'Target for Tonight' playing board : Jim Rose, Marrickville

Playing board designed to accompany the child's game entitled 'Target for Tonight'. The board is a square playing cork or compressed fibre board, wrapped in paper printed with nine illustrated targets contained within circles plus four smaller civilian targets. These appear on both sides; one side shows naval targets (Aircraft carrier, E-Boat, battleship, cruiser, supply ship etc) while the other side depicts ground targets such as patrol storage, Berlin, tank, aerodrome, munition factory and troop concentration.

Target game purchased at David Jones in Sydney by Jim and Annie Rose, of Marrackville, NSW for their son Jim. Jim recalls being given the game as a present for either his birthday or Christmas in 1942-43, when he was 11 years old. He remembers being absorbed with playing the game with his brothers because of the ability to bomb targets.

'Target for Tonight' was one of a number of military related games manufactured by the Metal-Wood Repetitions Company of Manly in Sydney during the war from offcuts and non-essential materials. The use of blue and red ink on the box and playing board are similarly a clue to the game's wartime origins.

Other games they made included 'Popats' (probably another target game) 'Tactics', 'Bomb Em', 'Navy Bobs' (a version of Battleships using a short pool cue), 'Play School', 'Indoor Tennis' and 'Paddy McGinty's Goat'. This game cost 8/11 in December 1944.