5th Australian Base Workshop

5th Australian Base Workshop

Brief History

This unit began life as 9th Advanced Ordnance Workshop which was raised at Bushmead in July 1842. By September it had eight officers and 257 men with work on a new workshop at Nungarin which they moved to in April 1943.Ther work was primarily 4th line work on vehicles and equipment from Nungarin and Midland.

In February 1944 they absorbed the men and responsibilities of the 5th Tank Workshop Company and the 4th Ordnance Tank Depot Workshop Section to form the new 5th Australian Base Workshop, with 14 officers and 422 men. The new expanded unit had an Armament and General Company with sections for workshop machinery, armaments, armoury, wireless and signal equipment, instruments, woodworking and general. The Vehicle Workshop Company had two vehicle sections, an engine reconditioning section and a vehicle recovery section. The Tank Workshop Company had two tank workshop sections and a tank recovery section.

With the drop in troop numbers in Western Australian during 1944, the unit also downsized such that in January 1945 the unit was redesignated 5th Australian Advanced Workshop, now with only seven officers and 177 men. The unit continued to operate in Nungarin until the end of the war.

Unit Personnel

• Raby Kathleen Elizabeth Mack 12 Apr - 26 Oct 1943
• Robert William Murphy 17 Jan - 28 Nov 1944
• Leonard Wilfred Powell 23 - 29 Apr 1944
• Ernest Charles Allen 5 - 12 Apr 1944

Notes

Content has come from The Unit Guide - Volume 5 - The Australian Army 1939-1945, page 5.595 - Graham R McKenzie-Smith - Big Sky Publishing - 2018