page_title: Puckapunyal
section_title: History
hierarchical_section_title: Puckapunyal / History
caption_attribution_description: PUCKAPUNYAL, VIC. 1942-06-20 TO 1942-06-21. VIEW OF GENERAL GRANT M3 MEDIUM TANKS MASSED, MANOEUVRING ON THE PARADE GROUND BEFORE PASSING THE SALUTING BASE AT A REVIEW OF THE 1ST AUSTRALIAN ARMOURED DIVISION BY GENERAL SIR THOMAS BLAMEY, COMMANDER-IN-CHIEF ALLIED LAND FORCES.
context_page_description: Puckapunyal is an Australian Army training facility and base 10 km west of Seymour, in central Victoria, south-eastern Australia.
context_section_description: The area was first used as a mobilisation and training area during World War I. During the early 1920s, an ordnance store and rifle range were built on the site. In 1939, the area was formally established as Puckapunyal Camp: the name was taken from the Aboriginal name for a large hill within the training area, which has been variously translated as "death to the eagle", "the outer barbarians", "the middle hill", "place of exile", and "valley of the winds". The base was used to train the Second Australian Imperial Force, as other Army establishments were at capacity training Militia units. The original site was too small for wartime training, and an additional 5,700 hectares (14,000 acres) were acquired. As well as Australian units, the United States Army's 41st Infantry Division trained at Puckapunyal.
  In 1949, the 1st Armoured Regiment was raised at Puckapunyal. The regiment remained based at Puckapunyal until it relocated to Darwin in June 1995.
  During the 1950s, Puckapunyal was host to the 3rd National Service Training Brigade (see National Service Act 1951).  During the Vietnam War, national servicemen conscripted under the National Service Act 1964 outside of Queensland and New South Wales were sent to Puckapunyal (soldiers from these states trained at Kapooka or Singleton). They were trained by the 2nd Recruit Training Battalion, with up to 4,000 soldiers at Puckapunyal at any given time.
  In the 1980s, the Army undertook a land rehabilitation program, as decades of heavy use had caused major land degradation.  By 1988, subsequent land acquisitions had increased the training area to 39,290 hectares (97,100 acres).
  The National Service barracks were transferred to the Third Training Group in the 1980s to provide recruit and promotion training for General Reserve soldiers and also promotion training for Reserve Officers attending the Reserve Command and Staff College.  This continued until the closure of the Training Group in June 2000.
  During 1999 and 2000, citizens from Kosovo were housed in the Training Group barracks (as well as at other military barracks around the country) as part of a temporary protection program called Operation Safe Haven in support of the NATO activity in the province.  They returned to Kosovo once the situation there had stabilized.
  It serves as a testing ground for armoured fighting vehicles.
caption: M3 Grants of the 1st Armoured Division at Puckapunyal, June 1942
exif: {"Image Orientation": "Horizontal (normal)", "Image XResolution": "72", "Image YResolution": "72", "Image ResolutionUnit": "Pixels/Inch", "Image Software": "Adobe Photoshop 7.0", "Image DateTime": "2003:08:26 11:26:30", "Image ExifOffset": "156", "Thumbnail Compression": "JPEG (old-style)", "Thumbnail XResolution": "72", "Thumbnail YResolution": "72", "Thumbnail ResolutionUnit": "Pixels/Inch", "Thumbnail JPEGInterchangeFormat": "294", "Thumbnail JPEGInterchangeFormatLength": "4368", "EXIF ColorSpace": "Uncalibrated", "EXIF ExifImageWidth": "450", "EXIF ExifImageLength": "341"}