Plumbing History

The first run of sheeting going up under the guidance of Bob Kimlin.

Last run - on the first half - almost done. Bob Kimlin screwing off, Syd Beck ready to pull up the next sheet.

WWII HANGAR

STANDS THE TEST OF TIME IN NORTH QUEENSLAND

While it is true that times change and memories fade, there are always those unique projects that stand out clearly in the mind years and even decades later.

Sometimes it’s because of the challenges, sometimes it’s because of the design, sometimes it’s because of the story behind it all.

For The Beck Museum hangar, it’s a combination of all three that leave it prominent in the memory of former Master Plumbers’ Association of Queensland President and current Trustee, Bob Kimlin.

“Having worked for Syd Beck and family previously, Syd offered for me to install the roofing on the hangar in the late 1970s, in conjunction with himself, family, and volunteers,” Bob Kimlin said.

“Having completed this roof and its challenges, despite not having done one before and the lack of any modern workplace health and safety protocols, it has stayed in my memory ever since.”

“I think I would be the only living plumber/drainer/roofer that achieved this. With my good teaching, Syd and his team then successfully reinstalled the roof in the mid-1990s, after the building was relocated to Mareeba on the Atherton Tablelands.”

The building’s story was born in the frantic early days of World War Two in the Pacific, when a French engineer Mr Bresway was among escapees from Singapore, fleeing just before it fell to invading Japanese forces.

After arriving in Australia, American forces quickly put his skills to work designing ‘hides’ for B-17 Flying Fortress bombers. The hides took the form of arches, with a few 4x2 purlins supporting camouflage netting.

Extra arches were soon added and a full roof, creating the igloo familiar to many airfields.

Being French, Bresway designed in metric, so his early buildings must have been an immense challenge to the imperial feet-and-inches builders of the day.

This particular igloo, with its metric dimensions, was built by the Australian Department of Works in 1943, for the rapidly-expanding World War Two air base at Townsville.

Interestingly, the arches pivot on two, six-inch-long pieces of two-inch water pipe, filled with concrete. Similar pipes form the butting surfaces at the top.

It was not long before the metre-wide arches were redesigned in imperial and things became much easier for the construction crews erecting later igloos.

The Beck hangar originally had a corrugated iron roof attached with lead head nails. Later, it was re-roofed in specially imported Duralumin so it could serve as a radio maintenance shed – the special roofing not interfering with radio waves.

While all this was happening, a young Syd Beck had a passion for aircraft and history sparked by a wartime airstrip next to his school (the Weir State, which still exists in Townsville) and American troops camped around his family farm in the Upper Ross.

As a young boy, he enjoyed rides in army trucks and Jeeps and visits from nurses and others securing fresh food from the farm.

These two threads came together as his growing collection of old aircraft needed a home, at the same time the Federal Government decided to dispose of the hangar.

The arches rest on two small sections of 2-inch, concretefilled pipe at each base, and have the same (just visible as small white circles) at the join at the top.

SUPER BUILT FOR YOU.

The building during dissassembly at it’s original World War Two site in Townsville. Gin poles were used for this, for reassembly and again for it’s second dissassembly.

Having demolished two earlier igloos, with the help of builder John Melville, Syd decided to try to secure this hangar as a new home for his collection.

Once he secured the building, it had to be carefully disassembled – demolition was out as he planned to rebuild it back on his farm. As he said in one of his favourite phrases: “Nothing is impossible, only some people”.

This was done with the help of a small crew of helpers, using gin poles.

As soon as the arches arrived at the family’s Upper Ross farm, their refurbishment began, and shortly after, in 1978 reassembly began with builder John Melville in charge of the structure.

Once again gin poles (vertical poles on stabilising bases, supporting pulley sets to erect the arches) were put to use.

Both the disassembly and reassembly were family affairs with Syd’s wife Barbara driving one of the trucks operating the gin pole pulleys, and children Norman, Peter, and Susan assembling the 24,000 screw, neoprene, and cyclone washer combinations for the roof.

The building had to be re-engineered to meet then-current cyclone standards – this resulted in the roof nails being replaced by screws, the gang-nailed fish-plates being replaced by steel and bolts, and diagonal braces being installed in some bays, and leaving the end walls off.

Sheeting the roof, from start to finish, was 10 consecutive weekends of work.

Soon after, it was filled with historic aircraft and military vehicles and opened as a museum on 16 April 1983 by local Australia Day Citizens award winner Francis Stanley Hammond. Soon after, then-Premier Sir Joh BjelkePetersen visited to present a Queensland flag.

The story doesn’t end there, however.

As suburbia spread, it became apparent that the farm would, soon enough, be a target for sub-division. A discussion with the then Thuringowa Council about keeping some space around the hangar and developing the rest was met with the response: “If you pay the rates for an equivalent number of house blocks, you can stay.”

With no future in Townsville, a new home was found near Mareeba in 1985. And again, the hangar was disassembled, this time to move some 400 kilometres to the Atherton Tablelands.

To preserve the arches, expert advice was to apply a specific preservative – but on application, it was absorbed by the timber, which split to the point of destruction.

With the help of local Tablelands timber millers Rankine Brothers, and the jigged floor at their Kairi timber mill, new arches were constructed out of the last air-dried hardwood from Fraser Island. Some 60,000-70,000 nails were used in the process.

Soon, the building rose again and in 1997 it reopened as a military museum once more near Mareeba.

The passage of time continued, however, and the museum closed to the public in 2014. The building still stands proudly alongside the Kennedy Highway – a testament to the original design, the practical value of a clear span building, and the dedication of Syd Beck and his family.

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Article written by Bob Kimlin and Norman Beck

This engine at 55 is one of the oldest items in Mr Beck’s collection. Robert Kimlin, one of the volunteers who helped put up the hangar, is

having the workings of the engine explained to him by Mr Beck. Source: There’s no barbecue for this back yard - Sid prefers a World War 11 hangar!” - The Townsville Daily Bulletin - Friday 2 January 1981