This sort of thing really sucks me in - just like all those old photos of Melbourne CBD streets you see around the city.
Have a look here for large format aerial photo maps of Melbourne from 1945.
If you look closely you might even see Rogaine 
Awesome link Nick!
I just clicked on a random part of Melbourne and there was an airfield in Port Melbourne WTF?
Hasn’t GoogleEarth used old maps like this in the past to merge with current images? Would be nice to be able to search for locations a little more easily.
Yep im currently sitting on it. Its at the end of lorimer st and used to run out under the bridge. There is still some tie down points located around the joint.
Whoa, that’s freakin awesome! I can see paddocks criss-crossed with dirt tracks where my house is now. And just paddocks and a quarry where brunswick velodrome will be.
I could look at these pictures for hours…
yep, there goes my working day…
agreed my working day is gone now…great find
Here’s a few more
Melway Edition one is interesting http://melwayed1.ausway.com/mwyedn1.htm
Historical Photos of Melbourne Streets http://www.thecollectormm.com.au/main.html
It really is depressing the crimes my profession committed in the name of progress, the one the really breaks my heart was the old Federal Coffe Palace on the Corner of King and Collins
are they battleships parked near the spencer st bridge?
This is great! Pretty bummed that random map in Box Hill.Blackburn Nth isn’t covered. Now I cant see my parents house and where I grew up.
Excellent 
can’t even find the exact location of my future house.
Goolge allows the use of their map navigation interface with any image files you can find, it should be fairly easy for someone to integrate these into an overlay of the current street grind.
Nah, I was born in Colac, a little later than this too!
Yeah during ww2 they made planes there.
Some history can be found here
Another old map of the area, back when huge woman use to swim freely in the bay.
Its an amazing story.
Some of those buildings to the left of the airfield are still here.
Its a shame the camo shown in these shots has long since gone.
We only have one building with partial camo left.
at the bottom of this image
http://www.lib.unimelb.edu.au/collections/maps/historical/1945melb/l_sheets/848b4a.jpg
you can see construction of a bridge across the Yarra near the opening to Hobsons Bay.
Could that be the beginning of a previous older version of a ‘West Gate Bridge’? as the collapse during construction was in 1970 and was only 2 years into the construction of the West Gate Bridge as we know it
Aaah…the good ol’ days.
Any one been able to locate the Nth Essendon board track?
Think it was built in '38.
Isn’t that a Ferry you can see? I think they were still berthing ships up in what we now call docklands. You can still see the creek which was the original course of the Yarra River going to the north of Coode island as well.
ahhhhh good call, Now that you mentioned a ferry it makes way more sense.
I was thinking that the ferry in the water was footings for a bridge pylon