The military knew what that meant. Eight anti-aircraft Bofors guns were positioned across Yallourn and Yallourn North — each battery requiring 90 personnel to operate. The RAAF built a dedicated fighter airfield at Monomeith Park specifically to defend the site. A five-mile prohibited zone encircled the mine. The power station was formally identified as a prime enemy target.
When you defend something that important, you plan for what happens if it is attacked. A building on the Town Square was designated as Yallourn's Casualty Clearing Centre — the place where, if the bombs fell, the injured would be brought.
Fortunately the enemy was stopped well before.
In October 1946, one year after the war ended, the Yallourn Casualty Clearing Centre building became the Yallourn Public Library. Within seven years it held the borrowing record for the entire state of Victoria — the highest per-capita readership of any community in the state. Not Melbourne. Not Geelong. Yallourn. A town of 5,000 people who read more than anyone else in Victoria. The motto of the Yallourn Technical College said it plainly: Knowledge is Power.
Eighty years on, the Sir John Monash Museum runs a free book, DVD, CD and jigsaw swap from its building at the Yallourn Production Centre. Hundreds of titles. Take what you want. Leave what you can.
Some places hold their purpose across a century and project it forward. The Sir John Monash Museum is one of them.
