAF Stores Depot
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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.
Dubbo RAAF Stores Depot