The RAAF Base Townsville symbol is that of a brolga, superimposed upon a castle; surrounded by the words Royal Australian Air Force; surmounted by a crown; with the motto "Guarding the North" on parchment below it.

An airport on the location now known as RAAF Base Townsville was first established in the late 1930s for civil aviation, and was then further developed as part of Australia's military preparations for the coming war.

Plans were being drawn up for the RAAF base well before the commencement of hostilities in Europe, and the field was fully operational with a squadron of fighter aircraft in service fourteen months before Japan entered the war.

The site was considered too low-lying and swampy for residential or other development, and was proposed in 1868 to be set aside as Town Common under the trusteeship of Townsville City Council for public grazing.

Townsville City Council carried out construction work on two 730-metre (800 yd) gravel runways on the new site, and the new airport was licensed on 26 January 1939.

In early 1940, while the land negotiations were still proceeding, construction commenced on two gravelled runways, hangars, workshops, accommodation blocks and messes.

Within the next few days the CA-25 Wirraway fighters of No.24 Squadron were flown in to the Townsville field, and later supplemented by Hudson light bomber and reconnaissance aircraft.

Newly built at the Commonwealth Aircraft Corporation's Maribyrnong factory, the Wirraways were the state of the art in the RAAF's fighter arsenal, but were heavy, under-powered and poorly armed by international standards.

The physical form of the base in late 1940 consisted of the two earth runways, accommodation blocks, messes, gymnasium, workshops and one hangar with a control tower, all recently completed or still under construction.

There were doubts about Townsville City Council's ability to keep up electricity supply in an emergency, so in 1941 a powerhouse with its own diesel-powered generator was built on the base.

USAAF officers arrived in Townsville in October 1941 to plan the expansion of the new airfield to take larger aircraft and heavier traffic than it had been originally designed for.

In April, General Blamey, commanding Allied Land Forces in the South-West Pacific Area, stationed two Australian infantry brigades in a defensive ring around Townsville, but one of these was sent on to Port Moresby a month later.

The Wirraway fighters which had proved inadequate at Rabaul and Darwin were replaced by Bell P-39 Airacobras, and Townsville's aerial defence was supplemented by RAAF and USAAF Curtiss P-40 Warhawks.

Ross River was occupied by the RAAF, and a USAAF heavy bombardment field was established at Breddan, north of the city of Charters Towers.

Ground-based bombers and reconnaissance aircraft from Townsville played a part in the Battle of the Coral Sea, fought a few hundred kilometres to the north-east in May 1942.

In an ingenious attempt to conceal the air base from aerial observation, a pattern of streets and houses resembling the neighbouring suburb was painted over the southern end of the runways, but this camouflage either looked unconvincing or was thought unnecessary, for it was abandoned within a few months.

This growing complex of airfields brought about a change of name; the base had originally been known as RAAF Townsville in 1939, but the construction of Aitkenvale and Stockroute in 1942 made this designation potentially confusing.

In the early morning of 28 July a stick of bombs, possibly aimed from high altitude at the general vicinity of the airfield, landed at the northern end of the Town Common near the Many Peaks Range, over 4 km (2.5 mi) from the nearest buildings at RAAF Garbutt.

The Japanese navy had experienced two decisive defeats, first in the Coral Sea in May, and then at the Midway Islands in June, seriously damaging Japan's naval air power, which had been the key to its early victories.

From mid-1942 onward, the role of the Townsville bases was no longer the defence of Australia, but logistical support for the Allied offensive into Japanese-held territory.

Tunnels were being dug under the Garbutt runways so that demolition charges could be laid to prevent an invading enemy capturing the airfield in a usable condition.

As the war advanced, and operations moved progressively northwards into the Pacific, so Townsville's complex of airfields were gradually turned into a huge rear echelon workshop.

By January 1944 the bomber squadrons had moved on to Rabaul and other bases, and Townsville became the headquarters of USAAF V Air Service Command and RAAF No.

The official history of the USAAF gives an indication of the range of technical work carried out there during the last two years of the war: The depots at Brisbane, Townsville and Port Moresby continued to be marked by the variety of their activities.

They not only had to overhaul engines, inspect and repair parachutes, paint aircraft, fill oxygen cylinders, and install armament but they were expected to find all sorts of short cuts and to make odd pieces of equipment from material on hand.

For some time after the war ended, 84 and 86 squadrons were based in the Townsville area before joining the British Commonwealth Occupation Force in Japan.

When hostilities ceased in August 1945, operations rapidly wound down throughout the Townsville military aviation complex, and buildings were being dismantled and sold at auction in the following months.

In 1960, the majority of Australia's armed forces were still based near the southern capital cities, as they had been since the 1880s, but experience in Malaya, Sarawak and Vietnam changed the emphasis of defence policy to preparedness for limited regional conflicts.

The level of military aviation activity at Townsville began to increase after the establishment in 1966 of Lavarack Barracks, which steadily grew to become Australia's largest Army base, and the Headquarters of the Third Task Force.

10 Squadron was relocated to RAAF Base Edinburgh in South Australia, and over thirty years of maritime reconnaissance operations from Townsville ceased.