North-Western Area Command
North-Western Area Command was one of several geographically based commands raised by the Royal Australian Air Force (RAAF) during World War II. Its wartime sphere of operations included the Northern Territory, adjacent portions of Queensland and Western Australia, and the Dutch East Indies. The command was formed in January 1942, following the outbreak of the Pacific War, from the western part of Northern Area Command, which had covered all of northern Australia and Papua. Headquartered at Darwin, North-Western Area Command was initially responsible for air defence, aerial reconnaissance and protection of the sea lanes within its boundaries.
Explosion of an oil storage tank during the first air raid on Darwin, 19 February 1942
Air Commodore Bladin (right) as AOC NWA, with a Dutch officer, 1943
Air Vice Marshal Cole (left) as AOC NWA, at Adelaide River, Northern Territory, September 1943
Air Vice Marshal Charlesworth (centre) as AOC NWA and Group Captain Headlam (second right) welcome repatriated POWs to Darwin, September 1945
Area commands were the major operational and administrative formations of the Royal Australian Air Force (RAAF) between 1940 and 1954. Established in response to the outbreak of World War II, they underpinned the Air Force's geographically based command-and-control system for the duration of the conflict and into the early years of the Cold War, until being superseded by a functional control system made up of Home, Training, and Maintenance Commands.
Air Vice-Marshal Goble, who proposed a functional command system for the RAAF in 1940
Air Chief Marshal Burnett (right), who instituted the RAAF's area command system in 1940–41, with Air Vice-Marshals Jones (left) and Bostock (centre), May 1942
Air Marshal Hardman, who instituted the RAAF's functional command system
RAAF higher organisation as at August 1945
