Oct 7, 1941: REPRISE. Early days in 'Codock's' construction, PERTH [I] present - courtesy Brett Morrow.

6239. We find the Captain Cook Dock images have excited a lot lof interest, and Contributor Brett Morrow has sent in this further panoramic image of formwork being laid to define the coffer dam where the dock will be built down the middle.

 

Nearly all these images have a date written in a particular style somewhere in the forground, as does this one, and we'd love to know the original source of the photographs, which form a chronological narrative of the dock's construction. They have the hallmark of an official record. In any event, Garden Island is in its last days as an island here, and is about to become a peninsula.

 

Brett has found this in the publication 'Australia's War at Sea, 1939-45' Profile 5 [ one of the Topmill publications, we think] .

 

Of particular interest in the image, also, is the Modified Leander Class cruiser tied up to the Cruiser Wharf on the island. We fairly sure it is HMAS PERTH [I] in refit since August, and just re-camouflaged, with Captain Hec Waller about to take over on Oct. 24, 2 1/2 weeks after this photo was taken. HMAS SYDNEY [II], home from the Mediterranean, was also in Australian waters at this time, but had left on escort duty to Western Australia late the preceding month, and is about six weeks off her fateful Nov. 19 meeting with KORMORAN in the Indian Ocean.

 

By the way this photo is taken fom a similar position to Pic NO. 1160, taken on May 4, 1942, with the coffer dam emptied. They should be viewed in conjunction, as it forms a remarkable progress report. But by the time the linked photo is taken, of course, HMAS PERTH [I] has already disappeared in the Sunda Strait, as has HMAS SYDNEY [II] off Geraldton, Western Australia.

 

The linked photo is taken at just about the worst period in the war for Australia. It's here:

 

www.flickr.com/photos/41311545@N05/4383751259/in/photostr...

 

This photo: as cited, courtesy Brett Morrow, Sydney.

Done