General News
26 September, 2026
Veteran's Voices: 3rd Field Survey Company
Sergeant Ronald (Ron) Herbert Simpson was born in Wycheproof on March 29, 1923, to Myrtle Lillian Simpson. He enlisted in Townsville, QLD, on July 28, 1942.
Sergeant Ronald (Ron) Herbert Simpson was born in Wycheproof on March 29, 1923, to Myrtle Lillian Simpson.
He enlisted in Townsville, QLD, on July 28, 1942.
His locality on enlistment was Albert Park, Vic, and he was an engineering student.
Simpson was attached to the 3rd Field Survey Company from January 17, 1942, and was taken on strength from RR&RD, posted to Yarram.
He was Graded GP1 Surveyor at Colac on June 19, 1942.
Simpson was transferred to the Queensland Line of Communication Area on July 4, 1942.
He was promoted to Acting Corporal on September 25, 1942.
With the 3rd Field Survey Company (totalling 18 men, including Simpson) embarked aboard the SS Taroona at Townsville for the 8th Military District (8 MD) in November 1942.
The 8th Military District was an administrative district of the Australian Army covering the Territory of New Guinea, the Solomon Islands and the New Hebrides, with its headquarters firstly at Rabaul and later at Port Moresby.
The arrival of Simpson’s Survey Company was soon after the amphibious landing attempted by the Japanese in August-September that had ended in defeat for them, but the area was still subjected to periodic air raids and the surveyors sometimes found bombs landing dangerously close to their quarters.
In mid-February 1943, the Company reached Port Moresby and was joined by the 2/1st Army Topographical Survey Company.
Field parties spread out from Port Moresby on mapping tasks over a wide area.
One party was employed on surveys needed for the construction of the Bulldog-Wau Road, an engineering undertaking of epic proportions.
Another detachment carried out surveys in the Ramu Valley and Finisterre Range to produce a series of combat maps for the 1st Australian Corps.
Part of this detachment was on Shaggy Ridge, and they made observations within days of its capture in January 1944.
Many of the maps of New Guinea for which the Company was responsible had been produced while the unit was deployed there, but others were completed after its return to Australia.
Simpson was promoted to Acting Sergeant in March 1943, and this appointment was confirmed on December 25, 1942.
However, from March 26, 1943, to July 9, 1943, Simpson’s file had been heavily redacted.
He suffered from mental illness and was evacuated to a Casualty Clearing Station and transferred to the X List on July 9, 1943.
X List was an administrative category used to list members of a unit who were temporarily absent but still accounted for.
Simpson was evacuated from 10 ACCS by air ambulance to the mainland to the 2/14th Australian General Hospital.
From there, he was evacuated to DOMS Southern Command, then transferred to 113th Australian General Hospital in an anxious state on September 16, 1943.
He was again evacuated from DOMS Southern Command to 115th Australian General Hospital on September 17, 1943.
Simpson was discharged on January 20, 1944, and his file was again redacted, and he was transferred to the Heidelberg Hospital.
The reason for his discharge was given as being “medically unfit.”
His file also stated this was due to schizophrenia, but it suggests it was due to post-traumatic stress disorder.
Simpson’s last unit was the 3rd Australian Field Survey Company.
He served in New Guinea from November 30, 1942 to August 3, 1943, and he received a Return of Active Service Badge on January 29, 1944.
Simpson joined the CRB in 1944 as a surveyor in the Title Survey Division, and undertook field survey work on the Kiewa Valley Highway in the early 1950s.
He later became an engineering assistant, and then an engineer.
He resigned from the CRB in 1955 and, after a short period in private practice, he was appointed Shire Engineer in the Shire of Pyalong.
He was a committee member of the VicRoads Association up to the early 2000s.
Simpson died in December 2005.
The Royal Australian Survey Corps entered WWII with nine officers and forty-one other ranks.
Total strength reached a peak of 1,700, with some 5,500 men and women being engaged on mapping tasks during the war period.
Corps members served with distinction in the Middle East, the Australian mainland, New Guinea, Pacific Islands and Borneo.
It was in Borneo where 1st Australian Corps HQ praised the efforts of the Survey Corps by recording that ‘…never in this war have Australian troops been so well provided with accurate maps, sketches and photo reproductions …’; their tasks culminated in the production of the Japanese ‘Instrument of Surrender’.
At the end of the war, the Corps had 862 personnel.
Those serving overseas, together with mainland personnel, had produced a total of 1,419 maps of various scales.
By mid-1947, Corps strength had declined to 430.
In 1948, the Australian Survey Corps was granted the prefix ‘Royal’ in recognition of its service during the war.
That same year saw the initial establishment of the Army School of Survey at Balcombe, Victoria, on the Mornington Peninsula.
In the late 1940s, Corps surveyors undertook exploratory surveys for the Snowy Mountains hydro-electric project, hydrographic surveys in Flinders Gulf and later the Woomera Rocket Range.
Anaglyphic stereoplotting equipment was introduced into the Corps in 1952 and was used extensively for over 10 years.
Despite the efforts of pre-war Corps surveyors, in 1950 the Australian continent could only be described as being very poorly mapped.
At this time, mapping consisted of inch-to-the-mile mapping of some limited coastal areas and emergency maps at four miles to an inch produced by civilian agencies during the war.
These four-mile maps were based on existing property surveys and what are commonly called ‘traveller’s tales’, and had no or limited height information, and many were of dubious accuracy.
Both national development and defence demanded better.
The Corps Motto – “Videre Parare Est,” was formally adopted in 1965, meaning “to see is to prepare”.
Until the outbreak of the Pacific War, RAAF HQ in Melbourne controlled all RAAF assets in Australia.
Geographic area commands were established and underwent a series of changes in quick succession.
These changed several times until mid-1942 when the command boundaries were adopted.
The enemy threat, scope of proposed operations and the introduction of Allied Force Headquarters SWPA in Brisbane under General McArthur, resulted in a change to the command-and-control structure of the RAAF.
Initially, a ‘Functional’ command structure had been proposed, but the size of the Australian landmass and its area of responsibility resulted in the RAAF adopting a geographic command structure.
RAAF Command HQ was co-located in Brisbane and assumed operational control of RAAF Squadrons.
Area HQ were revised from three to five, and they then exercised command over the RAAF resources in their geographic area of responsibility.
HQ Southern Area was originally formed in March 1940, and initially controlled units located in Victoria, Tasmania, South Australia, and southern New South Wales.
Headquarters in Melbourne, Southern Area Command, was responsible for air defence, aerial reconnaissance, and protection of sea lanes within its boundaries.
From 1942, its operational responsibilities excluded New South Wales.
The area command continued to operate beyond the end of the war, becoming the hub of Air Force training services.
In October 1953, the RAAF began reorganising its command-and-control system from one based on geography to one based on function: Southern Area was re-formed as Training Command, which in 2006 became Air Force Training Group, a component of RAAF Air Command.