of France for reproduction of 1,000 copies by photo-lithography by the Victorian Lands Department for issue to the Australian Imperial Force. On 3 July 1915, Military Order 396 of 1915 promulgated that His Excellency the Governor-General has been pleased to approve of: 'A Corps to be called the Australian Survey Corps being raised as a unit of the Permanent Military Forces. All officers, warrant officers, non-commissioned officers and men now serving in the Survey Section of the Royal Australian Engineers being transferred to the Australian Survey Corps with their present ranks and seniority.' The effective date of the foundation of the Corps was 1 July 1915 – on that day there were two officers and seventeen warrant officers and NCOs of the Corps (at that stage there were no sappers in the Corps). The Australian Survey Corps was placed fourth in the Order of Precedence of Corps after the Royal Australian Engineers. Raising the Australian Survey Corps had nothing to do with supporting the AIF then at Gallipoli, but provided for the key tasks of military survey of the high defence priority areas of Australia without direction or control of Intelligence Staff or the Royal Australian Engineers. The first Officer Commanding Australian Survey Corps was Honorary Captain Cecil Verdon Quinlan who had been appointed Lieutenant Survey Section RAE in March 1913 after Lieutenant Whitham resigned. Quinlan later gave credit to the creation of the Australian Survey Corps to the then General Staff Director of Military Operations – Major Brudenell White (later General Sir, Chief of the General Staff). Survey Corps members started to enlist in the AIF in November 1915, with three Warrant Officer draughtsmen (Murray, Shiels and MacDonald) working with the Headquarters of the Egyptian Expeditionary Force by late 1916. Then in late 1917, General Headquarters in France/Belgium requested survey personnel for topographic surveys in that theatre and a volunteer Australian Survey Corps AIF draft of four officers and seven NCOs arrived in France early in 1918. Military Survey in Australia then came to a virtual standstill when the AIF members departed for the Middle East and the Western Front. 2nd Lieutenant Raisbeck, Sergeants Anderson and Clements and Corporal Watson served with the Australian Corps Topographic Section (not a unit of the Australian Survey Corps) in France/Belgium and Lieutenants Vance and Lynch, 2nd Lieutenant Davies, Sergeants Clews and Rossiter and Corporals Blaikie and Roberts served with General Headquarters Royal