The issue of women’s suffrage in New Zealand began to gain momentum in the second half of the 19th century. Like in other countries, women in New Zealand had been excluded from political life. Drawing strength from the broader American and northern European movements for women’s rights, some of New Zealand’s leading suffrage campaigners argued that equal rights for women were necessary for the moral improvement of society.
The New Zealand branch of the Women's Christian Temperance Union was a driving force behind the movement, which was energised by campaigners such as Kate Sheppard and Mary Ann Müller. By the start of 1893 they had secured widespread support for women’s suffrage, as shown through the thousands of names that appeared on petitions.
After previous attempts to pass bills to give women the right to vote had failed to make it through Parliament, the 1893 Women's Suffrage Petition led to a new Electoral Bill that would grant suffrage to women of all races easily passing through the Lower House.
Although the Upper House was divided on the issue, a late switch by two councillors who had originally opposed the bill led to it passing by 20 votes to 18 on 8 September 1893. Lord Glasgow signed it into law 11 days later, enabling women to vote in the general election. The European part of the election took place on 28 November and saw 65% of all eligible New Zealand women turn out to vote.
Exactly 26 years later, on 28 November 1919, Lady Astor became the first elected British female MP to take her seat in the British House of Commons.
Lady Evelyn Barbara Balfour, OBE (16 July 1898 – 16 January 1990) was a British farmer, educator, organic farming pioneer, and a founding figure in the organic movement. She was one of the first women to study agriculture at an English university, graduating from the institution now known as the University of Reading.
Lady Eve Balfour (1898 – 1990) is best known as the founder of The Soil Association, Britain's leading organic food and farming organisation. The Soil Association was born in 1946, following publication of Lady Eve Balfour's bestselling book about organic agriculture, The Living Soil (Faber & Faber 1943).
Balfour, one of the six children of Gerald, 2nd Earl of Balfour, and the niece of former prime minister Arthur J. Balfour. The Balfours of Whittingehame, East Lothian were one of Britain's most important political families.
By the age of 12, Eve Balfour had decided that she wanted to be a farmer. At age 17, she enrolled, as one of the first women students to do so, at Reading University College for the Diploma of Agriculture. After obtaining her Diploma in 1917,s he completed a year's practical farming. In 1918, claiming to be twenty-five, she secured her first job working for the Women's War Agricultural Committee, running a small farm in Monmouthshire. She managed a team of land girls, ploughing the land with horses and milking the cows by hand.
She was subsequently appointed Bailiff to a farm near Newport, Wales under the direction of various war committees, notably the Monmouthshire Women's War Agricultural Committee whose Chairwoman was Lady Mather Jackson of Llantilio Court, Abergavenny.
After briefly managing a hill farm in Wales, Eve and her elder sister Mary Edith Balfour bought a farm in Suffolk. In 1919, at the age of 21 at the suggestion of family friend William E G Palmer of Haughley, she and her sister Mary used inheritance monies put into a trust by their father, to purchase New Bells Farm in Haughley Green, near Stowmarket, Suffolk.
Eve farmed throughout the economically difficult inter-war period. New Bells Farm was a mixed farm, boasting arable crops, a dairy herd, sheep and, at times, pigs. In addition to farming, she pursued a wide variety of activities, including playing the saxophone in a dance band formed initially for her and her sister's own amusement. The band provided an extra source of income when it played at Saturday night dances in a nearby Ipswich hotel. She gained a pilot's licence in 1931 and crewed for her brother on his annual sailing trips to Scandinavia. She wrote three detective novels with Beryl Hearnden (under the pseudonym Hearnden Balfour), the most successful of which, The Paper Chase (1928), was translated into several languages.
In the early 1930s Eve Balfour became a high-profile campaigner in the tithe protest movement, which saw financially-strapped farmers attack the Church of England for its continued reliance on tithe payments to supplement the income of rural clergy.
During the 1930s Lady Eve, became critical of orthodox farming methods, being particularly influenced by Viscount Lymington's textFamine in England (1938), which raised doubts about the sustainability of traditional farming techniques [and inspired sarcastic critiques]. Portsmouth's book inspired her to contact Sir Robert McCarrison, whose research had shown a positive relationship between health and methods of soil cultivation. Her interest in organic farming can also be traced to her contacts with Sir Albert Howard, a British scientist who developed the Indore process of composting based on eastern methods.
Sir Albert Howard CIE (8 December 1873 – 20 October 1947) was an Englishbotanist, and the first westerner to document and publish the Vedic Indian techniques of sustainable agriculture, now better known as organic farming. After spending considerable time learning from Indian peasants and the pests present in their soil, he called these two his professors. He was a principal figure in the early organic movement. He is considered by many in the English-speaking world to have been, along with Rudolf Steiner and Eve Balfour, one of the key evangelists of ancient Indian techniques of organic agriculture.
Having encountered ideas about compost-based farming, shelost no time developing plans to put organic agricultural concepts to the test by conducting a farm-based experiment on her own land in Suffolk. In 1939, she launched the Haughley Experiment, the first long-term, side-by-side scientific comparison of organic and chemical-based farming. She later became Chairman of Haughley Parish Council for many years and organised ARP precautions within the village. She campaigned vigorously against the payment of tithes to the church and was in opposition to the Vicar of Haughley the Rev W G White.
In 1943, leading London publishing house Faber & Faber published Balfour's book, The Living Soil (1943). Reprinted numerous times, it became a founding text of the emerging organic food and farming movement. The book synthesised existing arguments in favour of organics with a description of her plans for the Haughley Experiment. Reprinted nine times it became a classic text for the organic movement providing an influential synthesis of existing knowledge. It gave a persuasive account based on experiments in agriculture, botany, nutrition, and preventative medicine, and had far-reaching conclusions for agriculture and social policy. Following publication of The Living Soil and establishment of The Soil Association, Eve Balfour became one of organic farming's most important and determined campaigners. She had hoped that the government would provide support and funding for organic production, but the 1948 Agriculture Act committed Britain to a system of highly mechanized, intensive methods.
During the 1950s, she travelled to North America, Australia, New Zealand and many European countries, spreading the organic message and creating networks of supporters. She was also involved in the early days of the International Federation of Organic Agricultural Movements (IFOAM). In 1958, she embarked on a year-long tour of Australia and New Zealand, during which she met Australian organic farming pioneers, including Henry Shoobridge, president of the Living Soil Association of Tasmania, the first organisation to affiliate with the Soil Association.
Balfour continued to farm, write and lecture for the rest of her life. She is attributed with stating that, "Health can be as infectious as disease, growing and spreading under the right conditions".
Eve Balfour lived with Kathleen Carnley (1889-1976) for 50 years. Carnley joined Balfour at Haughley during the 1930s and was a skilful dairy worker. After the large farmhouse was rented out, they lived in a cottage at Haughley. Before Carnley, historians speculated about her relationship with Beryl Hearnden (1897–1978).
She moved to Theberton, near the Suffolk coast in 1963 and made regular visits back to the farm at Haughley. The farm was sold in 1970, owing to mounting debts incurred by the centre. In 1984, she retired from the Soil Association aged 85. She continued to cultivate her large garden. On 14 January 1990, she was appointed OBE in the 1990 New Year Honours list. In 1989, she suffered a stroke from which she died in Scotland, aged 90, on 16 January 1990. On 17 January 1990, the day after her death, the Conservative Government, under Margaret Thatcher, offered grants to encourage British farmers to change to organic methods.
Towards a Sustainable Agriculture: The Living Soil by Lady Eve Balfour This classic text on the organic movement is an address given by the late Lady Eve Balfour, author of the organics classic "The Living Soil and the Haughley Experiment", to an IFOAM (International Federation of Organic Agriculture Movements) conference in Switzerland in 1977.
Gertrude Mary Denman, Baroness Denman, GBE (née Pearson; 7 November 1884 – 2 June 1954), sometimes known as Trudie, was a British woman active in women's rights issues including the promotion of Women's suffrage in the United Kingdom. She was also the wife of the 3rd Baron Denman, fifth Governor-General of Australia, and she officially named Australia's capital city Canberra in 1913 >.
In 1933 Lady Denman was appointed a Dame Commander of the Order of the British Empire (DBE). She was advanced to Dame Grand Cross (GBE) in 1951. These entitled her to be known as Dame Gertrude Denman; however, as the wife of a peer, her existing title Lady Denman subsumed this.
She was the second child, and only daughter, of Weetman and Annie Pearson (later Viscount and Vicountess Cowdray). Her father was a successful businessman, initially in engineering, and later in the development of oilfields in Mexico, the production of munitions for the First World War, building the Sennar Dam on the River Nile, as well as coal mining and newspaper publishing. Weetman was a staunch Liberal who supported causes such as free trade, Irish Home Rule and women's suffrage. Trudie's mother, Annie Pearson (née Cass) was the daughter of a farmer from Bradford, Yorkshire. A woman of strong character, Annie Pearson was a feminist who was an active member of the executive of the Women's Liberal Federation.
At the age of sixteen, Trudie completed her formal education at a finishing school in Dresden.
Slim saw active service in both the WW1 and WW2 and was wounded in action three times. During the Second World War he led the 14th Army, the so-called "forgotten army" in the Burma campaign. After the war he became the first British officer who had served in the Indian Army to be appointed Chief of the Imperial General Staff. From 1953 to 1959 he was Governor-General of Australia.
In the early 1930s, Slim also wrote novels, short stories, and other publications under the pen name Anthony Mills.
America shares a language and large parts of its culture with Britain and Australia. But when tens of thousands of US troops arrive in 1942, things will be far from smooth. While the alliance remains firm, their soldiers will spend almost as much time fighting each other as they do the Axis.
The war changed daily life drastically - women were put to work in munitions factories, bonfires were banned, and pubs closed. Food shortages led to queues, then riots and rationing, then starvation.
The term Link Trainer, also known as the "Blue box" and "Pilot Trainer" is commonly used to refer to a series of flight simulators produced between the early 1930s and early 1950s by the Link Aviation Devices, Inc, founded and headed by Ed Link, based on technology he pioneered in 1929 at his family's business in Binghamton, New York. During World War II, they were used as a key pilot training aid by almost every combatant nation.
The original Link Trainer was created in 1929 out of the need for a safe way to teach new pilots how to fly by instruments. A former organ and nickelodeon builder, Link used his knowledge of pumps, valves and bellows to create a flight simulator that responded to the pilot's controls and gave an accurate reading on the included instruments. More than 500,000 US pilots were trained on Link simulators, as were pilots of nations as diverse as Australia, Canada, Germany, United Kingdom, Israel, Japan, Pakistan, and the USSR.
The Link Flight Trainer has been designated as a Historic Mechanical Engineering Landmark by the American Society of Mechanical Engineers. The Link Company, now the Link Simulation & Training division of L-3 Communications, continues to make aerospace simulators. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Link_Trainer
The term Link Trainer, also known as the "Blue box" and "Pilot Trainer" is commonly used to refer to a series of flight simulators produced between the early 1930s and early 1950s by the Link Aviation Devices, Inc, founded and headed by Ed Link, based on technology he pioneered in 1929 at his family's business in Binghamton, New York. During World War II, they were used as a key pilot training aid by almost every combatant nation.
The original Link Trainer was created in 1929 out of the need for a safe way to teach new pilots how to fly by instruments. A former organ and nickelodeon builder, Link used his knowledge of pumps, valves and bellows to create a flight simulator that responded to the pilot's controls and gave an accurate reading on the included instruments. More than 500,000 US pilots were trained on Link simulators, as were pilots of nations as diverse as Australia, Canada, Germany, United Kingdom, Israel, Japan, Pakistan, and the USSR.
The Link Flight Trainer has been designated as a Historic Mechanical Engineering Landmark by the American Society of Mechanical Engineers. The Link Company, now the Link Simulation & Training division of L-3 Communications, continues to make aerospace simulators. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Link_Trainer
Keyline design is a technique for maximizing beneficial use of water resources of a piece of land. The Keyline refers to a specific topographic feature linked to water flow. Beyond that however, Keyline can be seen as a collection of design principles, techniques and systems for development of rural and urban landscapes.
In a smooth grassy valley, a location called the keypoint can be found where the lower and flatter portion of a primary valley floor suddenly steepens. The keyline of this primary valley is revealed by pegging a contour line through the keypoint, within the valley shape. All the points on the line are at the same elevation as the keypoint. Contour plowing parallel to the Keyline, both above and below will automatically become "off-contour" but the developing pattern will tend to drift rainwater runoff away from the valley centre and incidentally, prevent erosion.
Keyline pattern cultivation on ridge shapes is done parallel to any suitable contour but only working on the upper side of the contour guide line. This automatically develops a pattern of off-contour cultivation in which all the rip marks left in the soil will slope down towards the centre of the ridge shape. This pattern of cultivation allows more time for water to soak in. Keyline pattern cultivation also enables controlled flood irrigation of undulating land, which further assists in the fast development of deep biologically fertile soil, which results in improving soil nutrition and health.
In many countries, including Australia, it is important to get optimum absorption of rainfall and keyline cultivation does this as well as delaying the potentially damaging concentration of runoff. Yeomans' technique differs from traditional contour plowing in several important respects. Random contour plowing also becomes off contour but usually with the opposite effect on runoff water causing it to quickly shed off ridge shapes and be concentrated in valleys. The limitations of the traditional system of soil conservation, with its "safe disposal" approach to farm water was an important motivational factor in the development of the keyline system.
"Why are there so few profitable Permaculture Farms?"
Overview of 10 hectare farm: "Ridgedale Permaculture" https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=nr5bKpc0x2Q
Keyline design is a technique for maximizing beneficial use of water resources of a piece of land. The Keyline refers to a specific topographic feature linked to water flow. Beyond that however, Keyline can be seen as a collection of design principles, techniques and systems for development of rural and urban landscapes. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Keyline_design
Women's Land Army June 1939 - 1950
The Women's Land Army (WLA) was established in World War One, but was re-founded shortly before the outbreak of World War Two, in June 1939, to provide extra agricultural labour. The government feared that if war broke out there would be food shortages. Britain, then as now, relied heavily on imported food, and it was thought that imports would be threatened by anticipated German blockades. In addition, many male farm workers were expected to join up, leaving a shortage of labour. The government was also keen to increase food production by reclaiming pasture and unused land for growing crops.
Women were initially asked to volunteer for the WLA. However, in December 1941 the government passed the National Service Act, which allowed the conscription of women into the armed forces or for vital war work. At first only single women between 20 and 30, and widows without children, were called up, but later the age limit was expanded to include women between 19 and 43. Women could choose whether to enter the armed forces or work in farming or industry. By 1943, more than 80,000 women were working in the Land Army. They were nicknamed Land Girls.
The Land Girls did a wide range of jobs, including milking cows, lambing, managing poultry, ploughing, gathering crops, digging ditches, catching rats and carrying out farm maintenance work. Some 6,000 women worked in the Timber Corps, chopping down trees and running sawmills.
All of these women worked long hours, especially during the summer, mostly outdoors and often in cold and rain. There was minimal training and most women were expected to learn about agricultural work while they were actually doing it. The Land Girls lived either on the farms where they worked, or in hostels.
They came from a wide variety of backgrounds, with more than one third from London and other large cities. Some were homesick, and many farmers were initially sceptical about employing young women on their farms, but people soon came to realise how useful most of them were.
Initially, Land Girls earned £1.85 for a minimum of 50 hours work a week. In 1944, wages were increased by £1 to £2.85. However, as the wages were paid by the farmer, rather than directly by the state, it was difficult to ensure that everyone was paid properly.
There was a Land Army uniform of green jumpers, brown breeches or dungarees, brown felt hats and khaki overcoats. As the Land Army was not a military force, however, uniform was not compulsory. The WLA badge depicted a wheat sheaf as a symbol of their agricultural work. There was also an official magazine The Land Girl, and a special song:
Back to the Land, we must all lend a hand,
To the farms and the fields we must go,
There's a job to be done,
Though we can't fire a gun,
We can still do our bit with the hoe.
The WLA came under the control of the Ministry of Agriculture, but its head was the formidable Lady Denman. Married to the former Governor General of Australia, Lady Denman was a leading figure in the Women's Institute movement, and also had a close interest in rural affairs. Her home, Balcombe Place in Sussex, became the WLA headquarters. Each district had its own WLA representative, who was expected to ensure the Land Girls were being treated well and were working effectively.
The Land Army was disbanded in 1950. Although the work was hard, conditions were often bad and the pay was low, many women enjoyed the experience, and formed lifelong friendships with fellow Land Girls.
Women joining the Women's Land Army were issues a simple uniform consisting of 2 green sweaters, 2 pairs of brown breeches (either twill or corduroy), 1 pair of brown overalls, 6 pairs of brown long woolen socks, 3 shirts, a green tie, a pair of shoes, a pair of ankle boots, a pair of tall boots, 2 overcoats, 1 raincoat, and a brown floppy hat or beret. http://raleighvintage.blogspot.ca/2012/03/1940s-land-girls-uniform.html
The general opinion held that land girls wore too much in the winter and too little in the summer! My uniform consisted of cordrouy breeched, strong brown leather shoes, long woollen socks, fawn cotton aertex T shirts, fine cotton long sleeved fawn shirts and a tap tie band at the waist, fawn felt hat with a Women's Land Army Badge, dark green tie with WLA letters and a dark green woollen jumper. One pair gumboots, two overall coats in light khaki and one long dark green oilskin. The servicemens requirements came first without a question.
Reality hit me the first morning when we were told to meet a lorry at 6.30am in the village. it was dark, very dark. I felt cold and tired. I was convinced the village clocks had been tampered with. I had to break the ice in the water jug before washing. My oilskin crackled. It smelled of disinfectant. I wore umpteen layers of everything I could lay my hands on. I could hardly walk. http://www.bbc.co.uk/history/ww2peopleswar/stories/55/a2891955.shtml
This quotation from Lady Denman, the Director of the Women’s Land Army, sums up the importance of the Land Girls during World War Two. For many girls, the ‘phoney war’ was all too soon becoming a reality as they had the opportunity to do ‘their bit’ and enrol for the Women’s Land Army. Please see below a timeline of key events for the WW2 Women’s Land Army.
1938: Lady Denman is approached by the Ministry of Agriculture to re-form the Women’s Land Army. She begins go make plans in terms of national organisation and recruitment, but there are delays in taking these proposals forward.
25th January 1939: A National Service handbook lists the ‘Women’s Land Army’ as one of the civilian organisations which women could volunteer to join in the event of war.
1st June 1939: The Women’s Land Army is re-formed, with Lady Gertrude Denman as Honorary Director. Recruitment begins for Land Girls in earnest. Wages were set as follows: 28 shillings (£1.40) weekly pay (10 shillings less than the average farm wage at that time) for a 50 hour week (48 in winter). Half of that (70p) to pay for food and accommodation.
29th August 1939: Lady Denman sets up the Women’s Land Army headquarters at her home, Balcombe Place, Hayward Heath, West Sussex.
1st September 1939: Germany invades Poland.
3rd September 1939: War is declared on Germany by Britain, the British Empire and France.
December 1939: 4,500 Land Girls working on the land.
January 1940: Food rationing begins in Britain.
April 1940: The Land Girl, a monthly magazine, is published by the Women’s Land Army, with Margaret Pyke as its editor.
June 1940: 6,000 Land Girls working on the land.
March 1941: ‘The Land Girl’ launches a national appeal for members to recruit other new volunteers. New minimum wage from 1st March 1941: 32 shillings (£1.60) (for up to 48 hours a week) for a Land Girl billeted off the form, 16 shillings (80p) for a Land Girl billeted on the farm (plus free board and lodging), plus overtime pay.
May 1941: All British women aged between 19-40 have to register at labour exchanges for war work.
June 1941: 14,000 Land Girls working on the land.
July 1941: HM Queen Elizabeth agreed to become Patron of the Women’s Land Army.
September 1941: ‘In the Event of Invasion’, Land Girls are encouraged to stick to their jobs, but ‘The Land Girl’ issues advice on how to disable tractors if in real danger of capture by the enemy.
December 1941: Churchill’s wartime government passes National Service Act (No.2), allowing for the conscription of women.
29th December 1941: Minimum wages increased to 38 shillings for 48 hour week (or 18 shillings with free bed and board).
April 1942: The Women’s Timber Corps is formed in Britain. More than 4,000 Lumber Jill’s are employed in forestry throughout the war. They were employed by the Home Timber Production Department of the Ministry of Supply.
20th April 1942: Miss Clemence Dane, in a BBC radio broadcast, refers to the Women’s Land Army as the ‘Cinderella Service’, in the notion that it is taken for granted and its importance being overlooked. This is the first time the Women’s Land Army is referred to as the ‘Cinderella Service’.
June 1942: 40,000 Land Girls working on the land. The Land Army Benevolent Fund is started by Lady Denman to provide financial assistance to Land Girls who suffered illness or accident as a result of their work.
3rd July 1942: Queen Elizabeth hosts a 3rd birthday party for the Women’s Land Army.
February 1943: 53,500 Land Girls working on the land.
June 1943: 65,000 Land Girls working on the land – producing 70% of Britain’s food.
August 1943: Recruitment to the Women’s Land Army is stopped by a decision of the War Cabinet (more workers were needed in the aircraft production industry).
29th August 1943: BBC Women’s Land Army broadcast referred to the uniform rationing clothing coupon arrangements, Women’s Land Army correspondence courses in agriculture and horticulture and Proficiency Tests begin.
December 1943: 80,000 Land Girls working on the land.
3rd January 1944: Recruitment to the Women’s Land Army re-opens.
May 1944: Women’s Land Army headquarters moves back to London, but returns to Sussex after doodlebug attacks begin.
July 1944: First complete series of Proficiency Tests had been completed.
January 1945: Special consideration given to Land Girls who had been in the Land Army for 3 or more years who want to transfer to their home counties.
16th February 1945: Lady Denman resigns as director of the Women’s Land Army over the decision to exclude members of the Land Girls from post-war financial benefits.
Theodor Detmers, gentleman pirate and his Kriegsmarine crew plundered their way from Germany to Australia, capturing or sinking all Allied ships they came across. This is the story of Kormoran's raids in the Atlantic and Indian Oceans and her final battle with the redoubtable HMAS Sydney.
The German auxiliary cruiserKormoran (HSK-8) was a Kriegsmarine (German navy) merchant raider of WW2. Originally the merchant vessel Steiermark ("Styria"), the ship was acquired by the navy following the outbreak of war for conversion into a raider. Administered under the designation Schiff 41, to the Allied navies she was known as "Raider G." The largest merchant raider operated by Germany during World War II, Kormoran ("cormorant") was responsible for the destruction of 10 merchant vessels and the capture of an 11th during her year-long career in the Atlantic and Indian oceans.
She is also known for sinking the Australian light cruiser HMAS Sydney during a mutually destructive battle off Western Australia on 19 November 1941. Damage sustained during the battle prompted the scuttling of Kormoran. While 318 of the 399 aboard the German ship were rescued and placed in prisoner of war camps for the duration of WW2, there were no survivors from the 645 aboard the Australian cruiser. The wreck of Kormoran was rediscovered on 12 March 2008, five days before that of her adversary.
Kormoran's success against HMAS Sydney is commonly attributed to the proximity of the two ships during the engagement, and the raider's advantages of surprise and rapid, accurate fire. Prior to the discovery of the wrecks in 2008, the cruiser's loss with all hands compared to the survival of most of the German crew created controversy and spawned numerous conspiracy theories; some alleged that the German commander, Theodor Detmers, used illegal ruses to lure Sydney into range, others that a Japanese submarine was involved, or that details of the battle were concealed through a wide-ranging coverup. None of these claims got substantiated by any evidence.
Germany used several merchant raiders early in WW1 (1914–1918), and again early in WW2 (1939–1945). The most famous captain of a German merchant raider, Felix von Luckner, used the sailing ship SMS Seeadler for his voyage (1916–1917). The Germans used a sailing ship at this stage of the war because coal-fired ships had limited access to fuel outside of territories held by the Central Powers due to international regulations concerning refueling of combat ships in neutral countries.
Germany sent out two waves of six surface raiders each during WW2. Most of these vessels were in the 8,000–10,000 long tons (8,100–10,200 t) range. Many of these vessels had originally been refrigerator ships, used to transport fresh food from the tropics. These vessels were faster than regular merchant vessels, which was important for a warship. They were armed with six 15cm (5.9 inch) naval guns, some smaller guns, torpedoes, reconnaissance seaplanes and some were equipped for minelaying. Several captains demonstrated great creativity in disguising their vessels to masquerade as allied or as neutral merchants. Kormoran sank the Australian cruiser Sydney in one of the most well-known episodes involving merchant raiders during WW2.
Italy intended to outfit four refrigerated banana boats as merchant raiders during WW2 (Ramb I, Ramb II, Ramb III and Ramb IV). Only Ramb I and Ramb II served as merchant raiders and neither ship sank enemy vessels. The New Zealand cruiser Leandersank Ramb I off the Maldives (February 1941); Ramb II sailed to the Far East, where the Japanese prevented her from raiding, ultimately took her over and converted her to an auxiliary transport ship. (Ramb III served as a convoy escort and Ramb IV was converted for the Italian Royal Navy to a hospital ship.)
These commerce raiders carried no armour because their purpose was to attack merchantmen, not to engage warships. Also it would be difficult to fit armour to a civilian vessel. Eventually most were sunk or transferred to other duties.
During World War I, the British Royal Navy deployed Q-ships to combat German U-boats. Q-ships were warships posing as merchant ships so as to lure U-boats to attack them; their mission of destroying enemy warships differed significantly from the raider objective of disrupting enemy trade.
Pine Gap is the commonly used name for a satellite surveillance base and Australian Earth station approximately 18 kilometres (11 mi) south-west of the town of Alice Springs, Northern Territory in the centre of Australia. It is jointly operated by Australia and the United States, and since 1988 it has been officially called the Joint Defence Facility Pine Gap (JDFPG); previously, it was known as Joint Defence Space Research Facility.
The station is partly run by the US Central Intelligence Agency (CIA), US National Security Agency (NSA), and US National Reconnaissance Office (NRO) and is a key contributor to the NSA's global interception effort, which included the ECHELON program. The classified NRO name of the Pine Gap base is Australian Mission Ground Station (AMGS), while the unclassified cover term for the NSA function of the facility is RAINFALL.
The facilities at the base consist of a massive computer complex with 38 radomes protecting radio dishes and has over 800 employees. NSA employee David Rosenberg indicated that the chief of the facility was a senior CIA officer at the time of his service there.
The location is strategically significant because it controls United States spy satellites as they pass over one-third of the globe, including China, the Asian parts of Russia, and the Middle East. Central Australia was chosen because it was too remote for spy ships passing in international waters to intercept the signal. The facility has become a key part of the local economy.
In late 1966, in the throes of the Cold War, a joint US–Australian treaty called for the creation of a US satellite surveillance base in Australia, to be titled the "Joint Defence Space Research Facility". The purpose of the facility was initially referred to in public as "space research". Operations started in 1970 when about 400 American families moved to Central Australia.
Since the end of the Cold War in 1991 and the rise of the War on Terror in 2001, the base has seen a refocusing away from mere nuclear treaty monitoring and missile launch detection, to become a vital warfighting base for US military forces. In 1999, with the Australian Government refusing to give details to an Australian Senate committee about the relevant treaties, intelligence expert Professor Des Ball from the Australian National University was called to give an outline of Pine Gap. According to Professor Ball, since 9 December 1966 when the Australian and United States governments signed the Pine Gap treaty, Pine Gap had grown from the original two antennas to about 18 in 1999, and 38 by 2017. The number of staff had increased from around 400 in the early 1980s to 600 in the early 1990s and then to 800 in 2017, the biggest expansion since the end of the Cold War.
Ball described the facility as the ground control and processing station for
Ball described the operational area as containing three sections: Satellite Station Keeping Section, Signals Processing Station and the Signals Analysis Section, from which Australians were barred until 1980. Australians are now officially barred only from the National Cryptographic Room (similarly, Americans are barred from the Australian Cryptographic Room). Each morning the Joint Reconnaissance Schedule Committee meets to determine what the satellites will monitor over the next 24 hours.
With the closing of the Nurrungar base in 1999, an area in Pine Gap was set aside for the United States Air Force's control station for Defense Support Program satellites that monitor heat emissions from missiles, giving first warning of ballistic missile launches. In 2004, the base began operating a new satellite system known as the Space-Based Infrared System, which is a vital element of US missile defense.
Since the end of the Cold War, the station has mainly been employed to intercept and record weapons and communications signals from countries in Asia, such as China and North Korea. The station was active in supporting the wars in Yugoslavia, Afghanistan and Iraq and every US war since the September 11 attacks.
The Menwith Hill Station (MHS) in the UK is operated by the NSA and also serves as ground station for these satellite missions.
One of Pine Gap's primary functions is to locate radio signals in the Eastern Hemisphere, with the collected information fed into the US drone program. This was confirmed by an NSA document from 2013, which says that Pine Gap plays a key role in providing geolocation data for intelligence purposes, as well as for military operations, including air strikes.
On 11 July 2013, documents revealed through former NSA analyst Edward Snowden showed that Pine Gap, amongst three other locations in Australia and one in New Zealand, contributed to the NSA's global interception and collection of internet and telephone communications, which involves systems like XKEYSCORE. Journalist Brian Toohey states that Pine Gap intercepts electronic communications from Australian citizens including phone calls, emails and faxes as a consequence of the technology it uses.
According to documents published in August 2017, Pine Gap is used as a ground station for spy satellites on two secret missions:
Mission 7600 with 2 geosynchronous satellites to cover Eurasia and Africa
Mission 8300 with 4 geosynchronous satellites that covered the former Soviet Union, China, South Asia, East Asia, the Middle East, Eastern Europe, and countries on the Atlantic Ocean
Under the 1959 Antarctic treaty, to which Xina is [a follow the rules only when it suits them] party, activities on the continent are restricted to “peaceful purposes”. Military personnel are allowed to conduct scientific research but analysts, including Blaxland, believe that information can also assist intelligence operations.
