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Civil Constructional Corps |
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Much of the Australian war effort was directed toward the creation and development of a viable logistical infrastructure, especially after the outbreak of the Pacific war, when Australia became the major base in the South-West Pacific Area. For the first half of the war construction of facilities was undertaken by an often ill-coordinated mixture of civilian (business and government) and military engineering concerns. Early in 1942, with American forces making increased demands on Australia's construction capabilities, the federal government formed an Allied Works Council to plan and execute defence facilities. It was headed by E.G. Theodore, formerly a Queensland premier, who directed it skilfully and efficiently. The work was actually undertaken by the Civil Constructional Corps, an official and disciplined force of skilled tradesmen and labourers. They wore a CCC badge but no uniform. Men could be conscripted into the corps, and many tradesmen were demobilised from the armed services to make up the numbers of skilled men required. Its members could be between 18 and 60, though many men were older because younger workers were in the services. At its peak the CCC numbered over 50,000 men, with over 77,000 passing through it between 1942 and 1945. The CCC's workers built roads (including the north-south road from Alice Springs to Darwin) airstrips, hospitals, wharves, fuel storage depots and defences. They worked al over Australia, particularly in remote areas of north and central Australia, but also on the huge Captain Cook Graving Dock in Sydney, the largest single engineering feat of the war for Australia. Because it was unprecedented, the CCC needed new industrial awards, and after unions expressed concern the Commonwealth Conciliation and arbitration Court handed down national awards ensuring that all CCC members, irrespective of their disparate state awards, received common pay rates and conditions. The CCC produced one of the most memorable portraits of the Second World War, in that Dobell's The billy boy depicts a CCC worker. |
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