This unit had previously operated from the Capital Hall picture theatre in Bankstown and a tunnel under the St James railway station.

Even so, the Air Force provided accommodation for them in Chapel Road, Bankstown whilst buses with blacked-out windows transported military personnel to the bunker.

Fighter Sector Headquarters were established in Sydney, New Lambton, Melbourne, Brisbane, Townsville, Darwin, Perth and Port Moresby.

The enlisted personnel included:[1] Operators of telephones, teleprinters, radio telegraphy and telephony equipment who received the reports on aircraft movements from: radar stations, members of the Volunteer Air Observers Corps (Australia), ships, No.

[1] Documentary evidence indicates that the search for a permanent site to construct a purpose built combined Fighter Sector Headquarters and Gun Operation Room was underway by August 1942.

The site had extensive views to the east, west and to the south and on a clear day, reportedly the arch of the Sydney Harbour Bridge could be seen.

Work on the two-storey underground bunker was scheduled to begin in January 1943 and surviving documentation indicates that by April the foundations of the structure were well under way.

The unit history report for this period indicates that 49 officers and 128 other ranks of the RAAF and WAAAF staffed the ADHQ along with personnel from the Army, Navy and Volunteer Air Corp.

The bunker lay largely undisturbed until April 1971 when Phil Engisch, editor of the Bankstown - Canterbury Torch newspaper, accompanied by Alderman Leslie Gillman and others, toured the facility.

The article, entitled "The Torch uncovers secret RAAF war base" was also simultaneously published in The Daily Telegraph and Sydney Morning Herald.

[1] In the article Engisch recorded how the tour party wandered through a maze of corridors and intact rooms, likening the experience to "...something one might expect to see in a Sean Connery 007 movie."

Initially the Fighter Sector Headquarters operated out of tents and then a rough shed at Sandfly Gully, a kilometre south of the Darwin airstrip.

7 Fighter Sector Headquarters appears to have remained at the Preston Town Hall until February 1946 when it was moved to the RAAF Williams base at Point Cook.

[1][11][12][13][14][15][16][17][18][19][20][21] The Former Air Defence Headquarters (ADHQ) occupied a nine-acre site, which was enclosed by a 6 foot high (1.83m) barbwire man proofed camouflaged fence.

Stepping through the door, a visitor would find themself confronting a guard, who was no doubt tasked with vetting the identity of anyone who gained access to the bunker.

To the left of the entry door stretched an almost 8 metres long corridor which led to the Army Buffet, with access to AWAS Latrine, located at its southern end.

[1] The northern half of the bunker was dominated by the upper part of the two-storey high Volunteer Air Observers Corp (V.A.O.C) and R/D/F (Radar Directional Finder) Filter Rooms.

[1] The Bankstown Bunker was of similar design to the underground Ops rooms of wartime England, which directed Britain's air defence fighter plane attacks on the invading German Luftwaffe.

The air vents, electricity and wireless telegraphy/telephony poles mounted on the roof of the bunker were removed in association with the 1976 redevelopment of the site by the Commonwealth Department of Housing.

Based on a comparison of contemporary and historic maps, the Receiving Station and the present day Sydney South electricity substation share the same footprint, with the latter apparently situated directly above the former.

Military personnel who worked in Bankstown lived in the area around Chapel Road (where Paul Keating Park and the council chambers are located today).

The site once occupied 100 acres (40 ha) of land surrounded by Rookwood Cemetery, Brunker Road, the Hume Highway and Centenary Drive.

The site was said to have been the largest secret manufacturing plant in Australia which was used for the production of military weapons, plane components, tanks, and ordnance.

The steel access doors were bolted into the side of a stormwater drain which runs along the old Roads & Traffic Authority building in Chullora, then under the Hume Highway and eventually under the rail workshop.

[33][34] The former WWII Sydney Air Defence Headquarters (ADHQ) was conceived and planned at a time when the Australian military was undergoing an expansion due to the perceived threat of invasion by Japan.

The building has considerable research potential in terms of its ability to yield information (that may not be available from other sources) about the design, fabric and construction of this rare WW2 facility.

The former WWII Sydney Air Defence Headquarters (ADHQ) was conceived and planned at a time when the Australian military was undergoing an expansion due to the perceived threat of invasion by Japan.

The underground bunker, which served as the Sydney Air Defence Headquarters from 1945 to 1947, is associated with former service men and women of all three branches of the military as well as former members of the No.

The Former Air Defence Headquarters at Condell Park has considerable research potential, in terms of its ability to yield information (that may not be available from other sources) about the design, fabric and construction of this rare WW2 facility.

The Former Air Defence Headquarters at Condell Park is of State and potentially National significance as a representative example of an Australian designed WW2 Fighter Control Unit.