Ball, balls, bigger balls and bearings.
When WW2 broke out, Australia had no ball bearing production capability at all. In 1942 money was allocated to set up a single row ball bearing manufacturing facility as part of the Ordnance factory Echuca dedicated to the production of bearings for defence purposes particularly in vehicle applications.
In 1945 funds were requested for the purchase of tapered roller bearing production machinery from the US.
It's quite likely that some of the Australian carriers were fitted with locally made bearings
I have very little knowledge of what happened to the plant post war but suspect it was sold off and continued to operated for some time as a private company. i remember coming across bearings made in Echuca in packaging carrying the name of UBCO.
The manufacture of bearings in Echuca would have ceased many years ago as with so much other manufacturing capacity in Australia.
David
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Hell no! I'm not that old!
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