Group portrait of half of the officers who successfully completed No 2 Radar Course. Professor ...

Group portrait of half of the officers who successfully completed No 2 Radar Course. Professor Victor Bailey, of the Radio Physics Department at Sydney University, conducted three Radar courses for selected members of the RAAF and RAN. The graduates were commonly known as 'Bailey's Boys'. No's 1 and 3 Courses were for the RAAF and No 2 Course was a joint course of RAN and RAAF students. The Navy students were initially enlisted as sailors and the men who successfully completed the course were then commissioned into the Royal Australian Navy Volunteer Reserve (RANVR) as Specialist Radar Officers. This was the only course for Specialist Radar Officers conduced during the Second World War. When the Navy component of No 2 Course graduated early in 1942, the successful students were commissioned and half sent to HMAS Watson, the RAN Radar Training School to continue training on Navy radar equipment and the other half were sent to Flinders Naval Depot at HMAS Cerberus to complete an officer training course. This group of newly commissioned naval officers were the half of the course that went to Flinders Naval Depot first; later returning to HMAS Watson for training when the other half of the course went to HMAS Cerberus for their officer training course. Left to right, back row: Sub-Lieutenant (Sub-Lt) Phil Norman, RANVR, commissioned at this time but not a student who attended the course at Sydney University; Sub-Lt R Whitten, RANVR; Sub-Lt R (Dick) Coyle, RANVR; Sub-Lt (Jock) Hornsby, RANVR; Sub-Lt (Archie) McArthur, RANVR; Sub-Lt Alistair Mackenzie, RANVR. Front row: Sub-Lt Dan O'Keefe, RANVR; Lieutenant Strange, RANR; Lieutenant Commander Francis; Sub-Lt (Sp) Peter Thwaites, RNR, (Radar School Instructor); Sub-Lt John Medhurst, RANVR.

• Informal group portrait of the RAN students who attended the No 2 Radar Course conducted at ...