The VAOC was formed in December 1941 to support the Royal Australian Air Force (RAAF) with its main roles of sighting and observing aircraft over Australia.

As the threat to Australia on the home front declined, the VAOC's role was expanded to include coast watching, assisting air traffic control, weather reporting and fire spotting.

The surprise attack on the US Fleet at Pearl Harbor with the simultaneous and rapid advancement of the Japanese Imperial Army across the South Pacific in late 1941 was a shock to Australian citizens.

The federal government appointed the Royal Australian Air Force (RAAF) as responsible for developing an effective early warning system against attack.

Planning had commenced earlier but on Christmas Day 1941 the serving members of the Australian Air Board met to examine the current war situation.

[3] The model adopted drew from the British experiences of the Royal Observer Corps which was established some years earlier and proved very effective during the Battle of Britain in 1940.

So the rapid establishment of a nationwide grid of Observation Posts involving thousands of civilian volunteers often in remote areas who needed to be enlisted and trained to recognise, identify and report and describe the activity of aircraft in flight was an outstanding achievement.

[3] In Melbourne, the Preston Town Hall was commandeered while rooms under Sydney cricket grounds and part of the University of Western Australia were pressed into service as State Control Centres.

Much of the work fell to Squadron Leader J. V. Gray who travelled extensively to not only establish the network but recruit and support the VAOC volunteers.

Local councils played an important role in coordination with the townsfolk, identifying good Observation Post sites and often supplying facilities.

For the southern State of Victoria they were at eight Control Zones based at Melbourne, Bairnsdale, Geelong, Warrnambool, Shepparton, Bendigo, Ballarat with another at Launceston in northern Tasmania.

The Air Sector personnel provided liaison with all the Australian armed services, the USAAF, Fighter Command as well as other adjacent States when monitoring flights across borders.

They were based at the National Herbarium in the Botanical Gardens in Melbourne while the State Air Sector was situated at the Preston Town hall.

[2] Those near busy training fields as well as those along important travel routes such as from Fisherman'd Bend aircraft factory at Melbourne to Darwin logged many delivery flights.

By 1944 personnel at State Air Sectors eventually received a uniform of a beige coverall and beret for the women and an unglamorous boilersuit for the few men.

Other than a phone, clock, binoculars, aircraft identification silhouette cards, log book, a table and two chairs the RAAF did not supply comforts, nor payments for transport or any food allowances.

[2] The demand for scale models and silhouette identification cards for the increasing types of aircraft that flew the skies particularly after the USAAF arrived in great numbers could not keep up.

Only weeks after the Fall of Singapore in 1942 an Air Observer at the Forests Commission's fire tower on Mount Raymond near Orbost reported the Imperial Japanese Navy I-25 submarine on the surface near the mouth of the Snowy River at Marlo.

The aircraft was piloted by Nobuo Fujita and observer Shoji Okuda and they made an audacious reconnaissance flight over Melbourne's suburbs and Port Phillip Bay.

[4] It's also often reported that Fujita made another clandestine flight over the VAOC Foster Observation Post (situated at the Golf Club) and Wonthaggi on 20 February 1942 through to the LaTrobe Valley power stations.

The well-known attack on Sydney Harbour by Japanese midget submarines launched from the larger I-25 on 31 May 1942 followed an earlier reconnaissance flight by Fujita on 17 February.

Several months later on 9 September 1942, Fujita dropped two incendiary bombs on America with the intention of starting a forest fire which was known as the Lookout Air Raid.

Notable among them was Bob Hope and his entourage of American entertainers that made an unexpected landing on the Camden Haven River in Laurieton in August 1944.

[2] The Volunteer Air Observers received a small blue lapel pin and a certificate of recognition and quietly went back to their lives leaving their amazing stories largely untold.

[2] Of the thousands of VAOC Observation Posts there are only a few small memorials at Tallangatta, Lorne and Anglesea in Victoria, Wamberal near Gosford in NSW, Cleve in SA and Horn Island off Cape York in Queensland.