A Little Marvel in Timber and Tin – the Military P1 Hut of the Second World War
Total Page：16
File Type：pdf, Size：1020Kb
A Little Marvel in Timber and Tin – the Military P1 Hut of the Second World War Patrick Miller, Heritage Victoria SUMMARY: The Second World War presented a huge logistical problem for Australian defence planners. The solution they arrived at for personnel accommodation requirements was neat and inexpensive – the P1 hut. Using readily available building materials and easily understood building techniques, tens of thousands of these huts were built by civil contractors across Australia in the period 1939-1945. Although designed as temporary accommodation their adaptability and inherent strength made them the backbone of military accommodation for 50 years and many are still in use today. Barracks, Melbourne. An imperial soldier’s life was 1. GENERAL spent either on campaign living in tents, or on garrison The military P series of huts which were built in their duty living in barracks. Victoria Barracks in Melbourne tens of thousands during the Second World War was fortified, not against the possibility of a foreign represented a robust and essentially temporary solution invasion, but against a possibly hostile population. to a problem of expanded wartime accommodation Britain’s overseas empire generally required its troops needs. But so effective were they, so fit for their to be a local peace-keeping force as well as a deterrent purpose, that many of them survived for fifty years or to outside aggression. Experiences in India and America more in military use. While it is now extremely rare to tended to reinforce the notion that the main threat was find them still on military bases, many survive because internal, a notion strengthened in the Australian colonies they have either been relocated, or the military facility by their convict origins and by the Eureka Revolt. itself has been sold. In Victoria a few have found their way onto the Heritage Register but none in their own As well as this regular British army presence, from right. Instead their inclusion has been as part of a more about the mid 1850s there were various volunteer militia obvious heritage place where their existence has been a units formed on a local ad hoc basis. After the departure welcome happenstance. In this paper I hope to convey of the last British regiment in 1870, defence became the something of the character of these timber and tin responsibility of the individual colonies, but the various marvels, their history and construction, and their militia units remained only loosely organised. Because cultural heritage significance. they were part-time citizen soldiers who lived in their own homes, there was no need for substantial and expensive permanent barracks. The volunteer militia’s role was not civil order but defence against invasion; therefore there was no perceived need to protect their places of assembly and training from attack. During the era of colonial responsibility for defence, virtually every town of importance constructed a drill hall or orderly room to be the focus of its local militia organisation. The drill halls were used solely for assembly, drill and instructional purposes with little or no accommodation provided. When the militia units went on field manoeuvres their accommodation was in tents. Since Federation, Australian defence theory has always been at odds with defence practice. The theory, which has been relatively consistent for nearly one hundred Figure 1. P1 Hut Block 19 Bonegilla years, is one of commitment to defence of the homeland by citizen soldiers. In contrast to this theory there has been a consistent practice of sending specially enlisted 2. BACKGROUND troops to fight wars on foreign soil in the interests of Until 1870 the land defence of the former Australian major allies. Each of these major military adventures - Colonies was the responsibility of successive regular the Boer War, the First and Second World Wars, Korea British regiments. These regiments were quartered in and Vietnam required an enlargement of the nation’s colonial defence establishments such as Victoria then current military capacity and a solution to the problem of troop accommodation. Fort Dix throughout the US. But there were features The two largest conflicts were the two world wars, but which were unique to the Australian response. the accommodation requirements in each case were radically different. The Australian role in the First 3. DESIGN World War was primarily to provide infantry. The Australian version of this vernacular wonder was Australia’s contribution formed a part of a much larger given the rather anonymous title of ‘P1 Type Hut’. British military force and its organisation and Designed as a standard type for troop accommodation, deployment came mainly from the British. There was they were far more numerous and more utilitarian than therefore little need for extensive military the better-known prefabricated buildings like the semi- establishments in Australia for anything other than circular Nissen/Quonset Huts.. induction, basic training and marshalling. Camps such as Langwarrin and Seymour had some permanent The Australian ‘P’ series of huts was designed to cover buildings, mainly for administration, ablutions and all the personnel accommodation requirements of the cooking, but the majority of ordinary accommodation military. The series was centred around a basic module - was still in tents. the ‘P1 Sleeping or Stores Hut’ - which was then modified to produce messes, guard huts, canteens, Compared with the catastrophic Australian casualty rate medical aid posts, dental surgeries, recreation huts, of the First World War, casualties in the Second World classrooms, and offices. Further modifications produced War were relatively light. Yet this was Australia’s only ablutions, showers, latrines, laundries, offices and “total war”. That is, for six years virtually every stores. citizen’s life and work had direct relevance to the war effort. This war required much more from the populace Unlike the Nissen/Quonset huts which were factory pre- than just infantry; it was a war of technology and fabricated, the P1 was designed for construction by mobility. As well as the traditional arms of infantry, civilian contractors using freely available local materials artillery and engineering, there were the new and in a style familiar to all Australian builders. The technologies of air power and armour. Similarly, a contractors operated from a site plan which nominated modern military force needed technical support in a the location of the various types around the camps, and wide range of areas such as communications, electrical from a set of standard construction plans for each type. and mechanical engineering, motorised transport, medical and dental treatment, supplies and catering, surveying and mapping, intelligence, and personnel administration, all of which required large amounts of trained manpower which in turn had to be accommodated. In the First World War most training was done overseas, but in the Second World War there was a far greater emphasis on training schools both for military and for specialist skills, within Australia. The military therefore urgently needed to enlarge its accommodation and training facilities. Throughout the war, the Commonwealth purchased or leased likely sites all over Australia and built camps to accommodate and train the hundreds of thousands of Australians who served in that war. These new camps were filled with standard, serially designed, wooden framed and corrugated iron Figure 2. Plans 1941 clad buildings - the ‘P’ series. The ‘P1 Sleeping or Stores Hut’ that formed the basis of It should be stressed that the provision of low cost, this series was a timber framed building on stumps in serially designed military accommodation buildings was the traditional Australian manner. All the scantlings not an Australian invention. The same problems of were common mill sizes and were the accepted accommodating large numbers of more-or-less transient dimensions for a building of its size. The red-gum or soldiers were solved in similar fashion by all countries. jarrah stumps were seated on sole plates and were given And the standard solution was remarkably similar in galvanised iron ant-caps. The stumps were joined most cases a simple timber box with a gabled roof and longitudinally by bearers which in turn were crossed by doors at each end which could accommodate a platoon floor joists. The floors were of tongue and groove, of infantry. The British had been building something hardwood boards. The walls, which were built onto the similar for many years at camps like Kettering and platform created by the completed floor, were of studs Aldershot. The Americans had hundreds of camps like between plates and were nogged and braced. There were five window openings on each long wall. At each end of the building was a pair of ledged and braced doors of types which obviously suffered a higher roof loading in vertical, v-notched, tongue and groove boards. The practice than they had been designed for. Although walls were clad externally with whichever material was there is an excess of strength in the Australian timber considered to be most locally advantageous, but was framed building, the shapes of structures must be predominantly horizontal, corrugated galvanised iron correctly formed to avoid deformation. The early P1 left unpainted. A ventilation gap covered with bird- was designed for a light dead load on the roof. When mesh was left at the top of the walls. Roofs were clad this was exceeded the ridge of the roof tended to sag with either corrugated galvanised-iron or asbestos and the tops of the walls to splay outward. Photographs cement. Internally the buildings were unlined and exist which show soldiers climbing on the roofs to unfurnished except for a row of clothes-hooks. sunbake and to air their bedding, a common practice which was not allowed for in the design. The huts were designed for twenty sleeping spaces. Most other armies opted for the bunk system which After the war, the Commonwealth found that it had effectively doubled the sleeping capacity of the huts.