[1] The land occupied by OCS was originally used as a quarantine station for many years,[2] where newly arrived immigrants were housed before they could be screened for infectious diseases.

[3] In the late 1990s and early 2000s, the Defence presence on the land ended when the Army School of Health moved to Latchford Barracks, in Bonegilla, Victoria.

[8] During its 33 years of operation, 3,544 cadets graduated, including 2,826 Australian Regular Army, 30 RAAF and 688 foreign students from the School until it closed in 1985.

[10] The school was set up amidst the backdrop of the post-war period, when commitments to Korea and Japan and to the national service scheme required an increase in the number of junior officers in the Army.

Entry criteria differed to Duntroon, with broader age ranges and lower educational requirements; consequently a high proportion of Portsea's officer cadets were serving soldiers deemed suitable for commissioning.

Additionally, OCS trained servicemen from other nations including the Philippines, South Vietnam, Cambodia, Brunei, Malaysia, Singapore, Papua New Guinea, Kenya, Uganda, Fiji and New Zealand and those graduated were commissioned into their respective services.

As a result, a decision created a tri-service military academy offering tertiary education to officer trainees of all three services (Army, Air Force and Navy).

Due to the formation of ADFA, the Royal Military College, Duntroon stopped providing degrees to its graduates and reduced its course from four years to eighteen months.

On 23 March 1986, the Colours were paraded for the last time and were then laid up in the Anzac Memorial Chapel of St Paul at the Royal Military College, Duntroon, in the Australian Capital Territory.

[19] Badcoe graduated from Portsea in the class of December 1952,[23] and was awarded the Victoria Cross for gallantry while serving as a member of the Australian Army Training Team Vietnam in 1967.

[33] Lieutenant Colonel Buka Suka Dimka, class of 1963, was one of the leaders of the abortive 1976 coup which led to the assassination of the Nigerian military Head of State General Murtala Mohammed.