On alert: operations room: Flying Commander Acko, Diego Garcia

Figure of Flying Commander Acko in the operations room on board HMAS Kanimbla. Peter Churcher recalled, "This drawing depicts "Acko" one of the fighter pilots in the operations room as his shift involves sitting and waiting for many hours he passes the time playing computer games. In this room they are always on the alert, waiting. They do a seven-hour shift and if the red phone rings they have to get out to the sky and of course that never happens so they just sit there for seven hours. They have test scrambles when the phone rings but they know it's not for real but it's a full scale drill and they have to get all rigged up and they go and fly the planes for half an hour. A real alert would mean that Diego Garcia was being attacked. The scrambles might be two in one day and maybe none for a couple of days to keep the guys on their toes. They try to do it as randomly as they can".