Here is a collection of nearly 100 stories posted on FB over this year.
As with series one and two, another free e-book has been lodged in the State and National Library so the stories aren’t lost in the Facebook soup.
Please feel free to download and/or share the link…
https://nla.gov.au/nla.obj-3133168195/
Or here…
https://drive.google.com/file/d/1F4F8drvu2F3TiIK98X-tOn5aUzSbaTeW/view?usp=sharing
The State Government held an interest in developing tourism in the Victorian Alps as far back as the early part of last century, which at the time were considered as “Wastelands of the Crown”.
A ministerial tour on horseback was arranged in March 1915 to develop firm proposals, but intervention of WW1 a few weeks later pushed the idea onto the back burner.
A suggestion for long-distance walking track across the Victorian alps then came from the Field Naturalist Club of Victoria in 1948.
Ideas and maps were put forward by the Parliamentary State Development Committee in 1952.
However, it seems there was little support from bushwalkers at the time so the idea languished.
So it took until 1968 for the idea to resurface again with a proposal from Maurice Harkins, Director of Tourism Victoria, and keen bushwalker.
The revised initiative for an Alpine Walking Track was accepted by the Ministry of Tourism, which then provided a sizable grant towards the project in early 1970.
Most of the proposed route crossed State forest and used many existing 4WD tracks as links to reduce costs.
The Forests Commission Victoria (FCV) became involved in the planning, mainly through its then Forest Recreation Officer Stuart Calder.
Foresters John Morrow, John McDonald and Rus Ritchie were also keen contributors.
The FCV took the construction authority role because the challenges of building a walking track of this magnitude, in a remote mountainous location, was well suited to its experience and skills.
Work started in October 1970, and by 1976 the Victorian segments of the Alpine Walking Track were completed.
The route was marked with distinctive yellow diamond markers, some of which still exist today.
Victoria’s Alpine National Park wasn’t proclaimed until 1989.
However, it took until the 1990s for the track to extend through the Kosciusko NP in NSW to Canberra.
The AWT is now 655 km long, with about 400 km in Victoria. It starts at Walhalla and ends at Tharwa, ACT near Canberra.
It takes about 2 months to walk “end-to-end”.
https://www.facebook.com/groups/forestcommisionheritage/permalink/5405572436135729/
https://www.victoriasforestryheritage.org.au/community/recreation/556-the-alpine-walking-track.html
https://www.facebook.com/groups/forestcommisionheritage/posts/4612184598807854
There were once over 500 of these wood yards across Melbourne.
During the Victorian Firewood Emergency from 1941 to 1954 nearly two million tons was produced from Victoria’s State forests and delivered to major depots by special freight trains.
Anton Jensen’s wood yard was at the Fitzroy siding on the now dismantled inner circle railway.
Steam Engine A1 837 is visible on the main line
The wood yard and railway siding were replaced by housing in Napier Street after the line was closed in 1981.
This view is looking south and the gasometer on the left was in Queens Parade. Built in 1859, the Fitzroy Gasworks was a key supplier of gas to Melbourne until closing in 1927. The site operated as a gas storage facility until the 1970s and has recently been dismantled.
https://prov.vic.gov.au/archive/594DFB4A-F822-11E9-AE98-ADBB378DEBDC
About one-third of Victoria, or about 7.1 million hectares, is publicly owned native forest.
Under Section 50 of the Forest Act, it was possible for the Forests Commission to set aside reserves, usually for recreation or the conservation of natural features.
In 1957 the area covered by this provision was quite small being only 700 ha, with the exception of Mt Buller at 1710 ha.
But by the mid-1950s it became evident that community attitudes to forests and conservation were beginning to shift.
In 1958 the Commission set aside Lake Mountain and Mt Baw Baw reserves. And over the next 10 years, the number of reserves increased to 81 with an aggregate area of 17300 ha.
In 1968, Sir William (Blackjack) McDonald, a local pastoralist and Minister for Lands controversially announced a new rural settlement scheme which involved the clearing of remnant Mallee woodlands and then selling Crown Land in the Little Desert.
An unlikely alliance of farmers, agricultural experts, economists, suburban activists, politicians, scientists and conservationists including the local District Forester Bill Middleton, banded together to oppose McDonald’s plan.
The Age Newspaper was fiercely critical and ran reports and editorials opposing the proposal for many months.
A surprise electoral backlash over the Little Desert plan against the Bolte Government in the May 1970 elections, where McDonald also lost his safe Liberal seat, laid the foundations for the formation of the Land Conservation Council (LCC) later in 1971.
The poorly-conceived Little Desert scheme was eventually consigned to oblivion, but it proved a watershed moment and is often considered to mark the beginning of widespread environmental awareness and activism in Victoria.
The Forests Commission, now under the Chairmanship of Dr Frank Moulds, responded swiftly, and in 1970 the Forest Environment and Recreation (FEAR) Branch was created to give greater focus to the multiple use of State forests.
FEAR Branch was an innovative idea and other state forest services around Australia soon followed.
By about 1973, the area set aside in forest reserves had grown to 56000 ha.
By 2013, about half (4 M ha) was set aside as Parks and Conservation Reserves with the other half (3.1 M ha) as State forest.
Another Australian first.
The first fire spotting aircraft in Australia was deployed on 18 February 1930 when a RAAF Westland Wapiti from No.1 Squadron operating out of Point Cook near Melbourne flew over the nearby Dandenong Ranges.
The first Chairman of the Forests Commission, Owen Jones, had been one of Britain’s pioneering aviators in the Royal Flying Corp during WW1.
He fully understood that aircraft had three main advantages: speed, access and observation.
Experience has consistently shown that early detection and aggressive first attack are the keys to keeping bushfires small and gives the best chance for control.
In the early part of last century, there was limited road access to the extensive mountain forests, particularly in the remote and uninhabited eastern ranges so there was strong enthusiasm amongst Victorian foresters for aerial reconnaissance.
Discussions took place with the Air Board as early as 1926, and then over a period of years prior to 1929-30, with the view to commencing regular fire patrols using RAAF aircraft but a lack of safe landing areas proved the main obstacle.
Communications from the aircraft were sent in Morse code to the Air Board at RAAF Laverton who then passed the information on to Forests Commission fire controllers.
But poor communication systems with the ground hampered their effectiveness. It was not until the summer of 1939-40 that an aircraft was able to directly communicate by radio with the FCV District Office at Powelltown.
The use of RAAF aircraft was expanded after the Stretton Royal Commission into the 1939 bushfires.
By the summer of 1945-46, 114 flights were made with up to eight RAAF aircraft in the air on bad fire days. They operated from bases at Point Cook, Ballarat, East Sale and Bairnsdale and reported 438 outbreaks.
The following year, RAAF Consolidated B-24 Liberators and Avro Lincoln Bombers were made available, supplemented by Avro Anson’s and DC-3 Dakotas.
A major risk to all air fire operations is reduced visibility due to dust, smoke, fog and even low cloud. It was reported on 22 March 1945 that visibility was reduced to zero and all RAAF reconnaissance aircraft were grounded with the result that a fire near Toolangi reached a considerable size before being detected.
However, by 1959-60 the use of chartered cheaper flights from private operators in light aircraft became more common and the last RAAF patrol took place in 1963-64.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Aerial_firefighting_and_forestry_in_southern_Australia
The creation of the State Forest Department (SFD) in 1907 represented the most significant institutional reform in Victoria’s history of forest and bushfire management up to that point.
The fledgling department had only 66 staff and faced formidable challenges, including protecting ecosystems about which little was scientifically understood, and responsibility for vast areas of rugged, remote and inaccessible forests about which very little was known.
The Forests Commission Victoria (FCV) was formed later in 1918.
One of the fathers of modern forestry, Sir Wilhelm Schlich, pointed out in his summary of British Empire Forest policy in 1922 that Australia lacked many of the skills to undertake inventory needed to prepare proper working plans.
The Chairman of the Forest Commission, A.V. Galbraith made concerted efforts in 1927-28 to recruit trained foresters from Norway.
They included Bernhard Johannessen, Kristian Drangsholt and Bjarne Dahl who formed the nucleus of a new Forest Assessment Branch.
For the Norwegians base and contour maps of the remote eastern ranges did not exist so they made their own. They established a large cartography section to produce inch-to-the-mile or 1:63,360 scale topographic maps, many of which are still in use today.
In the early 1940s Bjarne became Chief Forest Assessor for the FCV and, by early 1945, he had established an Assessment School at Kalatha Creek, near Toolangi.
In the latter part of 1948, Bjarne left the Forests Commission to take up a new position with APM.
As part of a new supply strategy, APM decided it wanted to establish an additional, and more secure timber resource from other than State forest, and this was to be Bjarne’s key role.
As part of Dahl’s plan, a subsidiary company APM Forests (APMF) was formed in 1951 with the primary aim of supplying pulpwood to the Maryvale Mill through the establishment of plantations and co-ordination of harvesting and transport.
While working with APM he applied his business acumen to make some canny forestry and land investments and accumulated significant personal wealth.
Bjarne retired in 1961, his final task being to plant a Mountain Ash seedling that signified the 30 millionth tree planted by APMF.
During Dahl’s long career, he probably saw more of Victoria than most foresters ever did.
And when he died in October 1993, aged 95, Bjarne Dahl left his entire estate, a sizable sum, to the Forests Commission in gratitude for the opportunities it had given him.
In 2007, an independent Bjarne K Dahl Trust was established and since October 2016, the Trust operates as Eucalypt Australia.
https://peopleaustralia.anu.edu.au/biography/dahl-bjarne-20811
Charles was born in January 1899 at Yarragon in Gippsland.
Following graduation in 1917 from the Victorian School Forestry VSF) Charles enlisted in the AIF (#57139) on 17 April 1918.
After embarkation on 16 June and arrival in Egypt where he underwent additional training and was allotted to the now famous 4th Light Horse Regiment in October 1918.
Charles quickly rose to the rank of major.
At the conclusion of the war, Charles returned to Australia on 15 June 1919.
His records of employment with the Forests Commission after the war are sparse.
He died in 1986 at Shepparton.
Romain Smith was born in 1891 at Waterloo near Beaufort.
Romain saw active service during World War 1 after enlisting on 2 February 1915 at Bendigo (#696). He described his occupation as government fencer.
He joined the 22nd Battalion AIF and embarked on 8 May 1915.
His army records show that Romain got into a bit of strife on a couple of occasions with his superiors and lost a few days pay.
On 29 September 1915 Romain was admitted to hospital with abdominal pain. A few days later he was admitted to St David’s hospital in Malta where he was diagnosed with colitis. On 1 February he was diagnosed with paratyphoid and enteric fever and invalided back to Australia on 11 April 1916. He was discharged on 9 March 1917.
Romain’s younger brother, Gilbert, was born at Waterloo in 1889.
On 15 September 1914 Gilbert enlisted in the 14th Battalion (#787) at Ballarat.
He listed his profession as public servant. A letter on his file from the State Forest Department and signed by the conservator Hugh Robert MacKay giving him leave to join the army, stated that Gilbert had been an overseer of fencing for a period of four years before enlisting.
On 3 July 1915 Gilbert returned to Alexandria aboard the Dunluce Castle suffering from enteric fever and on 5 September 1915 he embarked at Port Said aboard HMAT Ascanius departing Suez and arrived back in Melbourne on 4 October 1915 still suffering enteric fever.
He returned to military duty 4 January 1916. On 10 May 1916 he reattested as his original paperwork was missing.
He transferred to 39th Battalion and was promoted to sergeant on 1 May 1916.
Gilbert embarked from Melbourne on the HMAT Ascanius on 27 May 1916 bound for Egypt.
On 23 November 1916 Gilbert proceeded to France via Southhampton but was wounded in action on 31 January 1917 by a gunshot wound to the right leg. He was taken to England via Bologna on the ship Princess Elizabeth on 11 February 1917.
Gilbert was admitted to the 3rd Army General Hospital with a severe compound fracture, and on 27 September 1917, he returned to Australia and was discharged from the army on 28 February 1918.
After the war, the two brothers, Gilbert and Romain Smith didn’t return to Forest Department but were awarded the contract to deliver mail from the Upper Ferntree Gully Station to Belgrave via Upwey, a distance of three miles, six times weekly, by motor vehicle, at £25 per annum. The contract ran from 17th April 1919 to 30th June 1920.
Following this initial tender another was given solely to Romain Smith for a further 3 years for a daily service terminating on 30 June 1923.
Romain passed away on 30 August 1945 at Frankston.
Gilbert died at Heidelberg in 1957 aged 68.
Stan McDougall, soldier and forester, was born in Recherche in Tasmania on 23 July 1889 and became a blacksmith.
Illness prevented him from enlisting in the AIF until 31 August 1915 when he was posted to the 12th Reinforcements of the 15th Battalion.
In Egypt, on 3 March 1916, he was drafted into the 47th Battalion and embarked for France in June. The Battalion fought at the famous battles at Pozières in August 1917 and later at Messines and Broodseinde.
Stan was promoted to Sergeant in January 1918.
At Dernancourt on 28 March, he saw the enemy knock out a Lewis gun position. McDougall then attacked two German machine-gun teams, killing their crews by firing back with the Lewis gun. He then attacked a second wave of Germans, burning his hands on the hot barrel casing of his gun. When a German officer aimed his pistol at some Australians, McDougall killed him with rifle and bayonet. Twenty-two Germans were killed and 30 were captured, largely because of McDougall’s actions.
For his actions at Dernancourt Stan was awarded the Victoria Cross.
Eight days later, at the same place, McDougall won the Military Medal, taking over the platoon when his commander was killed.
After the war McDougall became an officer with the Tasmanian Forestry Department, and later, as inspector-in-charge of forests in north-east Tasmania.
He performed outstanding work during bushfires.
Stan McDougall died in Scottsdale on 7 July 1968.
https://adb.anu.edu.au/biography/mcdougall-stanley-robert-7347
The Australian War Memorial (AWM) holds over 90 artworks of Colin Colahan.
Colahan was born in Victoria in 1897 and gave up medical studies to attend the National Gallery School in 1917. He moved to Europe in 1935 and never returned to Australia.
In London in August 1942, he was appointed as an official Australian war artist and remained in the role until October 1945
The AWM collection includes at least 15 featuring the forestry units working in Scotland.
The portraits are of unit members from the 1st and 2nd companies of the Australian forestry units:
The 1st Company were mostly from NSW, Queensland and South Australia while 2nd Company included many Forests Commission Victoria staff, local sawmillers and experienced bushmen from Victoria, WA and Tasmania including veterans of the First World War.
* Not available online
Soon after the outbreak of World War Two, the British Government requested experienced forestry soldiers from Australia, New Zealand and Canada to be deployed in France as part of the British Expeditionary Force.
But the French Government had stipulated that they must be commanded by trained foresters so that the wasteful cutting and forest destruction experienced in World War 1 was not repeated.
The Australian Government readily agreed and two forestry companies were quickly raised as part of the Royal Australian Engineers (RAE).
The first Forestry Company (2/1) was based in Sydney with men from NSW, Queensland and South Australia, led by Captain Cyril Richard Cole, a professional forester from the Australian Capital Territory.
The second Forestry Company (2/2) included many Forests Commission staff, local sawmillers and experienced bushmen from Victoria and Tasmania including veterans of the First World War. They were led by Captain Andrew Leonard (Ben) Benallack, a graduate from the Victorian School of Forestry in 1922.
Both Forestry Companies sailed from Fremantle on the Stratheden in late May 1940 and landed in England not long after the evacuation of Dunkirk. They were immediately positioned to guard against the threat of German invasion while the Battle of Britain was in full fury overhead.
Whereas the Canadians came self-contained and brought logging equipment and sawmill machinery with them, the Australian and New Zealand companies had to be equipped in Britain which was in short supply and was not what they were used to. Until crawler-tractors were available, converted agricultural tractors had to serve for logging operations. There were no chainsaws, just axes and crosscut saws.
Later moving to Scotland they worked tirelessly to produce railway sleepers, sawn scantling and pit props for coal mines. And although their work was without the glamour associated with combat troops, they performed an invaluable task by cutting millions of super feet of spruce, poplar, larch, oak and fir which was used in the production of Mosquito bombers, Horsa gliders, patrol boats and other wartime needs.
The winter of 1940-41 was particularly cold and hard on the men. Many had not seen snow before. Another shock was the quaint British custom of cutting trees flush at ground level rather than leaving a stump which meant sometimes kneeling in the snow.
The foresters were recalled to Australia at the insistence of Prime Minister John Curtin in late 1943 because of the War in the Pacific. New Zealand and Canadian Forestry Companies stayed in the UK and were later deployed to Europe after the D-Day invasion of Normandy on 6 June 1944.
Returning via America the LumberJacks were given the unique honour of marching in a ticker-tape parade with fixed bayonets down Broadway in New York on 1 October 1943, said to be the only occasion that armed foreign troops had marched through an American city since Independence. Legend has it that they sang “Waltzing Matilda”.
However, the need for sawn timber was largely being met by civilian sawmills and State forest agencies so after reequipping and some refresher training in jungle warfare at Kapooka the 2/2 Forestry Company was deployed to Lae in Papua New Guinea in May 1944.
This photograph was probably taken in Australia before embarkation to the UK or before deployment to PNG in May 1944.
The RAE Woodpeckers’ Association, a social organisation for members of the post-war Army Reserve unit, the 91 Forestry Squadron, has generously purchased the photo from an Adelaide based antiquarian bookseller and it will now find its way into the forestry museum at Beechworth.
Dedicated to commemorating their predecessors, the Woodpeckers have carried the banner of the WWII forestry units in Melbourne’s Anzac parade since 1977.
The photograph has a generic caption with no annotations on the backing, but it appears to be 1 Forestry Company, commanded by Major Jack Thomas, who became a prominent South Australian forester after the war.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Australian_Forestry_Group_UK
Today is special for Australians, young and old, for many different reasons.
The custom across the British Empire of observing a minute’s silence on Remembrance Day is largely due to Australian soldier and journalist Edward George Honey.
A small unassuming plaque can be found near the Shrine of Remembrance in Birdwood Ave. Edward never returned to Australia and died in England in 1922. I particularly like the gum trees on his plaque as a reminder of home.
So proudly wear a poppy, and take a minute’s silence at 11 am, to remember all the Australian men and women who served our country in military conflicts.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Edward_George_Honey
Very little is recorded about Australian forestry efforts during WW1.
Huge quantities of timber were needed on the Western Front and by 1918 the British were exploiting about 44,500 hectares in a dozen locations north of the river Seine.
But it’s reported that relations between the Allies over forestry issues were not always cordial and that French authorities were unhappy with the extent of the forest harvesting and wastage.
Large sawmills were operated in France by British Royal Engineer units as well as by the Canadian Forestry Corps.
But some small scale mills were operated from time to time by the AIF engineer field companies who tended to move around with their Divisions.
It’s thought that while in a rear area in June 1917 some Western Australian sappers from 6 Field Company operated a sawmill at Blangy-Tronville and also supplied logs to another sawmill at Glisy by floating them down the Somme River to avoid damage to the roads.
Timber was felled locally and the sawmill was operated entirely by Australians which turned out over 1 million super feet (2,360 m3) per month.
The labour was chiefly from 200-300 German prisoners, working under Australian supervision but men from the British army were also attached.
The Australians also undertook forestry patrols to prevent wasteful and unauthorised felling of trees in the various woods in the area.
In the early stages of the conflict timber for engineering and construction was generally imported. So to save on shipping space and to reduce waste, the Australians established an ANZAC Workshop in late 1916 at Meaulte near Albert in northern France to meet the timber needs for the Somme winter.
The workshop was run by skilled officers and men detached from the engineers, pioneers, infantry and other branches from all the Australian Divisions.
The Australian workshop manufactured pre-fab huts, duckboards and revetting panels for fortifications and even turned the sawdust into coal briquettes.
Later in June 1917, the ANZACs left the Somme for the Ypres offensive and the sawmill complex was handed over to a British unit.
Two proposals to form a more permanent Australian Forestry Unit did not materialise and by July 1917 all the men returned to their original units.
By the end of the Great War in November 1918 the extensive felling carried out by all armies and the damage caused by field artillery had decimated the forests of northern France.
Norman was born in 1893 at Jerek and entered the Victorian School of Forestry (VSF) but did not graduate.
Norman signed up in Bendigo in March 1916 with the 38 battalion (#750). He joined with his brother Alexander Cosmo McDonald (#751). They both embarked from Melbourne on board HMAT A54 Runic on 20 June 1916.
Norman rose the rank of sergeant and was wounded in France in 1917, and again in 1918. He returned to Australia 31 March 1919.
His brother Alexander was killed in October 1917 at Passchendaele
Norman returned to farming after the war. He died in July 1973 at Culgoa.
Reg Lindsay was one of the first foresters to graduate from the Victorian School of Forestry at Creswick in 1912.
He was also a member of the famous Creswick artist family and brother of Norman Lindsay, the author of The Magic Pudding.
Sadly, Reg was killed instantly in France with four other soldiers while queuing for rations on 31 December 1916 when they were hit by a shell landing directly on them, although it’s often more colourfully reported that he was shot “when dashing out of his dugout to rescue a bottle of rum” on New Year’s Eve.
That’s Reg… on the steps of Tremearne House, second from the left, with the snappy boater hat and hands shoved in his pockets. Apparently, he was a bit of a lady’s man.
He was 29…
Norman Boston was one of the first to attend the Victorian School of Forestry at Creswick in 1912 as nursery staff.
He was born in Daylesford and enlisted in the 59 Battalion AIF (#2578) in 1916, at a relatively senior age of 38 and 7 months.
He embarked on the Shropshire in September 1916 and served in France.
Norman returned to Australia in July 1919.
In 1928 he was listed in Victorian public service records as “staff foreman to assistant forester plantations” based at Macedon.
I believe Norman died in 1936.
Frederick Anderson was born on 15th July 1893 in Buangor, which is between Ballarat and Stawell.
He enlisted for military service with the 14th battalion on 14th September 1914 and remained until 10th May 1919. He was one of the first to join up and his service number was 545.
His occupation before enlistment was as a foreman in State Forests Department.
He landed at Gallipoli where he was wounded. He was gassed and wounded again by shrapnel in France. He was awarded the Military Medal in 1916 for entering German trenches and going back repeatedly under machine gun fire to rescue the wounded. He rose the rank of Captain in 1918.
He married Margaret Hayton in England in 1918.
After the war, Fred and Margaret ran the Glenthompson Post Office in western Victoria for 32 years.
Fred then reenlisted in the second world war in 1940 as a Captain (V1298) in the 15th Battalion of the Volunteer Defence Corps.
He returned to Glenthompson and Fred died on 7 May 1965.
Reg was born at Beechworth in 1899 and entered the forestry school at Creswick in 1915. It’s reported that he, along with many others, struggled with his subjects and was required to sit supplementary exams.
At the time, nearly half of the intake failed. The Board blamed students and the staff for the poor results.
By 1916 things were improving but the Board still considered Reginald Ingle “did not show sufficient evidence of capacity to justify his further continuance as a trainee at the forest school”.
Despite his VSF results, the records show Reginald was a graduate in 1917.
Around the same time there were changes to the teaching staff and the appointment of Charles Carter as the Principal.
Reginald joined the 46 Battalion (#3404) of the AIF in February 1917 and sailed to England in May. Oddly, he listed his occupation as orchardist, maybe because forestry was a protected profession.
Reg was wounded in France in September 1917 by a gunshot wound to his right hand and ended his war in hospital in England. He returned to Australia in March 1919.
Reginald resumed with the Forests Commission in 1919 and went onto a long and successful career with placements at Macedon, Port Campbell, Ovens, Yarram, Tarnagulla and then at Neerim South in 1927.
In 1929 he was appointed as the assistant forester at Chiltern, and by July, he was promoted as the District Forester at Yarrawonga.
In 1938 Reginald moved to Maryborough as the District Forester with his final career posting at Bendigo in 1952. Reginald Ingle retired from the Commission during the 1959/60 financial year, and I believe he may have died in Maryborough in 1971
Victoria’s Forests & Bushfire Heritage 