WWII army camp in New South Wales, Australia
Monument commemorating Greta Migrant Camp
Greta Army Camp
was an
Australian Army
camp built in 1939 near
Greta, New South Wales
, Australia. It was used for training soldiers of the
Second Australian Imperial Force
(2AIF) during
World War II
. After World War II, the camp was converted into a migrant camp. The Australian army sold the site at auction in 1980.
History
[
edit
]
In November 1939, 2,930 acres (11.9 km
2
) of land was compulsorily acquired in the
Allandale
-Greta area to create one of the Australian Army's largest training camps. Built for the training of the
6th Division
of the 2AIF because the existing Australian army facilities were occupied by
Citizens Military Force
units.
[1]
The
2/11th Battalion
arrived at the camp on 15 December 1939 and were later joined by the
2/10th Battalion
. The camp facilities were expanded during
World War II
, with two parts of the camp known as "Chocolate City", due to the brown-coloured oiled timber weatherboard buildings in that part of the camp and "Silver City", due to corrugated iron
Nissen huts
built in that part of the camp. Citizens Military Force units were also trained at the camp, with up to 60,000 Australian soldiers trained during World War II.
After the war, much of the field training areas were returned to grazing purposes, however the camp was still used for the training of troops preparing to join the British Commonwealth
Occupation Forces in Japan
.
Greta Migrant Camp
[
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]
Students at the Greta Migrant Camp School in 1952
In 1949 Greta Camp was transferred to the
Department of Immigration
who transformed it into one of Australia's largest
migrant reception and training centres
. Between June 1949 and January 1960 as part of the
post-war immigration to Australia
, over 100,000 new migrants seeking a new life in Australia passed through the camp.
[2]
The first group of 600 migrants arrived 7 June 1949 from the
Bathurst
Migrant Reception and Training Centre and were followed on 19 August 1949 by migrants who travelled directly by disembarking from the
Fairsea
at Newcastle and who arrived at Greta via the railway.
[3]
[1]
In total, about 100,000 migrants from various countries, including Austria, Bulgaria, Czechoslovakia, Estonia, Germany, Greece, Hungary, Italy, Latvia, Lithuania, Macedonia, Netherlands, Poland, Romania, Russia, Ukraine and Yugoslavia, sprent time in the camp.
[4]
Men were required to sign a two-year work contract and were housed at "Chocolate City" when they were not away at jobsites, such as cutting sugar cane in Queensland, steelworks, the railways, or the
Snowy Mountains Scheme
. Women and children were housed at the holding centre in "Silver City".
[4]
The migrant camp closed in 1960, and the Army occasionally used the site for training exercises until it was sold at auction in 1980.
[4]
Notes
[
edit
]
- ^
a
b
Keating, Christopher (1997),
A History of the Army Camp and Migrant Camp at Greta, New South Wales, 1939?1960
, Uri Windt,
ISBN
978-0-646-31541-6
- ^
Newcastle City Council
.
"New Lives, New Australians ? Snapshots of Greta Migrant Camp, 1949 ? 1960"
. Local Government & Shires Associations of NSW. Archived from
the original
on 26 April 2012
. Retrieved
25 September
2012
.
Michelle Meehan,
Greta Army & Migrant Camp
, Your Hunter Valley, 1 November 2019
- ^
"GRETA CAMP FOR MIGRANTS"
.
Queensland Times
. No. 19, 459. Queensland, Australia. 20 April 1949. p. 3 (DAILY)
. Retrieved
24 October
2023
– via National Library of Australia.
- ^
a
b
c
Evans, Gretel,
Remembering Two Cities: Generational Memories of the Greta Army and Migrant Camp, 1939?2020
(PDF)
, Oral History Australia
External links
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