Two members of the 65th Anti-aircraft Searchlight Company (65 AASL Coy), later retitled 65th ...

Two members of the 65th Anti-aircraft Searchlight Company (65 AASL Coy), later retitled 65th Anti-aircraft Searchlight Battery (65 AASL Bty), Ray White (left) and Rudy Major, standing in front of the company or battery command post in the Darwin Quarantine Station area. The first anti-aircraft searchlight elements deployed to assist in the defence of Darwin from Japanese air attack in the Second World War were Royal Australian Engineers companies. On 1 May 1943 these companies became anti-aircraft searchlight batteries of the Royal Australian Artillery. This company or battery command post (CP) is protected laterally by (presumably earth-filled) 44 gallon petrol drums instead of the conventional sandbags, and camouflaged to a limited degree by small pieces of timber on the roof. The state of the command post and its immediate surrounds when the photograph was taken in 1943 indicate a rushed construction, without proper defence stores, barely completed, with an almost complete lack of camouflage.