RAAF Station Archerfield

RAAF Station Archerfield
Hangars at RAAF Station Archerfield in 1940
Site history
Built	1939 (1939)
In use	1956 (1956)

RAAF Station Archerfield was a permanent Royal Australian Air Force station at Archerfield Airport in Brisbane, Queensland, Australia, from 1939 to 1956.

At the outbreak of World War II in September 1939, the Royal Australian Air Force (RAAF) took over the Royal Queensland Aero Club facilities at Archerfield Airport. Club aircraft were impressed into service and flying instructors were commissioned into the RAAF. No. 2 Elementary Flying Training School RAAF was transferred to Archerfield to look after flight training. No. 23 Squadron RAAF, now officially called "City of Brisbane Squadron", received the Australian built CAC Wirraway to defend the city against air attack.

Up to 1941, Archerfield was being upgraded as a military base for the RAAF pending completion of RAAF Base Amberley. In 1940 a new administration block with control tower on top was built and the RAAF built hangars and huts along the southern boundary of the field.

The attack on the US base in Pearl Harbor coincided with another on US bases in the Philippines. The loss of these bases made Australia, especially the north of the country, a valuable staging area for the war against the Japanese. In the following months, military aircraft of several countries competed for space with the civil airliners still operating.

On 1 July 1942, the RAAF transferred control of the airfield to the United States Army Air Forces. Visitors to the station included General Douglas MacArthur and a young Gough Whitlam, then a navigator on a Lockheed Ventura.