“As a kid I discovered it contained mustard gas. I clearly remember the day. One of the air force men came in to see his wife — as they often did — and I could see his arm was covered in huge blisters which I was told were caused by mustard gas. It was all hush hush and my parents told me to be quiet about it and I did so. I was only 11 or 12 at the time.”

Later, a mysterious guest saw a veil of suspicion descend on the village.

“Another incident I remember concerned a chap in his 50s who looked for all the world like the film actor Monty Wooley,” said Mr Hughes. “He stayed at the guest house on three occasions — on the first occasion he wore a full beard, on the second he wore a moustache and on the third occasion he was clean shaven. He was apparently asking too many questions about operations at the camp so the air force guys had him followed as they were concerned he may have been a Nazi spy.

“From memory, I do not think it amounted to anything. He was just interested but it showed how paranoid people were at the time.”

Glenbrook Historical Society president Tim Miers was another primary school student during World War II. He remembers how the Glenbrook townsfolk tacitly agreed to keep the mustard gas stockpile a secret.

“One afternoon at about 4.30pm a RAAF trucker was transporting drums of mustard gas from the Glenbrook railway siding to the tunnel . . . (when) just behind the butcher’s shop . . . two of the drums fell off and busted open. Next we had a high ranking air force officer visiting all the nearby homes advising mothers to ‘shut all the doors and windows and keep your children inside until we are able to clean up the mess’. There was a strange smell around which I recall was like a rotting egg smell. Two guys in full anti-gas gear then turned up and rolled the drums into a gully where they dealt with them.