Initially, USN personnel numbers (252) were small and accommodated in hotels or boarding houses. By June, USN facilities had expanded and Brisbane was designated USN Base 143. With increasing numbers of sailors to house, the USN leased Brisbane City Council’s New Farm Park and riverfront land belonging to the Colonial Sugar Refining Company on 14 September 1942. The leases were arranged through the Australian Army Hiring Service offices at Victoria Barracks.
The Officer's Mess at 50 Oxlade Dr
The officers' mess. Everything revolved around the mess. Mess dinners. Mess social events. Mess bar.
It was every regiments' central gathering place for exchanging ideas, jokes, scandals and complaints. There were happy messes, sad messes, stuffy messes and casual messes."
- from "The Making of a Warrior", Land Force Staff Course handout (1998).
The arrival in Brisbane of United States Navy warships in April 1942 saw the establishment of the New Farm submarine base.
The arrival in Brisbane of United States Navy warships in April 1942 saw the establishment of the New Farm submarine base.
The site was developed into the USN New Farm Receiving Station. It included Bachelor Officers Quarters (BOQ), a Dispensary and an Armed Guard Pool. The Receiving Station also had two barracks, a Mess Hall (seating 50) and Galley (kitchen), a laundry, an enlisted men’s recreation room, a theatre, Ship’s Store, a brig (jail), a seabag storage building, a 2-chair barber shop, a subsidiary post office, an administration building, a wet (alcohol) canteen and a Chaplain’s Office.
The USN Dispensary was a 25-bed unit, with a surgery, medical wards, dental facilities and a prosthetic laboratory. The Armed Guard Pool was built within the Receiving Station. The Station serviced both USN personnel allotted to Base 134 plus sailors who were transiting through Brisbane.
The Bell
Hanging beside the bar in (probably) every Mess will be found a bell. In many this will have been made from an expended artillery shall casing. The ringing of the bell indicates that the ringer is offering to buy a round (i.e., of drinks) for all present, often this is done to celebrate the ringer’s promotion. By custom in some messes, an inadvertent ringing of the bell, whether by accident or trickery, can be considered a similar offer.
The Snake Pit
The Snake Pit is usually a small room near the bar where more relaxed rules apply, and where those who have decided to be so can remain segregated from those enjoying the decorum of the main lounge and bar. In some messes, dress in the Snake Pit may even allow jeans or PT gear at certain times of the day or following regimental sports.
Mess Games
Various regiments partake in mess games, often in the aftermath of a Mess Dinner. These games may range from chair borne polo with soup spoons and an orange, to cabbage football, to any more strenuous activities that may be born in the mind of those whose inhibitions and sense of bodily safety have been diminished by the consumption of ethanol based beverages.
