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The Company was given the Freedom of Entry to the City of Darwin on 7 July 1979; other highlights at this
time included a two-week exercise in the Victoria River valley in August 1978 and a nine-day patrolling exercise
in the upper reaches of the Fitzmaurice River involving extensive use of Army helicopters. In another nine-day
patrolling and survival training exercise, conducted on Croker Island and the Cobourg Peninsula, small parties
lived with Aboriginal outstation communities under the instruction of a tribal elder. The Company used a variety
of methods of patrolling and insertion, including vehicle, helicopter and even horses, with an Animal Transport
Section being raised to help it achieve the specialised reconnaissance and surveillance tasks it was expected to
perform. A remount area was established beside a riding school at the 12-Mile south of Darwin, and the school’s
owner was hired to train soldiers to ride. During 1980, the Animal Transport Section had undergone a training
camp in the Daly River area, and a civilian horse-breaker demonstrated techniques to the soldiers. The men were
then given unbroken horses and were required to break them in and then carry out an exercise using those horses.
After further training exercises and patrols, the men came to develop standard kit and procedures and, at the height
of training, some 35 horses were in use.
During the 1970s and particularly after Cyclone Tracy, the Army was developing a concept for an increased
representation in north Australia, not so much quantitative at that time but qualitative, determining an Army
component the size and composition of which could be deployed and sustained in a time of financial restrictions.
Pike’s 7IRC was the beginning of a concept which, given the tyranny of distance in northern Australian, recognised
the consequential need for mobility at the expense of offensive capability and the need to utilise the local knowledge
and expertise of local residents. The 7IRC was very much a precursor to the raising of the regimental-sized North
West Mobile Force in 1981, and was never viewed as ‘the final solution’. The tremendous success of NORFORCE
in its first two years came about largely because it had a solid foundation of members who had served with Pike’s
7IRC. He was described by one of his contemporaries at Headquarters 7MD as a ‘ long, lean, laconic individual
who not only epitomised the archetypal Australian soldier but had the ability and enthusiasm to motivate his troops
into actually enjoying life as they trained in infantry tactics’.
During Pike’s command of the company, a detailed history of the wartime 2/1st North Australia Observer Unit,
AIF, was published, and Pike recorded that this work contained the role which he hoped to be authorised for 7IRC,
that of strategic reconnaissance and surveillance. By the end of Pike’s incumbency, the company had a strength
of 192 all ranks and was, he claimed, becoming ‘the most successful army reserve unit in the Australian Army’;
7IRC was subsequently expanded and upgraded to a specialised surveillance regiment on 1 July 1981. Succeeded
by Special Air Services Regiment veteran Major Zoltan (‘Zot’) Simon in early 1981, Pike subsequently served
as a Staff Officer (Operations) at Headquarters Field Force Command, from which he oversaw the implementation
of the regional forces concept and the raising of both NORFORCE and the Pilbara Regiment. He later lived in
Queensland, maintaining his military commitment as an Army Reserve Ground Liaison Officer.
The Army List of Officers of the Australian Military Forces, vol 1, 31 July 1970; Defence Force Journal, 14: 15–30; NORFORCE Newsletter,
various editions 1981–1983; personal correspondence and conversations with Lieutenant General Sir D B Dunstan AC KBE CB (retd),
Lieutenant Colonel N N Forbes AM, Lieutenant Colonel A J George OBE (retd), Major P Herden, Lieutenant Colonel G Pound (retd), Major
T Smith, Captain I Tibbits; Major A W Pike, records and press clippings (NORFORCE Museum); 7IRC Newsletter, 1977–1979; A Vane,
The Surveillance of Northern Australia, 1979.
PAUL ROSENZWEIG, Vol 3.
PING QUE (c1837–1886), merchant and miner, was a native of Canton, China. Whether he came as headman
with the first group of Chinese immigrants in 1874 on the ship Vidar, or as an independent merchant, is not clear.
He was about thirty-seven years of age at the time.
He began mining operations at Union Reefs late in 1875, in partnership with a European miner, but later on his
own account. By 1877, Ping Que had his headquarters and store at the Union. There he worked five separate mines,
one, No. 5 South Union, being 45 metres deep, with hoisting done by a horse whim—by far the deepest mine on
the Union at the time. Over the years, he seems to have averaged over one ounce of gold per ton.
When a labour shortage developed in 1877, J G Knight, Goldfields Warden, consulted Ping Que and included
his recommendation in a report. This was the first reference to a Chinese merchant in an official report in the
Territory. Whilst Ping Que was friendly with Knight, he was equally friendly with the leading miners of the
time, such as Adam Johns and Charles Tennant. In fact, Johns once referred to him as ‘the whitest man in the
Territory’. In the event, Ping Que went to Singapore and engaged men on his own account. His scale of operations
was considerable, exemplified by a joint venture with Tennant in which 200 Chinese were engaged to travel a
considerable distance (on foot) carrying all necessary tools and supplies to the Driffield, a considerable distance
from Pine Creek. As it transpired, little gold was recovered and while on the way back all the stores were lost in a
flash flood—overall a disaster, but Ping Que’s resources were more than sufficient to stand the loss.
Whilst his main headquarters were at the Union, as new fields were found or opportunity offered, Ping Que
set up temporary headquarters at other places—Pine Creek in 1879, where he bought or leased the old telegraph
battery, thence to the Margaret in 1880. Here he had two reefs, one very rich, yielding atone time 500 Pounds worth
of gold from one bucket of stone. Returns were so good that in 1881 he took a year’s holiday in China.
Ping Que’s activities seem to have reached a peak in 1882–83. He then had mines extending from the Margaret
and Union Reefs to Pine Creek, some of which he let on tribute to lesser Chinese merchants, managed a number of
mines for W G Griffiths, and had several joint ventures going with miners such as Johns. He regularly employed
sixty men at his No. 5 South Union mine, now 85 metres deep. Apart from mining, he operated stores and butcher’s
shops. With other residents on the goldfields, Ping Que depended on European teamsters to cart in their supplies
from Southport, 160 to 240 kilometres away. When their charges soared to 45 Pounds a ton, Ping Que engaged one