HISTORY - BALLARAT AIRPORT

The former Ballarat Royal Australian Air Force (RAAF) Base on the site of the present Ballarat Aerodrome, 7 km northwest of Ballarat city centre was constructed in 1940 at the outset of the Second World War as a training school for Wireless Air Gunners under the Empire Air Training Scheme (EATS). The Scheme was established by the British with Canada, Australia and New Zealand to rapidly train air crews for the British Bomber Command to fight the then far superior German Air Force. Under EATS which operated from 1939-1945 the RAAF was committed to training 28,000 aircrew over three years including navigators, wireless operators, air gunners and pilots, equating to around 900 aircrew every four weeks. To achieve this the RAAF embarked on a rapid and extensive program establishing a network of 28 EATS schools in eastern Australia by the end of 1941, each specialising in specific skill sets required of air crew members. The former Ballarat RAAF Base was Australia's No.1 Wireless Air Gunners School (WAGS), the first of three WAGS created under the Scheme and the only one in Victoria.

Aerial photo, undated, source Anson Museum

By 1941 there were nearly 800 personnel on the former Ballarat RAAF Base and by the end of March 1942 a total of 1238 air men had been trained in the operation of radio equipment and guns using Avro Anson and Wackett aircraft. A radar training wing was also established at the former Ballarat RAAF Base in 1945. Basic training for wireless operators ceased in May 1945 by which time 5025 trainees has been through the school.

 
Aerial Photo, April 1942, source RAAF Museum Point Cook

In consequence of the United States declaring war on Japan in Dec 1941 a strategic alliance with Australia was formed and in 1942 the RAAF Base at Ballarat was extended to accommodate a Liberator Bomber Squadron to assist in the prosecution of the Pacific War and in the strategic defence of Australia. The US forces camped immediately south of the residential area of RAAF Base where they constructed the Liberator Air Strip for use by their B24 bombers, large planes for the long range bombing missions required in the Pacific. By 1943 there were 80 United States aircraft at the base.

Source: RAAF Museum, Point Cook

The Wireless Air Gunners School was formally disbanded in January 1946. The RAAF continued to operate the aerodrome until 1961 when it became the property of the Ballarat Council. The Ballarat Aerodrome continues to operate as a civil airport and the surviving Second World War structures on the site provide accommodation for a large number of community organisations including an aviation museum.

Aerial photograph, undated, source: Anson Museum, Ballarat

The extant Second World War structures associated with the WAGS are primarily 'P-Type Huts' and Bellman Hangars neither of which were originally intended to be permanent structures, having been prefabricated and erected on military sites throughout Australia in response to the sudden and urgent need for semi-permanent accommodation for service personnel and for aircraft hangars at the beginning of the Second World War. The P-Type Huts, consisting of a simple timber and corrugated iron box with a gabled roof usually with doors at each end could be easily modified as required for particular functions. By 1941 approximately 160 standard P-Type Huts had been erected on the Ballarat site in two distinct functional precincts. In the northern aerodrome precinct around fifteen huts, of which twelve survive, were arranged on the outside of a group of four Bellman hangars arranged in pairs a few metres apart. Bellman hangars had been designed in Britain immediately prior to the Second World War to provide a fast, economical solution to the need for aircraft facilities.

Looking north from water tower along Drome Road, undated, source Anson Museum

The surrounding P-Type Huts were used for equipment and clothing storage, maintenance and administrative functions associated with the operation of the aircraft. At the centre of the base was the administrative, domestic and teaching precinct where over 140 huts were erected in rows, singly or in combination with additional roofs to create larger buildings. They were adapted for various uses including sleeping quarters, recreation rooms and messes, lecture halls, radio huts, stores, offices, workshops and ablution blocks. Thirty four huts remain in the central precinct. These include the former Officers' and Sergeants' Messes, sleeping quarters, ablution blocks, Headquarters, the maintenance and transport depot, stores, the gymnasium and several ablution blocks.

RAAF B-24 at Tarmac Precinct looking south-east, undated (would be 1945 by existence of B-24s), source Anson Museum

Other remaining fabric associated with the Second World War includes an elevated water tower, the foundations of demolished P-Type Huts and other structures and in the southern part of the site, the archaeological remains of the United States Air Force camp and the 'Liberator Air Strip'. Landscape features associated with the former Ballarat RAAF Base include road layout and the playing fields and parade ground with its border of Monterey Cypress (Cupressus Macrocarpa) that separate the aerodrome precinct to the north from the central domestic and administrative precinct.**

Anson aircraft and former control tower, undated, source Anson Museum

The Ballarat Aerodrome was included on the Victorian Heritage Register in 2007.

* This information has been taken from the Victorian Heritage Database, courtesy of Heritage Victoria.