[Peakoil] Fwd: Cyclone Tracey

[Keith Thomas]

I got the following additional background from a public servant 
directly involved in the Tracey project.

This is relevant to dealing with major emergencies in the future. (I 
have deleted information that would identify my correspondent, even 
though he retired years ago).
--------------------------------------------
Keith Thomas
www.evfit.com
--------------------------------------------

>
> It was the Deputy Sec of Supply, Tom Lawrence (who may still be 
> around) who had the job of finding the material needed and getting it 
> to Darwin.  I don't know if Tom was under the direction of the Joint 
> Chiefs of Defence, Arthur Tange (who was Defence secretary at the 
> time) or some else.  He saw himself as having enormous power under the 
> Defence Supply Act to comandeer whatever was necessary.
>  
> Tom was an engineer and somewhat of a restraining influence in the 
> former Dept of Supply.  He was not much liked at the lower levels, 
> especially by those trying to maintain our manufacturing caspacity, 
> but we were most impressed with his ability to rise to the occassion.
>  
> I was at the class 8 level at the time and only involved at a later 
> stage after all the strategic decisions had been made.
>  
> In regard to sorting out the "legal issues" the defence legisation 
> gave enormous powers to the Minister to do what ever necessary in time 
> of war.  Many of the senior officers were recruited during WW2.  They 
> were the brightest around at the time and were familiar with the 
> logistics behind our involvement in Korea and Vietnam.  Essentially, 
> they were men of action. I don't know if the Tracy response was 
> "legal" but they sure acted like we were on a war footing.
>  
> What is interesting is that these guys had recently been through a 
> painful restructuring under Arthur Tange in integrating the different 
> service departments into a single dept of defence.  They felt bruised 
> and hurt.  Supply had been excluded from that process and felt 
> vulnerable because they had been left out and somehow of lesser 
> strategic importance.  Our involvement in Vietnam had ended and we 
> were in the painful process of downsizing.  I think Tracy gave them a 
> chance to show what they could do in an emergency and they performed 
> magnificently
>  
> I wonder if today's SES folk could rise to the occassion in the same 
> way.
>  
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