The Australian War Memorial Collection. Test site
In 1940 Emerson Curtis visited the Commonwealth Explosives Factory, at Maribyrnong, Melbourne. He described the works as '...five to six hundred separate buildings, each designed for some special purpose...divided by concreted walks, tunnels, gates or high earthen mounds. There were sections devouted to the manufacture of nitroglycerine, gun cotton, propellants such as cordite and high explosives like T.N.T. There were pyrotechnics, detonators, cartridge bundling shell filling and assembly houses - all part of an amazing crosshatch pattern of building strung out over the flats of the Maribynong River.' By 1940 the Explosives Factory was employing more than 3000 men and Curtis noted the ever present 'element of risk' due to the dangerous nature of the work. In this drawing the artist has captured the cordite sheeting machine in action. Cordite is an explosive used as a propellant of bullets and shells.
Trinitrotoluene (or TNT) was the most commonly used explosive by the Allied forces. It had a high blast effect and had the advantage of being handled in liquid form for filling purposes, later cooling
Depicts factory workers Miss Jessie James, Miss Ruby Swift, and Miss Mary Grace weighting cordite on scales in the Cartridge Bundling Section of the Commonwealth Explosives Factory at Marybyrnong in V
Unidentified men and women working in the propellant section press room at the Commonwealth Explosives Factory in Maribyrnong. The charge women standing before the press receives the cordite from the
A 1000 pound AN M-65 General Purpose (GP) high explosive aerial bomb. These bombs were used to target ammunition dumps, airplanes, railway tracks, engines and cars, aircraft on the ground, and all typ
Women were employed exclusively in the small arms section of the large Commonwealth Small Arms Factory in Footscray. Emerson Curtis captured this impression from the elevated vantage of a chair on top
Depicts the exterior of the Australian War Memorial, viewed from the front steps, with a number of people entering the Memorial. Robert Emerson Curtis (1899 - 1996) was born in Croydon, England and h
