Storage Sheds, St. Vincents Road, Virginia - were they used by the Military during WW2?

STORAGE SHEDS, ST. VINCENTS ROAD,
VIRGINIA, BRISBANE, QLD
WERE THEY USED BY THE MILITARY DURING WW2?

There are 16 large storage sheds (originally 17 sheds) located in St. Vincents Road, Virginia on the north side of Brisbane. Cranwich Street is at the southern boundary of the sheds and Blinzinger Road at the northern end. I believe they were possibly used as wool stores after WW2. I can remember many years ago that they had timber walls which were falling apart. They were then all re-sheeted.

Were they used as storage sheds by the Military during WW2? There are a number of other large storage locations in the neighbourhood used by the Military during WW2 such as the US Navy Stores depot in Toombul Road.

Storage Sheds at St. Vincent's Road are located at centre bottom of the photograph.
There are hotspot hyperlinks on this photograph for other nearby military locations.

In January 2008 Bob Russell advised that the warehouses in St Vincents Road were used by PMG/Telecom/Telstra from the late 1950s until 1988 when the buildings were sold to private enterprise. The area was originally used as a bulk store, as the main PMG warehousing was located in the old railway buildings opposite the old museum. The main store was moved to Virginia in the 1960s. Bob Russell was stationed at Virginia from about 1965 to 1988. During this time they used the 8 warehouses nearest Blinzinger Road and the 2 in the next row nearest the railway line. Australia Post used the warehouse (#12) in the second back row nearest the railway line for a short period for their warehousing operation. The building next to Warehouse No. 12 (also used by Telecom) was known as Shed 54. This identification may have been used by the wool board.

Bob Russell's early memories were of wooden walls with raised wooden floors and corrugated fibro roofs with sliding doors front and rear and on both sides. Over time the walls and roofs were replaced with metal sheeting and cement floors laid. Over the years most of the bases on the timber posts were replaced because of dry rot . The warehouses 1 to 4 (second row from Blinzinger Road) and warehouses 6 to 8 (third row) were joined by annexes and the side walls removed to allow increased storage space. The building on the corner of St Vincents Rd and Blinzinger Rd was known as warehouse 5.

The missing warehouse burned down before Bob Russell's time there, however, when the area was bulldozed there was lots of unburnt paper exposed and combustion caused the paper to relight.

These sheds were always known as wool stores but according to the WW2 veterans that Bob Russell worked with, there is no doubt that these were used by the US Forces for war storage. Bob Russell was led to believe that all the "wool store" type building in the Hendra/Virginia/Banyo area were built by the US military. Rumour has it that these buildings were known as Liberty Warehouses as the entire freight of a Liberty Ship would fit inside them.

The building known as T6 in Northgate Road was also used by Telecom for furniture storage until the early 1980s.

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